Thoroughly Exhausted

Thoroughly exhausted, perfectly describes how I feel right now.

I can't complain though, I love my teaching schedule. I don't start too early, I don't work late and I don't work on Saturday mornings. I like the classes that I teach too, although they will definitely be challenging at times. I teach emergent kindergarten (ages 2-5), first grade, and third grade. Emergent kindergarten is pretty tough because some of the kids have NEVER spoken English before, this is their first experience (no pressure). The kids are absolutely adorable! The hard part is coming up with activities and vocabulary that is both useful and age appropriate. It's a lot harder than you would think and it is super repetitive. I think I probably said "roll the ball" at least 50 times in a 15 minute period.

My first grade class is fantastic. I have 5 students in the class and I work with them on reading, writing, spelling, and speaking. They are all well behaved and they all work hard, though towards the end they sometimes have a hard time paying attention and I have one girl who is completely lost when it comes to spelling. It's harder than I thought it would be; letters, sounds, spelling, inflection, everything is different from what they have grown up with.

My last class is a 3rd grade class. It is pretty much the same deal as my 1st grade class. We work on all the same things just at a different level. I have 9 students in this class, 8 boys and one girl. They are a handful, but I was warned before hand so I went into my first day being as firm as I could be. I think it helped but with 8 boys you never know what is going to happen. Luckily I only have this class 3 times a week.

I honestly forgot how hard teaching is. Working with kids, especially younger kids, really takes it out of you. Working with kids who are learning English as a second language is even harder.

The most important part is to make sure they get every opportunity to use English, and that is what I will be working on for the next 6 months:)