The First day of School...

For most was today. "My" students won't be starting until Wednesday. However today was the first day that I was in charge of "Recess". The First Grade session was ok, the only real problem we had was a few of the kids (mainly the girls) were climbing on the wire fencing around the soccor field. The second graders however... The first thing I personally had to deal with was a little girl who became very overwhelmed because she didn't know what was going on. She had only been on the island for one month, and she hadn't made any friends yet. I was trying to let her know that everything would be ok and that she would for sure be picked up from Recess by her teacher, and the poor thing finally burst out that she wanted her mommy and started crying. Thankfully I had my sunglasses on so no one was able to see that I was fighting back tears of my own. My heart just broke for her, thankfully I managed to keep the tears at bay. And next I had a little boy tell on another little boy for hitting his friend in the head with the basketball. Which after making him realize that he would feel bad if someone hit him in the head for annoying them that he probably made the other child feel bad, and to next time just tell them to "leave me alone", and if they didn't stop bothering him to come get an adult. Next was a little boy who'se friends were getting "beat up" by a group of girls. Alls it was the girls all like the one boy and think he's cuite so they were bugging him.. however again the same method of "if after telling them to leave you alone they still don't, either come get an adult or take them all to the adult." HAHA I walked away from today thinking "I finally know how all of the Teacher Assistants at my school felt!!"

School is starting!!

Last Wednesday was my first day working at my new job! I'm hearing terms like IEP, and cognitive development being used in context with the kids, and I get all excited because I know what they are talking about; I just haven't heard those words spoken at all since I left Geneva. The first couple days was spent just getting the classroom set up the way the teacher wants it to be. My teacher just arrived on the island the Monday before so she was going through all of the "Welcome to the island" stuff that every one has to go through. So our room really didn't get set up the way she wanted it until Friday, however we did manage to get A Lot of work done. Monday we will be going on home visits to meet the kids who will be in our classroom, and talk with their parents and just see them where they are most comfortable, their natural-home environment. I'm really excited about doing this job, and being able to work with these kids, its definitely a answer to prayers that I was able to find a job that is in the working field that I studied in college.

An update on my surgery recovery, everything is going very well. I'm still a little congested, but as long as I keep up with the sinus rinses I definitely feel much better. According to the Dr. I have healed very nicely. And if I ever have any sinus problems again in the near future I am to give him an email and he will see if he can't put me through as a "walk in".

Girl Scouts will start next month, I still need to get in touch with someone to get help with working on a budget for my troop, but I think that once that I have that done I'll probably "hit" the ground running with that. There will be 9 girls in my troop and so far I have figured out what the first three badges that we will be doing are. The rest I thought I would just let the girls pick out on their own at the first meeting. I just have to start contacting people to see if they would be willing to come and talk to the girls about the specific things that are required for the different badges.

Hopefully I won't go multiple weeks again without posting something, but I'm sure you all understand that life can get pretty busy when we least expect it :)