Day 384: A Rough Day

Today was a bit of a rough day. Looks like yesterday's 'First Day' charm has worn off a little. Not that my kids aren't as cute as can be, but it's just setting in now how much work this is going to be. I'm starting off from scratch here! These kids don't know anything! No one's peed their pants (yet?), but it's still really exhausting.

There's no routine at all right now and that's key to stability and control. But that just comes in time. I'm still working on basic classroom rules and behaviour, and of course making sure they always know where the bathroom is. We definitely need practice with our line-up techniques though, as some of the smaller ones tend to wander off when we're in the hall it seems...

The hardest part today was Computer and Gym class, which normally are two no-brainers and once were very relaxing times for the teacher. The kids went wild in each class cause they were so excited about it, and it was an effort to keep things under control. It's hard to do with five year olds who speak English, never mind ones that don't know what "sit down" or "be quiet" or "don't eat the headphones" means! LOL

Still, it's slowly coming together. Patience, repetition, and consistency are the key right now to establishing a good teacher-student relationship, and getting them into a good routine. Man, this job sure tests your patience abilities. I've churned out patience in this job like I never thought was humanly possible for myself. Forget culture shock from moving to a foreign country, working with very young children has been my biggest character test yet! Haha!

After a messy morning filled with more chaos than I'm used to, I was so happy to see the little ones go home. Man, do *I* ever need a nap!!! ;-p