Twas the night before the first day of school

Im sitting here at my computer writing my first day of school letter that will go home with my kids tomorrow. We had to write one of these in college, so I pulled it out of a box and read it thinking it sounded great (afterall, I did get an A on it!) as I'm typing Im thinking that its a bunch of crap. I mean it does sound great but I was basically writing it because I wanted to get a good grade in school, now that Im actually typing it because Im going to send it home with my kids tomorrow, Im thinking it needs a lot of changes. One weird thing in all of this, I've talked alot about this with my parents and friends, is that i've spent a lot of time in student teaching and working with kids etc, but its all been doing it someone elses way. But now its the real deal! Its crazy to think that I actually have my own classroom, I have my own students and this letter that I'm typing is actually going to go home with my kids tomorrow and their parents will (hopefully) read it, so it needs to be important!

This afternoon my co-worker Joanna, who you will hear a lot about im sure, came over so we could work on lesson plans together for this week and pick out books to read etc. Joanna is such a blessing in my life right now! Its actually kinda funny how we've gotten to be such good friends the last 2 weeks. She is a brand new teacher as well and our classrooms are right next to each other. The more we got to talking when we first met, its kinda crazy how much we have in common...or really its a God thing. She is from a town close to where a lot of my moms family lives, she married a guy from Harding, she lived in Searcy this past spring and she student taught at the school I did my pre-student teaching at in Pangburn in the classroom right next to mine! Her husbands best friend and old roomate is my dads best friends son...does that sound confusing? One of the things I was worried about when starting to work was that I was going to work with a bunch of older ladies that I wouldnt have anything in common with, which made me very nervous because I wanted to have some close friends that I work with and I didnt want to be the only first year teacher. And not only did I get Joanna, there are 4 other first year teachers just in 1st grade!

I got a little sidetracked....Yesterday was our back to school back. I'll admit after working 2 weeks straight I didnt want to get up on Saturday and go to school, but it ended up being a good time. I only met about 4 of my students but the whole day just flew by and seemed very surreal. In some ways I feel like its hit me but then again yesterday just seemed like these kids were visiting, not like they are coming back on monday and are going to be in my class everyday until July! Yikes!!!

Things will be fine though. All my friends here are wonderful and supportive and im pretty sure if it wasent for them I would have never stayed in Little Rock and gotten this job, which Im feeling more and more like everyday is going to be a great first school for me to work at! I love life here and Im excited about starting this new chapter tomorrow and did I mention that this chapter starts very early, like Im going to be leaving my house at 6am! oh my goodness, my summer life of sleeping until 10am and laying by the pool all day is really over tomorrow. But thats ok, its a pretty good trade off. I just have to keep telling myself, as a teacher you only have one first day, ever!!!