And so it began

Golly gosh there is a lot of prep work that goes into teaching Grade 1, especially when you teach reading, writing, phonics, comprehension, intro to maths, art, environmental science, social studies and religious education - phew. It's a lot more work that I had counted on. Got to the nursery school and headed to my shed classroom to set up. Ira came shortly after and our day began. Well we started with putting objects into groups of the same thing and then moved on to Janet and John (his first words to read). This was all going well until he suddenly started asking if he could go to his previous nursery school teacher's class instead. As we progressed with writing and then social studies this got worse to the point where he started crying. He then wanted to go to the loo. I had been warned this was a common ploy. I waited a bit till he seemed to be desperate. When he came back we made a little more progress but he then made a bolt to the gate going to the nursery school yard. I had to coax him back but we didn't get much further after that.

His nursery school teacher who is my supervisor said that she was pleased we made 2 hours with mini breaks. I have to just be firm and direct him back to what we're doing - not easy. I hope he will come willingly tomorrow. He did smile and wave at me when he joined the nursery school children at the end of the morning.

I have a magic suitcase that I am going to use with both Ira and Runbo tomorrow. It is painted green and gold and has glitter and stars on it. Will get things from it for different activities. I told Runbo I had a surprise for him tomorrow but he thought surprises meant presents so i said no, this was a magic suitcase. We'll see how that goes.

It looks like I'm going to be working pretty darn hard this term. I will have Ira my grade 1 in the mornings and then junior and high school students, Runbo my 4 year old and an Israeli businessman for English in the afternoons and evening. Will mean my days are pretty jam packed full. Will want downtime at the weekend but will need to do some housework. Bit dull and boring.