Top three things I realized in my first week of teaching:
1. Teaching is exhausting.
2. There is SO much more work involved then they tell you in college. (Seriously all you teacher mom bloggers - I do not know how you manage!)
3. I love it.

This week went by so fast, and I am so glad that I planned and prepared ahead of time. Having the energy for the first week and keeping up at the gym and life in general was more tiring than I imagined. The summer to school transition was not easy this year!

I am teaching 10th grade American History part I and 11th grade American History part II inclusion. Overall, I am very positive about this experience and I have great students! The orientation was super informative and during PD I learned about a Digital Democracy Unit that I cannot wait to implement for my students, especially being an election year! But let me tell you about the first period...the first day.....

Now, the first day entails zero content as we know. Introduction/ice breakers were the plan. For some reason it didn't occur to me that the students wouldn't be super into my ice breakers, and not talk to each other! Most of them already knew each other, and not doing history in history class is fun right!? I was confident and excited and then I saw their faces....totally blank. Also, unbeknownest to me the first day ISN'T their favorite....odd! Ha! Joking aside,  I had known some of the students from last year so I looked to them...and nope. No excitement. I instantly got nervous. I was repeating myself in my introduction and a total LAME -O! After the official business, we played two truths and a lie and they still seemed uninterested!!! So of course, we had like 20 minutes left and they weren't chatting! Painful. Looking back I could have been more animated and done more with the game.  I could have instructed them to get up and move, or to share their answers a bit more. We played a Kahoot which somewhat got them cheerful, then watched a Kid President video - they didn't even laugh! I was bummed.


Luckily, the next 2 periods were totally different and I felt so comfortable and confident.  The next day, I decided we needed more ice breakers, especially for the first period blunder of an ice breaker lesson. We played a game of my Would You Rather, (see my post Hey, What's up, Hello) and it TOTALLY brought them out of their shells. I was ecstatic. By the end of the period I couldn't get them to quiet to down and put the game away! Which brings me to this; we didn't do anything History related and while some high school teachers may see it as a waste of a precious day it was 100% necessary.  Building classroom community is essential in order to have productive and engaging lessons and after that first day....WOOF was all I had to say. They say never let them see you sweat, and I was fighting back bullets! But, in all, the game worked to engage everyone and it actually served as a great turn taking, listening and speaking activity that I used with all my classes. Initially, I asked for volunteers and no one raised their hand. I went first then picked someone at random.  After that, the hands shot up and they each wanted multiple turns. (I need to add some questions to the collection!) Students were eager to hear the question and the different responses, so they listened to their peers. They were interested in why their peers chose a certain answer which led to sharing stories and further discussions. I was about it.


How was everyone else's first week!? Anyone else had to hide back nerves?  What did you use for ice breakers/classroom community!?