survived

I totally just survived my first week back to school as the teacher!!! I am so exhausted and have a million things to do and figure out, but the week went well. And it's a long weekend which I'm pretty sure is a blessing from God; I NEED it for several reasons!
My biggest problems right now are a couple classes of 40 students in a classroom that's too small for that many (and needing 5 more desks all week long) and an extreme disparity of levels in my classes (especially Span. 3). The students are just all over the place in their proficiencies: I say something and the natives understand right away, a few of the other kids understand one word or none, and everyone else is in the middle somewhere. They just all came from such different teachers and lots of them are sophomores. Also, I pushed them really hard to listen to instructions in Spanish right after a summer break and probably not ever having had a teacher who did that before... That is a challenge if I've ever had one!
I have a lot to work on as far as planning and executing truly effective and engaging lessons, but at least I know what to change and have the resources and smarts to do so! That's a huge step! I just pray that Heavenly Father gives me the energy and inspiration to be able to do that and really help my students.
Also, my family came and helped me decorate my classroom which was really nice!
Also, I just love my Latinos in Action class!!! I'm going to have a great year with those kids!
Also, can I say that even tough the A day/B day set up is not great for language learning, I like it because it means that I can where the same outfit 2 days in a row. Yep! I do that! :D