First Day of School

We started the school year off today. This is my third year with teaching at the colony. It's nice because I know the students and all the parents now and it's getting to be more familiar with the routine. This year I'm teaching all the math (1st-8th grade) and team-teaching social studies/science and pre-school (held two days a week.) Anyways, we started the year off by having a "fun" day and doing projects and activities. Because this is not a public school that I teach in and these kids all live on a colony all year-'round, we have to do something besides the typical introduce yourself activities on the first day.

The first thing we did was talk about rules, having our play store, which teacher is teaching what, and handed out school supplies.

Then we did a student inventory sheet and a magnifying glass where they had to describe themselves without giving their name.

Recess followed and then we did a little "baking" with the kids.
We had three stations--one for each teacher and our aide. My station was decorating chocolate cupcakes and making them look like a monkey.

The finished product that we made at my station

Another station made mini-hamburgers--- made from vanilla wafers (bun), coconut that was colored green (lettuce) and a chocolate cookie (hamburger.)
Lunch followed the baking activity. We were invited for lunch so we got a special treat the first day!
This is me with two of the students-- they are siblings and when I got to school this morning, they met me at my jeep wanting to help me carry things in. They were also proud of their new school dresses--- they match. :)
After lunch we took a walk around the colony with the students. It was a hot day--- 95 degrees out, so our walk was shorter than usual.
Our group of students, along with the two teachers and our aide.
Standing with my co-worker, Kay. Together we teach the 20 kids in grades 1-8, along with 2 pre-schoolers.

After the walk we did an art project and ended with a little movie. Tomorrow we start into the textbooks.