And it finally arrives...........the first day of school!

So the whole reason I came to Bahrain is to teach. This is my first ever teaching job and let me tell you, it is hard work. The photo I posted at the top of the page is the blank canvas of a room that I was given for my first grade class. Unlike schools in the states where you are given a lot to work with, here, you get an empty room and have to select things that you want for your class, and hope that you will get it. This can be frustrating, and there were definitely moments where I was sitting in my room and feeling very upset with the way things were going. However, I started decorating and trying to make it look fun for the first graders. Each class has a theme animal, and my classroom, as I'm sure you could tell, is the frogs. So there will be many frog decorations in the class. When I finished decorating, it was by no means perfect, but it wasn't too horrible looking either, nor was it over cluttered with things everywhere. 

 So the big day finally arrives! Yesterday (Thursday), was the first day for my students. (The school week here is Sunday-Thursday) This gave me anxiety all morning before they arrived. I was just dying to know what my class would be like, and if I would do an ok job. My class roster lists 25 students in my class (which is a lot for a lower grade and just 1 teacher). 17 students showed up, with the majority being boys. I have only 7 girls in my class, and 18 boys! The students arrived slowly, and once they were settled in and said their goodbyes, I was finally able to get an idea of what my class would be like. It took me maybe a whole 2 minutes to discover which students in the class were going to cause premature aging and graying. Fortunately, of the 17 I had yesterday, the are maybe 2 or 3 that will cause this issue. All of my students are very nice, there are just a few that like to shout out and fidget like they have ants in their pants. As for all of them being English language learners, they are quite good at speaking English. I expected some of them to barely be able to say anything, but maybe of them carry on very long conversations in English (and most have A LOT to say). Nonetheless, I think I will definitely grow to love this class.

The day was chaotic and confusing, but it finally came to an end at 1:20pm, when then students are dismissed on Thursday (no 8th period on Thursdays). I took an deep breath and was pretty happy that I survived day 1 of my big girl job, even though it was tough. I am definitely looking forward to see what the rest of the class will be like, and how they will change over the course of the year, and how I will change over the course of this first year as well.