I am in pajamas as I type this, and while I am exhausted, it’s more of a good/content tired than a frantic/despairing tired. The room was, after all, ready in time, and it looked great. A few colleagues, including one I hadn’t seen since May, came by and admired all the changes we’ve made. Yes, much is still to be done, but all that was below the surface, and I can start tackling it tomorrow.
I went home at 3:45, dusty, sweaty, and with very frizzy hair, and had only an hour to shower, dress up, blow dry, and put on some makeup. (I even added pearls, for the heck of it.) I got back to school right before 5, and people were already filling the halls, and entering our room.
There were 16 kids on my list when the Open House started, and by the time it ended, I’d added two more, and lost one to the afternoon class, giving me a total of 17. That’s a good number for starting the year. Several speak Somali, several speak Spanish, and I’ve got one each of Amharic, Mandingo, and Arabic thrown in for good measure. Only two are native English speakers. Of those two, one is sweet, shy, and quiet (and a bit passive?), and the other is sweet, confident, and a bit of a firecracker.
The boy I met in the spring who made me wonder if he is on the lower end of the autism spectrum didn’t come, but his mother did, and she said that he was screened and passed it. I don’t see how that could be true, but maybe I was all wrong about him. Tomorrow the nurse will be able to check his records to see what the screening showed. It will be interesting to see what is going on with that child.
My new assistant teacher was invaluable, as she can speak Spanish, so she helped a ton with translating. The school’s new Somali translator is a lovely person who helped me several times, and I discovered that our “old” Somali translator also speaks Arabic, which was a relief, as the Arabic-speaking father spoke no English whatsoever. My Americorps volunteer was great at welcoming people, and she took lots of photos of the families for our memory books.
I went home with sore feet and a happy heart.
Elbows, knees, dreams 