Whew, the first day of school was great! But I'm wiped out...
I'm supposed to have 12 students, but 3 were absent yesterday. I've got a good mix of boys and girls (6 each) from many countries around the world! Ecuador, Venezuela, Argentina, Spain, US, Korea and Iran. (Most of my kids do not speak English as their first language, so they say funny things or mix up the order of their sentences). In this respect they are not so different from my Gaithersburg students! However, these kids are very wealthy, so their parents have the economic resources to support them. Yesterday, I found them all to be kind, caring (if not a bit chatty! I suppose it's catching up with friends they haven't seen all summer)

My students all wear uniforms, although they are a bit more informal than a typical Ecuadorian public school where kids would probably wear blouses and jumpers or dress shirts and slacks. At my school, kids wear polo shirts with the Academia Cotopaxi logo and then jeans, pants or if they want, skirts. WHere they express their individuality is in their shoes! Lots of cute 2nd grade girls in new pink sneakers and boys in their new sneakers too! (I gave lots of shoe compliments yesterday)

The first week of school is all about getting to know each other and getting classroom routines down. These are SO key to a well functioning classroom...yesterday we spent 30 minutes alone going over how students will come in in the mornings, put away their things, do their morning jobs, settle down to their desks. We practiced 5 times. I'm sure today will be more of the same. Once we've got the rountines down, they we can start the academic learning! I'll let you know how it goes :-)