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Welcome Friends! I hope you enjoy tasting these teaching and travel tidbits.
Come along with me as I attempt to navigate my way through a new country, school system, and life for a year!


Thursday, September 6, 2012

First Day of School!


The big day finally arrived--my first day with the pupils!  (I'm trying to remember to use the word "pupils" not "students" as I normally do, as here "students" refers to university learners, not primary school learners.)  I have the biggest class I  have ever had in my entire career, 30 little darlings!  So far they really are a lovely class.  We had a fun day singing, writing, playing, learning poems and chants and learning the rules of the classroom.  We read about "Pete the Cat" rocking in his new school shoes and toured the school following clues Pete left us until we finally found him back in our own classroom!  They were so excited to find him!  The kids here had never heard of "Pete the Cat" books, which are favorites of my California classes, so it was fun to introduce these books to them for the first time.  The children all wrote about what they wanted to learn in Year 1 and we posted them on a bulletin board featuring our friend, Pete the Cat, where he proclaimed "It's all good!" as he so often does. The children all know the refrains from the first Pete book now, and it was fun to see that at free time some of them chose to write about Pete and included these refrains in their writing.  Visitors to our classroom were impressed that we already have learned a class poem, as we recited it to everyone who stopped by.  The feedback I have from the parents so far is that they are pleased to see their children come home so excited about school.  That was the first day.  I hope the next 194 go as well!










11 comments:

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    1. Thanks Tessa. I still feel totally overwhelmed, but my class is really nice. I am hanging on with all my might to what Christi Hall said, that in 3 weeks time it will all start to make sense.

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  2. Sounds like Ms. Tuisku at her finest! Sarah just checked out the rocking' Pete the Cat book at the Meadow Vista library. She said, "I LOVED Pete the Cat in Ms. Tuisku's class!" But as for this 194 days business . . . that's just a whole lot of days to miss you! Thank goodness for your blog!

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    1. I agree with Sarah, Pete the Cat rocks! Did you know there are 3 of them, with a 4th one, a Christmas one, due to be released this month? I'm glad you are enjoying the blog, as I wouldn't have done it without all your help!

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  3. I wish I had all of your teaching tricks up my sleeve right now!

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    1. It is slightly helpful to have a bag of tricks from years of teaching, but I still feel like a brand new teacher since I have so little understanding of the system and school culture. A lot has been explained to me, but there comes a point when you just can't absorb any more new information, and some of it just doesn't have a place to "stick" as I don't have a schema for some of the elements. I hope you are starting to catch on in your new school. One of the other Fulbrighters who has been teaching for 3 weeks said it is starting to make sense now, so I am hoping that in a few weeks I don't feel so clueless. I think this experience is going to make me a much better teacher. I hope you are feeling healthy again!

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  4. I'm so impressed with your energy and enthusiasm with all those little ones! And I LOVE Pete the Cat! His "friend," the author, is from not too far from my home town, and I met him several years back! I've got a couple of his books and a couple of his prints! What a fun way to explore the school!

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    1. I'm so jealous that you've met Pete's author! I'm excited about the new book comig out this month!

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  5. Your pupils will love you and I know it will all make sense soon. Sounds like a wonderful adventure. I am going to get Alex "Pete the Cat" books for Christmas! Your email link is working. Teaching for 195 days however...

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    1. Scholastic has the first Pete book along with a cd last year, so they may have more this year. Yes, I'm not too keen about that big number myself!

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    2. I just ordered the Pete the Cat book from Scholastic!

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