Is the Quarter Half Over Already?

Wow, the last five weeks have been a whirlwind. Since August 13th I've been going non-stop trying to first get my room ready for the kids, then planning for the first week, and then finally flying by the seat of my pants every day because it's my first year.

I vowed to do all of these things during my first year teaching, and now I realize that I barely have time to get to bed let alone, keep a journal, work out daily, keep up with this blog and the thousands of other things I promised myself.

When they say that your first year is the hardest they aren't exaggerating. I'm burnt out and I feel as though I'm not doing my best teaching because the bottom line is, this is one of the hardest jobs on the planet. I'm supposed to be effectively meeting the needs of my 30 extremely wonderful students that are one 18 different reading levels, and some don't speak English. And I'm not complaining because the sense of fulfillment I have at the end of the day is overwhelming because of the love I have for my first class. But...I'm exhausted...haha and that's about all I can say.

A Little Overwhelmed

Today I went to my new Elementary School to pick up some curriculum binders from my new team leader. Sounds innocent right? Well actually receiving the binders was the easy part. We also sat down and talked about curriculum and what the day would look like, and for the very first time, (not the last I'm positive)I started to feel what it must feel like to be a first year teacher. The worst part was we only discussed math today...

One thing that I think may make first year teaching difficult this far is the fact that when we are doing our student teaching, we get accustomed to the way put mentors run their classroom. Not to mention we have so much guidance from our teaching programs, mentors, supervisors, etc. Also for me it feels a little more difficult because I'm teaching in a completely different district.

However, on a positive note I will say that at least I'm in the same state and same grade in which I did my student teaching. There are commonalities between curriculum so that's one thing I will be thankful for this year.

One question I have for you veteran teachers is do any of you use centers in math in the intermediate grades? If you do what do you use for centers? I'll take any suggestions to use as a springboard :)

P.S. I know I'm nuts for starting so early.