first day of a new experience

first of all.. i'm surprised i got up so darn early and wasn't tired! my parents would be so proud :) the morning started with going to the main campus for devotions. by the time i got to my campus, some of my students were already waiting outside my door to get in. it was a little overwhelming because i had no time to myself before school officially started, but the kids were so adorable coming in with their oversize backpacks and huge smiles that it was excusable :) the parents are also very friendly which is a huge plus!
the whole day went very smoothly. i had to start the day off when the name game because some of these names are hard to pronounce! haha.. i think i'm a pro now :) the girls warmed up to me fast and i have two of the boys close to my desk so i can make sure they are on task. one great thing i've noticed is that my students love to help each other which is lovely because i don't want to help tie pieces of yarn for every child that doesn't know how.. i don't have that many hands! they are so cute helping one another.. since they are so tiny, they will share a seat and work together. so adorable! i only really have one problem child.. i just need to teach him to not comment about every little thing we talk about in class. he'll learn. i had to put his name on the board today and that helped him a little bit. he also had a minor tantrum when i had the students write out the alphabet. he is the type that will just say he can't do something, when in reality, he can do it just fine. during writing class, he wrote perfectly well and there weren't any mistakes unlike during penmanship. he's going to be my tough one!
the only stressful thing about this week is filling up all my time. there aren't any specialized classes this week so i have my students from 8:25 in the morning until 3:10 in the afternoon.. that is a lot of planning! normally they would also have japanese, pe/music, chapel on fridays, and art on mondays. today i gave them recess.. since they eat lunch in the classroom i didn't want them to be in the classroom the whole day.. that would be boring!
they seemed like they had a lot of fun today and i did too! i'm excited for next week when there will be a normal schedule. it will also be nice when i fully understand where they are academically. i found out today that they are way more advanced than the beginning of the first grade curriculum for math. they breezed through the math pages in their workbook. i added some more for tomorrow so we'll see how that goes.
i am really excited for this school year and getting to know the students more. OH.. during lunch i laughed to myself because all of the cute japanese students had plastic chopsticks to eat with :) it made my heart smile. i'll hopefully have some pictures soon to show you! you will fall in love with them!
thanks for the prayers and being interested in my teaching experience! i love you all very much :)