Jumping back in.

Today was the first day of school. Since we split our first day into 2 days, I only had students with last names beginning with A-L. Which meant I only had 5 kids today. (My grand total is 14... so I should have 9 tomorrow.)

One of my boys is especially... hmmm... how can I say this politely? Energetic. Talkative. Impulsive. Stubborn. I'm sure there are more good adjectives, but I'll stop there. He's not malicious or mean. (Yet.) But in the four hours that he was in school, he managed to slap another child in the rear, cut his own shirt with scissors, insist that I change his seat, interrupt me (while I was giving directions, reading a story, and talking to the class), interrupt all four of the other kids during our First Day ice-breaker game, poke a boy's glasses, rip a corner of his name tag (I usually tape them to the desks, but I haven't been able to find clear contact paper ANYWHERE this week), and call one of my girls a "butt." Whew. Busy day for him.

Unfortunately, I had to talk to his mother about him after school. I let most of his behavior slide, chalking it up to First Day syndrome... he hasn't been in school all summer, so maybe he doesn't remember how to sit quietly or keep his hands to himself (wishful thinking, lol). But I had to tell mom about the mini tantrum he threw, which led to him cutting a hole in his brand new school shirt. I'm sure she would have noticed it, so I wanted to explain what happened.

A summary of the tantrum: he had to do a project which involved him tracing his hand and cutting it out. He kept yelling that he couldn't do it, it was "too hard," everything I tell him to do is "too hard" (the only thing I had told him to do thus far was sit down, listen to a story, and work on this particular project). He got so frustrated that he crumpled his first paper, begged me for a second one, demanded that I trace his hand for him AND cut it out for him, and crumpled the second one after I told him that I would help him (but not do it for him) if he tried his best to do the work himself first. Then he put his head down (the very picture of despair) and cried for about two minutes. After that, he was all smiles again... and before I knew what happened, he grabbed his scissors and gleefully snipped a hole in his shirt.

Oy vey. It's gonna be a fun year.

But otherwise, things went smoothly. I have the second half of my class tomorrow. And then Friday... the WHOLE CLASS. A whole whopping fourteen of them.