First "full day" of work

Well, I survived.

I was a nervous wreck last night thinking about going into work today. My morning job is the same, however, afternoons I'm working with 3 different 3rd grade teachers. I know nothing about the students I'll be working with, I know nothing about what they're working on in class or what they're struggling with (ie... what I'm supposed to provide additional support in). Up until last night I just shrugged it off and figured "Hey, it'll all work out." But then I began thinking about my barren corner of the resource/Title I room and how it consists mainly of a table and a few chairs as well as a bookshelf with a few books/resources left from the Title teacher... the blank white board and the blank bulletin board. I pictured the teachers sending their kids down to me and me saying "Uhm.... soo.... .Uhm...."

It didn't help that last night my acid reflux was in full gear and my stomach was all crampy/upset. Porter woke up at 1am and I put him back to bed (sat/half slept outside his door for 18 minutes until I heard him sleeping again). Then I went back to bed but my mind was racing, my stomach was aching, my throat was burning, the baby was doing backflips and Ryan was snoring. So, does it surprise you that I never went back to sleep until close to 4am? I ended up getting up and searching online for 3rd grade math and phonics lessons but nothing seemed relevant... probably because I had no idea what I was even needing to look for.

So.... somehow I got my tired ass to school at a halfway decent time and I went to talk to the 3rd grade teachers during my 1st grade class time. They totally eased my mind and said "RELAX! We'll all figure this out, it'll be trial and error." Made me feel so much better.

I got a list of the students they wanted me to work with, and then I decided to go ahead and test the reading kids with the Rigby kits and find their reading levels (in which none of them tested all that low... so I'm a little stumped as to what I need to "assist" them with). With my math kids, I brought them down in small groups of 2-3 and we used whiteboards to do a few regrouping problems... one of the main struggles the teachers said they were having.

I made it through the day, thank goodness. My legs are SO sore, as my room is all the way at the end of the K-1-2 hall and the third graders are off another branch of the school, basically the total opposite end of the school as my room. So, I walked back and forth and back and forth and back and forth every 30 minutes to pick up new groups of kids. I can't wait to get the schedule situated and then they can just come to me during their assigned times. WHEW! That, or I'll be seeing happy scale at the doctor's office next month! LOL!