My Next Thirty Years: End of WEEK ONE!!!!

So, we have made it to the end of our first week of school, though honestly, it feels more like we have been in school for a month or more. Currently I have 11 kids in my class, though with the 2 new kids on Monday, I will then have 13!!! Crazy, huh???? Lucas has 14 kids in his class.

Today we had our first elementary school assembly. Lucas got to introduce himself to the whole school, as did I.

The week went really well. It was the first time in years that I have had a full 5-day start to the year, which was exhausting! By the end of the week, it really felt like it had been about a month, not a week! Lucas has adjusted well to the new school and LOVES first grade! He has made many new friends in his class. Ne even was chosen this week to be the lunch helper for his class, which meant that he and another boy carried the lunch tub down to the lunchroom ahead of the class. He really enjoyed the responsibility of this job.

My class has also settled in nicely. I had 11 all week and will have two new kids come on Monday, so then I will have a class of 13. Crazy, I know!!! They are such a nice group of kids though. I really look forward to getting them to open up a bit more, they are a bit quiet for my taste right now. It will come, I know it was only the first week. Camilla and I continue to drudge through creating our curriculum map for the year. There was a skeleton when we came, with some scope and sequence, but it needed a lot of work, particularly in making it a true PYP document. Camilla is the perfect, most fabulous partner for me! We really have similar styles and focused work ethic. We can joke around and then get right back on track. We have similar thoughts about education practice and theory, and both are very hardworking. She has also worked in PYP schools, so we have background in the curriculum, though different so we have different ideas to bring to the table. Since this is the first time in my career that I actually have a partner, I really won the partner lottery!!

This week also a colleague, Bill, (who lives in our complex with his wife and has a daughter in Lucas' grade, Katie) got me to the gym. :) He has a membership and has been going regularly, so we made a gym date and his wife was coming too with Katie, so Lucas and Katie could play. We went Wednesday and Thursday, so I can see a glimmer of building a healthy routine of this! YAY!!! It has been entirely too long since I have had a really good gym routine. It is so hot there though. There is no AC, just a couple fans. Once you start to workout, it is basically the same as a normal temperature gym, except I feel like a wet, drippy sponge!!! But it feels GREAT to be there!!!!

Friday night, our normal Family Night, we had Camilla, Jon, Majken and Solveig come over for pizza and play. It is a new spin to our family night and it was a TON OF FUN! I have been so used to things always being just Lucas and me that at first I wasn't sure about it, but I knew we would have fun. After they came, I realized how incredibly lucky we were to have made such good friends with them! Friendship is so important and it is nice to have someone to lean on, and that leans on you. It makes me even more grateful to have made the move here, and more sure that it was the right move.

Anyways, our Family Night last night was different, but it was a really great time. It was low key, us grown-ups just chatting and the kids, being total HAMS! They played Lego for a long while, then they started coming out after dressing up!!! It was pretty hilarious!!! For our second Friday night, we have had combined family night and it has been really wonderful to have the time together, then be so close that we can just pop on back to our respective homes. What a perfect end to the week!!!