Success in the classroom!

I know I was a little defeated in my last post but alhamdulillah I have finished a wonderful week with my students and am now enjoying the last day of my weekend. In the beginning of the year I told my students that they could work as a whole class for something fun. They decided on time to play outside and this week started coming close to filling their charts. I was able to use that as an incentive for them to do their work and remember to raise their hands just by announcing, "if everyone keeps on being safe, responsible, respectful, good learners we may be able to spend the last part of Thursday doing something special". Maybe it was the reinforcer or maybe I have finally settled in and am getting use to teaching. I hadn't realized that I am on the only teacher at the school with less than 10 years of teaching experience... It is nice to know that I have tons of resources and people with ideas to help me out.

Tuesday night was Open House where I got to meet half of my students' parents. The timing was difficult for both students and staff. We are now breaking our fast a few minutes before 6:00 which means that the night prayers begin at the mosques around 7:30 and Open House was scheduled from 7-9:30. Luckily I was able to eat quickly and get to school and have enough time to set up my room. The parents who came were all very friendly and told me that their children are quite happy. I allowed my students to give their families a tour around the room and asked them to explain our classroom rules so I could see if I had done a good enough job teaching them.

Wednesday was my third day of teaching and trying to get through one of the scripted math lessons from Saxon Math. Although it took us longer to get through every single student in my class was able to identify the addends and the sum by name and complete adding 0, adding 1, and doubles facts when asked! That little success made a huge difference and really helped me start to feel better about things.

During the week we also had a short one hour session with the Professional Development Coordinator on Culture Shock. Let me tell you, that talk came at the perfect time. She went through some of the symptoms and explained how the process is different for everyone. It was nice to hear that I wasn't the only one feeling a little down or overwhelmed.

Anticipating that my students would fill their behavior charts on Thursday I brought my sneakers in from home. When the time came I told them how proud I was and that they had earned their 15 minutes of free time and took them outside to our roof top playground. I think I looked incredibly silly in my professional dress clothes and Nike sneakers but the boys didn't seem to notice. Most of them requested to race me which was interesting considering it was at least 105 degrees, I was fasting, competing against 9 year olds and haven't had much physical exercise. Despite all of those factors against me I swear I tied the fastest boy in my class, Khaled, but he disagrees. I was told we need a rematch but I have about 3 weeks before they fill their charts again to preapre. After racing we played soccer. I scored a goal and got high fives from the boys on my team who seemed really impressed. My assistant Rana even joined in which made it even more fun.

I am getting picked up by one of my friends from school so that I may spend the afternoon and evening with her family fairly soon which means that I need to get going on my lesson planning and get ready. InshAllah I hope you are all doing well and enjoyed the pictures from Girgian. I will do my best to post again soon.