Less Waiting, More Doing

I was placed yesterday. I'll be teaching 5th grade, and couldn't be more excited. While I student taught in a 1st-2nd split, I have experience with all grade levels and quite a bit with the 4th and 5th graders. Experience doesn't necessarily translate into teaching ability, but I believe I'll be successful. What I don't know, I'll need to pick up. But I also need to be confident that what I was able to do while student teaching, not to mention what I learned in college courses, will serve me well going forward (i.e. don't turn your back on that experience).

SPACE
The only oddity is the space I'll be teaching in. It was a shared space between two 5th grade classrooms. Now it will be used as my classroom, which is fine by me. To get to the space you can take one of three routes... 1&2) through either classroom, as each have a door into the space, or 3) via the door to the outside.

(Note: image not to scale, and based on short stay in the room) It is a relatively large space, although not as large as classrooms built in the 60's or 70's (like my wife's, which is giant). The classroom has high ceilings, which seemed to echo, but we'll have to see how that works. Currently there are 5-10 computers in the space, which I hope I get to keep. There is a ton of other stuff in there, but I'll start cleaning it up Monday. As far as getting in... well I need to go through the 2 other classrooms, or outside. The kids will line-up outside, so that works great, but we'll see from there. I'm definitely psyched to be right next to the other two 5th grade classrooms. Rotating kids should be easy (rotating kids you say... read on).

WHO/WHAT
The cohort of 5th graders is 60-64 kids. I heard 62 and then 64, so we'll say 60-64 for good measure. They were able to get another 5th grade teacher (me) because of the size, which means class size of 20-22ish. Hoooray! Additionally the teachers team, and have (or are open to) rotating kids. That would essentially create content area specialists, which I'm excited about. Instead of teaching a lesson once, you teach it multiple times, and have the ability to make adjustments each time (and hopefully improve your practice!). I'm not sure how this will work, or what content area, but I should know early in the week.

As a whole I am psyched. Kids are kids are kids, some just different sizes (and further along cognitively). I'll post more next week once I know more about the nuts of bolts. Until then...