Day 2: survived

Second day of classes: survived! And wow, what a difference a day (or a weekend) makes. I had three classes today, a fourth, fifth, and eighth, in that order. The fourth class was huge, well, hold on; I just counted their papers and there were only 23. Hm, well for some reason it seemed like it was much bigger than that class on Friday. But this class was very well-behaved. At blond Edit’s suggestion, I had them draw pictures of themselves and then we labeled clothing and body parts. They were so adorable how earnestly and painstakingly they drew. I did a similar activity with the fifth graders, except I had them label as many parts as they could before I collected their papers, and then we went over them as a group. There are a couple of troublemakers in that class, I think. I don’t want to jump to conclusions, because I can’t tell when they are being willfully disobedient, or if they just don’t understand. Anyway, I collected their papers to “grade”. I guess I really don’t understand how me grading them works. But for now, I’m just going to keep my own record book for each class.
And despite Edit-with-glasses’ dire predictions, the eighth grade class was like a room full of angels. It was a much smaller class, though, only 10 students. I actually did the “first day activity” with them, although they seemed less enthusiastic than the big class last Friday. Then I had them write about their summer vacations, which Kati said is what they’re doing in the main class, and read their ‘compositions’ aloud. Some only wrote one or two sentences, and I collected them to grade. I’m not sure how much of the grammar I should correct, especially because on a couple of them, it would be simpler just to rewrite everything.
I asked Kati if I could observe one of her classes, and she said okay. When she asked me which I would like to observe, my mind screamed, “all of them!” but I think maybe I’ll get to sit in on a 7th or 8th. Although I don’t know when. Apparently, next week the 8th graders are going on a class trip to Germany. Yay, less work for me.