First Day Jitters Blog Hop

I am so thankful for all these cool link-ups because I'm running out of ideas of things to post! :)

 Fierce in Fourth  is hosting a blog hop where we can commiserate on our fears for the upcoming 1st Day of School!

I've been teaching for over 12 years years now and I still get major anxiety before the 1st day of school. I have nightmares where I can't find my classroom, I envision all the worst case scenarios. The kids get such a kick out of the fact that teachers get nervous too! :)

1) The one difference this year that terrifies me a bit is that 50% of my year-end evaluation will be determined by student test scores. Yes, I teach Kindergarten! The part that is really scary is that no one knows what to use as a measure. Some basic tests won't show growth in advanced kids, yet you don't want it to be too challenging for those that struggle. If we use a test from a research-based curriculum, we have to also use the curriculum-in addition to the ones we already use. So it will be interesting to figure all that out. We will have to start assessing the first few days, so we'll have to figure it out soon!

2) The other difference this year will be that my GT Kindergarten class will only have 6 identified GT students in it. I taught a "regular" class for years, so it won't be too much of an adjustment, but I am worried about keeping those kiddos challenged while still being able to cater to everyone else's needs.

3) My last fear is that the group coming up was just notorious in Pre-K! We had experienced, seasoned teachers in the hallway on a regular basis needing to count to 10. When they walked anywhere it looked like they needed a herding dog to keep them altogether-they would be like a mob fighting, crying, walking around in circles. I mean Pre-K kids were being written up and sent to the office-for some pretty serious offenses. Let's just say I am really, really studying that Conscious Discipline in preparation for this year.

It will all work though, it always does. One thing I love about teaching is that every year is different-I'm thankful that it never gets boring!:)