So today is Saturday, which means my weekend is coming to a close and back to work on Sunday.  Will I sleep better than last Saturday?  Yes, because I know what tomorrow will bring.  Last week was really the first week of school.  The first week was some professional development and a bit of jump start for the kids to come get their books, say hello, and be on their way.  Last week was a whole new story.  I found myself flooded with all kinds of emotions, frustrations, and confusions.  In contrast, there were many moments of complete joy and a sense that I belong here.  My girls are all adorable, many with similar names like Fatima, Shouq, Hamda, Sara, Mariam, and it gets a little confusing because I have to call them by their father's names and sometimes their grandfather's name as some girls even have the same first two names (they have four names). 

I was surprised to find that we do have some books for all the subjects excluding science, so for science I will be on my own.  Unfortunately our school does not have the teachers guide, although I have heard some schools do, so I am hoping with enough networking I can scan a teacher's manual. 

I am proud to say I had very few tears and no runners (lots of runners around the area, kids afraid of the new English teachers) and any tears I had were wiped away and replaced with smiles very quickly with bribery like stickers and stamps.  I have found I can get quite a bit from my girls just from stickers.  Last week was a bit of chaos with kids changing classes and Arabic teachers coming in to drop girls off and take girls away with no explanation and I just nodded smiling saying "shoe-cran" or thank you in Arabic...my spelling if off and phonetic as it sounds to me...at one point a teacher came in my classroom, shouted to the girls in Arabic and one girl says to me, "Computer, paper, we go..." so I let them all go confused...it was not time for them to go, but who am I  to argue with the computer paper?  My girls all go outside to get these papers then they roll their little backpacks around and I realize they should probably come back in my classroom.  The Arabic teachers walk away...so back to my room they go and isn't that fun to communicate with a language barrier!

So I can only imagine how foolish I look to my girls wildly gesturing to them to get them to understand things.  At one point I pointed to my bottom and the chair to get them to sit down.  My girls really want to do well and please me and they also want to socialize and be young 3rd grade girls so it is kind of a funny classroom.  They will repeat anything I say when I stand in front of the class.  For example I asked the girls if they heard the "a" sound in the word "cat" and they responded, "do you hear the "a" sound in the word "cat"? 

So I dropped the ball on lessons and ended up putting together a few centers with play-doh, blocks, toy clocks, and letter sets and had the girls working with manipulatives for counting and the alphabet which is really fruitless because they can all count to around 100 and they all know the alphabet.  So my real task is working on building their vocabularies and teaching 3rd grade math skills with a little bit of science.  So next week for language arts we are going to work on school vocabulary, number placements, and for science I am somewhat at a loss...I am thinking I need to establish a classroom routine first and I just am not sure what I am doing in that regard...

On a different note yesterday we got the keys to our apartments and should be getting our furniture allowance tomorrow and then we have five more days here at the Hilton and we will be in our homes completely.  We have done a lot of window shopping and are on the same page as far as furniture goes and have found some great deals for beds for both Gavin and our bedrooms.  We are completely in love with the apartment and will have more room then we did in our home in the states and we will be living near all the other families here in Al Ain that came to teach this year.  We were excited to get a third bedroom, the maid's quarters, Michael is very happy because he can have his "Man  room." We also have an excellent view of Oman just out my window, I can actually see another country out my  window, so take that Sarah Palin lol.  That is  it for now, here is to a much less confusing next week and to soon being cozy on my couch in my new home as I type this blog.