Wow!  Today was the first day back to school with my students!  I always find it so exciting to see the students come in with smiling faces - all eager to succeed and to do their very best for the school year.  I know that for some it's "turning over a new leaf", for others "it's a new school with new challenges".  Whatever their situation is they are all there to do their very best and to learn as much as they can while "fitting in", which we all know is the most important aspect for the majority of the students.  We have a multi-grade leveled "homeroom" in our school.  It's actually called a "TA" which refers to Teacher Advisory group.  Our students are from grades 8-12 and we have "families" in the same TA.  This allows the parents to have one main "contact" teacher at the school so that it is much easier when there are 2 or 3 of their children in the school.  I love it when the younger siblings come in and join our TA.  The family dynamics are always so interesting to watch.  Over the past 20 years of working in this model I have seen all of the family members mix in like a paint pot.  Everyone mixes together.  It's just like the children in the neighbourhood where everyone plays together no matter what their ages.  Our TA is very much like that also.  Tables of students sit together and at each one there are always students of varying grade levels.  The younger ones look up to the older ones as role models to see what is expected of them for their futures. The older students help out the younger ones to make the adjustment to secondary school that much easier.

Tomorrow I will help to give out resources to the students in my French classes and meet some of these classes also.  One of the main things that I will do with them is to open up a class blog for 5 of my 7 classes.  If you look at the tab above the posts you will see a "tab" referring to blogging.  Have a look!  It's just a bit of a window into what I do within my class.  Can't wait until tomorrow!  :)