I got my class list.

Only 11 kids! This will be a wonderful year. I have always said that there is no teacher so bad that they can mess up a truly small class. That may be one of those things I always say that has no basis in fact. But now I get to see what happens when a good teacher gets an imminently manageable class size!

Already I am doing things I wouldn't do with a group of 20 or 25. For instance, I hand-wrote each child a personal note introducing myself and mailed them. It took me about 90 minutes and cost $10 ($5.99 for a box of 12 note cards, and $4.07 in postage). If I had a regular sized class, I wouldn't have made the effort. Investing 3 hours and $20 would have seemed like too much time and money for such a small gesture. But I'm really glad I was able to make the gesture. I feel better knowing that each of my students will arrive on the first day of school already knowing their teacher's name and hopefully thinking that she's probably nice. And they will also know that the fifth grade has been moved down to the second floor.

Besides the small size, another interesting dynamic of the group is that there are 4 boys and 7 girls. Not sure how that will play out...

But I do know that those 11 kids are in for quite a year!