Today was the first day of school and it went great! I arrived at the school at 7:15 feeling excited but also slightly underprepared. There were a few things I didn't quite have time to arrange in the way I wanted. I most of it done by 7:45 and then headed down to the playground to meet my new class. The halls and the schoolyard were both empty.

For a second I flashed back on the joke that all the teachers were making yesterday because the halls were still jam packed with computers and bookshelves: "It's a good thing school isn't starting tomorrow." Maybe I had missed something?

Nope. Just a bit of the school's typical chaos. Turns out that on the first day, school doesn't start until 9:30. Nobody told the new girl! So that was kind of annoying...but I had an unexpected hour and a half to get more stuff done, so all's well that ends well.

My traditional opening activity is to have the children make dreamcatchers. I show them my example, then give them the raw materials and let them go from there without any directions. Right away I get to see who dives in, who waits until someone else has figured it out, who asks for help, who offers it. And the kids are engaged in an activity that also permits them to do what they really want to be doing anyway: Talking to their friends and seeing what everyone had been up to all summer.

Rajanique was frustrated and confused by the lack of direction and wasn't afraid to vocalize it, repeatedly. Anthony quietly scoped out the supply table and got up to get what he needed whenever he saw fit. Taylor was eager to please; she kept raising her hand for permission to get materials even though I had told them all to take what they needed freely. Marquette is one of those boys that needs to stand up and walk every so often as he works. Ernest, the new kid, wasn't quite sure what he had gotten himself into but made the best of it. Rakia took my request to "write down one of your dreams" literally and tried to fit the entire plot of a nightmare on a tiny circle of paper. All in all, a typical group of ten year olds.

And their dreams? To be rich. World peace. To be a scientist. To always have friends. To end war. To be on national television. To have the best 11th birthday party ever.

So cute!