In Loving Wisdom (My First Linky) :)

Your first year as a teacher is the year that really tests your mettle. You are fresh from college and have all this information you want to share with the young minds that will be entrusted to you. Hopefully you will have had some experiences in a variety of schools beforehand so walking into a classroom full of children (or the empty room you are supposed to set up) is not a daunting task.

The biggest piece of advice I can give you, and what kept me sane when I seriously thought I would lose my mind, was making connections with those in your grade level or the teachers in the classrooms nearest to you. These people will help you join in the school community. If they started as the same time you did then you can be one another's support learning the ropes and sharing information learned from various sources. If they have been at the school for years, then they can give you necessary information like procedures for opening of schools (the unwritten stuff not covered in the principal's memo) to the best places to go in search of materials you may need (like storage rooms with math supplies and classroom library books).

Building a school community helps to keep you aware of what you do and focused on finding solutions instead of complaining with no purpose. Bouncing ideas off of one another. Having someone who knows which kid is driving you nuts and can give you advice on how to best handle the situation either through personal experience or a strategy from a book they read. These are the things that keep you coming back to the profession. Being able to share and build a community of people who have the same purpose you do and understand your challenges (the kid who won't write no matter how many different ways you have tried to entice him to do so) and little successes (the cute kid who could read every word of the story and finally answered the comprehension questions he was so sorely missing regardless of his fluency).

Me with one of my Kinders from theis year. (I'm the one with the mask!)

The children you teach will come and go (and depending on the population of students you will work with will depend on how happy you are about that), but the relationships and bonds you can form with your co-workers keep you sane and secure in the knowledge that though the door closes and the only adult in the room is you, right next door or across the hall is someone with whom, at the end of the day, you can share a laugh with or a cry with.

These are the people that kept me sane this year. My K team!