Late for the First Day of School

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking that I was late to the first day of school. I was sick, but I was on time. I am late posting about the first day of school, hence the title. Thursday last week was our first day of school. Thursday and Friday were only half days and were really more of an orientation, introducing them to the new school year, what lies ahead of them, classroom procedures, etc. Those two days the kids were perfectly behaved and I thought that this year was going to be a breeze! (If you have ever taught before you are probably chuckling because you know what a huge wrong assumption i made). Starting Monday my kids are already feeling comfortable in the classroom(which is good, but only to an extent). Kids constantly out of their seats. kids all trying to talk at the same time after I tell them to quietly work on their assignments. My room is full of what we call "helpless handraisers"! These are the kids who don't want to figure out anything for themselves and so they want you to hold their hands through it. 

As of monday I am now also the 9th and 10th grade geometry teacher. I love the little kids, but it's nice to have a chance to teach a class that is a little more independent. I have 6 boys and 1 girl in that class. All smart kids, but I struggle with two of the boys because one doesn't really know english(really hard to explain geometry with a language barrier) and then there's this other boy that I sat beside him and tried to help him through a problem, but he would never respond to anything I asked him. So I couldn't tell if he doesn't understand it, or just doesn't want to do it. I kind of think that it's just the latter, because after I spent quite a bit of time with him on one problem, breaking it down, he did three more all by himself just fine. So I'm still trying to read my students. This is only my second day in geometry, so I have plenty to learn about them. And my 1st and 2nd graders are all sweet kids, and so it makes it hard to discipline them when they misbehave. But I am confident that repetition and consistency will train them well. It feels like I'm putting in a lot of time and energy right now, and it's exhausting, so I hope that it'll be a lot easier in the next couple months.