I heart sixth grade

Thursday was my first day at the middle school where I will be doing my senior practicum.  I was so relieved when my old roommate Tiffany let me know that she knew the wife of my cooperating teacher and that she was way nice so she assumed he would be too.  And he was :) He is really laidback and manages his classroom well and the kids really like him.  My first day I kind of just observed and got to know how the classroom runs as well as introducing myself to the students. 
There are six periods in the day and we teach five of them, one is our prep hour.  The first two periods are math, one grade level the other advanced, then there is social studies, another grade-level math class, and then another social studies class.  All together there are about 70 students that I will need to learn names for.  I can't believe how huge class sizes are! 31 students in one class!?
I was nervous about teaching older students (6th grade) but I already really love the kids.  They love to talk and to get to know me. First thing when I walked into the classroom a group of 3 or 4 girls come up to me and were excitedly asking if I was their student teacher.  The first thing one of the girls said to me was "You are really pretty." :) Being a teacher is a huge self esteem booster. I'm telling ya, you feel like a rock star going into a classroom full of students.
My cooperating teacher teaches math and social studies.  Next week I will start teaching math and will have my first formal observation from my proffesor and then the following week I will begin the unit I make on social studies.  I've started planning the unit and already feel a little overwhelmed.  I want the information my students learn to be pertinent to their lives and not just memorizing facts about the mayans, aztecs, and incas (that's what the unit will be on).  There isn't really a teacher textbook to get ideas from it's just whatever what I want to teach.  I like the ability to be creative but there is just so much information, it's hard to know what to teach and what not to.  I'm super excited though to practice my lesson planning and teaching:)
Thursday was a long day because I spend from 8:30am-4:00pm in the school and then head to the college for a seminar from 4:30pm-6:00pm.  Even though my days are long I've been feeling great cause I have made sure to exercise in the mornings, seriously that helps me be alert and have energy all day long.  Plus I go to bed at like 9:30pm every night.  This weekend will be a long one because of Civil Rights Day on Monday and Tuesday is teacher inservice day at the middle school so that means no school for me :) Lots of time to lesson plan.