FAIRVIEW, Okla. (KFOR) – Room ready, final checklists and lesson plans complete, first-year teacher Brianna Chaloupek had been looking forward to the first day of school almost since her own first day of school.

“We’re going to do lots of things and have lots of activities,” she tells us before class begins.

Her reason, as a kindergartner, for wanting to be a kindergarten teacher, was pretty simple.

“They get water in class whenever they want,” she laughs. “So that’s why I wanted to be a teacher.”

There is a reason children remember their very first day of full-time school.

New surroundings, new faces, and lots to learn.

“I’m nervous, but I’m pretty excited,” she says.

Sure, there’s coloring and play time, but Miss Chaloupek’s initial lessons were all about procedures.

“We’re going to go over how to color correctly,” she instructs, “how we use pencils, how we use markers, how we line up to go to lunch, how we eat our lunch.”

Think about all the stuff you had learn before you even got to the ABCs and 123s, including how to wait your turn to talk.

“Not yet. Not yet,” she gently admonishes an eager student. “We’ll hear your story in a little bit.”

Brianna Chalou[pek sailed through her first hour of class time with few tears and few interruptions.

She will remember this time and all the firsts that came with it in the same way her students will, with wide eyes and plenty of stories to last a lifetime.

“They’re always going to be my babies,” she grins.

Chaloupek grew up in Canton, Oklahoma, and received her education degree from SWOSU in Weatherford, OK.