Matt Gentry | The Roanoke Times

Auburn Elementary School kindergarten teacher Anna Young leads her students in a "train" tour of their new classroom.

On Wednesday, the first day for Auburn Elementary School in Riner, kindergartner Joey Duncan looks down at a bus number written on his hand. Teachers and staff members write bus numbers on students' hands in the morning to help them remember which bus to take home at the end of the day. .

RINER -- D-i-i-ing!

"What's making that sound?" kindergartner Trevor Young timidly asked his new teacher Wednesday morning at Auburn Elementary School.

"That's the school bell. It means school has started!" his teacher, Anna Young, responded gleefully.

And so it has. Montgomery County students returned to the school hallways Wednesday, the first in the New River Valley to begin classes. By the first week of September, students across the valley will all be in classes again.

Trevor's first day, like that of most kindergartners, was filled with new people and new rules, an organized chaos that one school staffer said was just about getting students in, fed and back out the door.

But Young, who has taught kindergarten for the past six years, helped her 18 students learn some new songs and games to make sure they had fun, too.

"I love them. They're so energetic and full of life and ready to learn," Young said.

For students, the first day started about 8:15 a.m., when two yellow school buses pulled up behind the school. A sign in the yard read: "The first day is the best day."

Children lugging hot pink lunch boxes and Superman backpacks let off a chorus of "Yay!" as they came down the bus steps to a crowd of teachers and aides, who led them to their classrooms.

After students arrived in Young's classroom and recited the Pledge of Allegiance, a soft voice from the CD player sang as students circled around the front of the room: "Ri-i-i-i-se and shine and wel-come to school to-day. We're so-o-o glad you're here." Students soon joined in the song.

Young had students "bunny hop" as a respite after sitting in the circle. She asked them to count to five as they jumped, but many knew more numbers and counted to 19.

Ona Stephens, a mother of two children at Auburn and a parent volunteer, smiled as she watched children jump around and greet each other in icebreaker games.

"It's hard to know if you should or not, but it's hard not to be here," Stephens said.

She brought her son, Levi, to school for the first time Wednesday and returned an hour later to observe class, as parents sometimes do.

Levi and Trevor were already seated, playing with blocks and making friends. Trevor walked around the class showing visitors and students a brightly colored string of blocks printed with the alphabet.

Toys such as that are scattered around Young's classroom and are used to teach children from the first day in school.

"A lot of people don't realize we have SOLs [Standards of Learning]," Young said. "There's no tests ... but we're all about getting them to read and getting them ready for first grade."

The state sets the SOLs that students in each grade level must master before moving on.

On the first day, children barely notice the learning that could be accomplished with the bevy of multicolored shapes along the walls or the painting easel.

"We try to give them some time to have fun," Young said.