teaching 7th grade English

I've completed (or managed to live through!) the first 4 weeks of the school year.  Last year I taught 9th grade English, so it is a bit of a change to teach 7th graders this year.  Last year there were 40 students in my class, this year there are 57.  Yikes!  So it is definately a challenge to try to learn their names.  My friend offered to print out a photo of each student.  You can see a sample of those here:

So now I have a little card of each student, and I had them hold their names in the pictures. These are kind of like mug shots!  The names are supposed to be put on their desk each time for English class.  I said that in December if they still have their name paper they can give it back to me in exchange for a piece of candy.  I hope I can learn the names by then!  At the end of the school year I will give each student their picture to keep.
Even though there are a lot more students in one class, so far I like 7th grade teaching better than 9th grade.  I enjoy teaching beginners the most.  Also, the 7th graders are more enthusiastic and responsive to some of my ideas, like singing or being dramatic in reading or acting out dialogues.  Sometimes it seemed like the 9th graders were just rolling their eyes and making fun of me behind my back.
So far they've learned a bit of beginning English, and they've learned not to all get up and run shouting and pushing to the door at the end of class to go out to their snack/recreation time. (Imagine 57 13 year olds doing that!)  They sit quietly in their desks and then I let one row go calmly at a time.
So I do see some progress already!  I hope it will be a good year.