P is for Presents

Everyone loves presents! Teachers get all kinds of presents: good, bad, scary (once I got a dead ladybug). For some reason, last Wednesday was "present day" for me.




The day did start out nicely:

One little guy gave me some ladybug cups with chocolate in them and a very sweet card as a thank you gift.

One of my sweetest little girls told me she was saving up money to buy me the movie "New Moon" but I told her the thought of buying it was the best present.

Our lovely retiring Media Specialist passed on to me Ms. Green from "The Teacher from the Black Lagoon!" I have all of those books...(teacher, class, principal, librarian, secretary, etc...)

And then our beautiful, wonderful, super secretary gave me this great jewelry creation (which was ruined in the storm by the way...) I had left a piece of popcorn on her desk the day before.

The best part, the VERY BEST PART of the day was when Mrs. Burns' class brought me a HUGE ladybug bedazzled birthday sign and sang me "Happy Birthday". It made me smile for like an hour. And again just now when I saw this picture and remembered.

And then the SUPER STORM OF JUNE 2010 happened at dismissal time! This included me running from two portables gathering children and book bags then sprinting shoe-less to car rider line and back several times looking for "missing" children.

Facebook status from the day:

We lived through it, and all the kids were found. The SUPER STORM OF JUNE 2010 gave me the gift of extra quality time with our car riders. One of my next year students and I had a long discussion on the types of books my library will have to have in order to interest him. I have a feeling he will be giving me some blog material.

After school, I got the gift of getting to take pictures of the school's damage:

My shoes gave me this present. Gross, I know.

 I started these presents for my students that night. We all read a story on my computer and I put it on iTunes. They are each getting a copy of the cd and my "Cup full of Love".

The poem says this:

All of these presents are reminders of how much I love my job. And all I have to do is look back and think of these things on tough days (like last Friday...long story). How am I going to get through the kids' last day? Maybe I should give my nose the present of soft tissues.

G is for Growing

I'm am going to start this with sniffles. I am getting a little sad that these little boogers have to leave me. However, I'm sure the whole "outta sight, outta mind" thing will kick in a week into summer vacation.

At the very beginning of the year, we made Time Capsules. We didn't bury them or anything (much to eleven little boys' disappointment), but they might as well have been in a deep dark hole. They totally forgot about them until I pulled the box out from a very visible place in the classroom. (Those of you who have seen my classroom should pipe down! I can find things...most of the time.)

First, we took out our sheets on which we had written various facts about ourselves. One spot was a crystal ball labeled "In the future I see myself..." Mr. TV drew a vampire and sticks with that plan now. Dali, Jr. put a picture of a police officer, but has since changed his future goal to being a spy. They also saw pictures of themselves from the first week. They don't notice how they've changed but I can see it. (sniff, sniff)

We retraced their hands over the one they had done at the beginning of the year. These were very cute.

They also compared their handwritten name to their handwriting now. Big difference!

The best part, though, was the string. The string was powerful. It showed that we really, and truly have grown this year.

For most of them, the string reached right between their eyes. They couldn't believe it!

We decided that it's our heads that have grown in order to accommodate our bigger brains.

While I'm on the topic of growing, Mr. TV had a chair issue. He came in late one day last week and decided that someone had taken "his" chair. I informed him that the chair we had placed at his desk was fine, but he insisted it "didn't feel right." So, after determining it was a brown chair, I asked everyone in a brown chair to stand up. I asked Mr. TV to sit in each brown chair until he found the one his bottom felt "right" in. He found it on the third try. I quickly grabbed the masking tape. Labeled the chair with his name on it and this message: [Mr. TV's] Chair. Please do not take. (His bottom will know the difference.)