Best job ever

Teaching is hard work. Some days it's hard to feel successful, and it's hard to know what you really accomplished. But then there are days when I sit there and look at all my students engaged and working hard, and when I listen to the student whose reading has improved so much since August. And my heart is filled with joy because I have the privilege of being part of all of it. And then there are those extra special perks. Days like yesterday, when a student delivers warm chocolate chip cookies, baked fresh that morning by her mother. And I think, This is the best job ever! 

I just finished reading Ramona the Pest to my class. When we got to the part where Ramona was banned from the Kindergarten until she could stop pulling Susan's "boing, boing" curls, one of my girls asked me, "Would you ever do that to us?" I just laughed and said, "No!" I didn't explain to her that I couldn't, if I wanted to. :)

In math one day, we were practicing using timelines, so we made a timeline with events from my life. I asked them how many years they think we should put on the timeline. One of them thought 100 years.

They've also been practicing writing numbers using words, which means I see some interesting spelling, such as "9inedy" and "ate hundred" and "aty."

One morning this week, I looked across the classroom and saw a bunch of girls gathered around one of the boys. (This is not typical behavior for third graders.) Then I realized they were all looking at a picture of his brand new baby brother. And of course then I had to join them! (When I say I love newborns, they look at me strangely, as if they can't imagine me with any other people besides third graders.)

I entered the bathroom a couple of days ago, and overheard two girls who were in the stalls.
"I started at the bottom and went to the top."
I assumed I missed the beginning of the conversation.
Long pause.
Same girl: "I got 100."
...
Girl number 2: "Oh! You're counting them! ...1,2,3,4,5..."
And I realized (as I was leaving the bathroom and they continued counting), that they were counting the tiles on the bathroom floor. Maybe I should have checked in with their teacher to see how long they were missing from class. :)

Best job ever.