A big ride

There are two and a half hours left of the school year, and this teacher is exhausted and ready for some rest. The past couple weeks have been a whirlwind of special activities, summer birthday treats, research report presentations and costumes, lots of noise and talking, reminders to myself to take deep breaths, and a fine layer of glitter coating the classroom from one girl's poster.

This year has not been easy, but I still find myself feeling melancholy over the end of the year. As I reflect back over the year, I realize there are many moments I could have and should have been a better teacher.

I definitely have had my fair share of teacher fails. Like the time I had a student go out in the hallway to finish an assignment and I completely forgot about her for the entire reading lesson... Oops! Or the time that one student was eating Nutella with a spoon during class. Or just this week when I found out from another teacher that the girls in my class were purposefully putting glitter (from the aforementioned poster) on their faces and in their hair.

Sometimes I think I picked the wrong battles to fight. (But once I picked a battle, I needed to win.) Sometimes I was too impatient. Sometimes I didn't show my students how much I cared about them. Sometimes students didn't learn what they were supposed to learn.

Despite all of my fails, though, God's grace and faithfulness have seen us through, and my students are ready to graduate from third grade.

I asked my students to fill out a survey, and I was proud of them for taking it seriously and giving me honest feedback. And I thought you might appreciate some of their responses as well.

What is one thing Miss Weaver did to show she cared about you? 

• Helped me with my work 
• Said "you almost got it" when I was doing a paper
• She let me take a piece of pizza home from school. 
• Spent money to give us Christmas gifts
• When you say you are hurt and she puts a band-aid on you. 
• If someone doesn’t have an eraser she gives it to us.
• When I raised my hand she came to me. 

I'm surprised at the simplicity of some of these answers. Take heart, teachers and parents! It's the small things we do every day that show our children we love them. 

What advice do you have for next year's third graders? 

I like the straightforwardness of some of their answers: (So they have been listening to me repeat these things all year long.)

• Listen and stay in your seat. 
• Be good and don’t fight. 

The essence of the whole year, I guess:

• If you behave she will be nice, but if you disobey she will get strict.
• A couple of times she gets a little strict sometimes.

These just make my teacher heart happy: 

• Be prepared to have a lot harder work.
• Get ready to learn a lot. 
• Try to make a good relationship with the teacher.
• Be calmer. 
• You should always do your best work because one time I got a point taken off because of sloppiness.
• Get ready! You’re in for a big ride. 

It has been a "big ride." As always, I'm excited to see how God continues to work in their lives, because thankfully third grade is not the end of the ride! 

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day to all you mothers out there!

I had my students color a card:

I instructed them to write a note to their moms on the inside of the card, telling why they'd pick their moms. Some of their notes were so sweet.

“I’ll pick you because you’re wise, pretty, and nice.”

“You are smart, funny, and fun.” 

“Because you are the prettiest!”

“I love you so much that my heart is going to break.” 

Some students took the flower analogy a little too literally, maybe.

“I love you, Mom, and there’s no one else I’d want to smell. Well I can’t really smell you but you know.” 

And this:

I am so thankful to my mom, for many reasons. This year I'm particularly thankful for her many hours volunteering in my classroom. She's listened to hundreds of Bible verses, graded thousands of papers (and spelling books!), helped multitudes of students make corrections, and generally just helped me keep my sanity. Thank you, Mom! You are amazing!

If you still need a quick, easy card for your mom, you can grab one here. https://www.etsy.com/listing/528229969/mothers-day-coloring-card-digital?ref=shop_home_active_7

And tell her why you'd pick her. :)

Three more Fridays

I don't even know where to start. Today was the fourth to last Friday of the school year. (Yes, I'm counting. Everyone's counting.) The day started with students exclaiming over ALL THE ANTS crawling out of a student's BACKPACK. Later in the day, one girl came and quietly informed me about all the ants (as if I hadn't heard the loud clamor in the morning).  For the record, I only saw one ant.

One student handed in his spelling test folded up in a little square.

In reading class, when asked to write a description of someone they know, one boy wrote about Donald Trump (duck face, weird hair) and another wrote about "the bane of his existence" (or, um, "the bain of my egsistance").

A few weeks ago (since I've been slacking on the writing), we learned about King Josiah in Bible class. The students wrote about what they would change if they were in charge of the country. Most students wrote about getting rid of drugs, taking care of the homeless, and treating everyone fairly. However, there were a few more creative responses:

• "Make the boys go to school and make sure all schools had a swimming pool."
• "I would look after my people. Boys can’t go in girls’ rooms. Girls can’t go in boys’ rooms." 
• "Sit and do nothing and read Flat Stanley and color."

Personally, I'm with the last student. Doesn't that sound nice? Sit and do nothing and read and color.

If I hadn't recorded it, I never would have remembered this conversation, but it's just an example of one of the many typical conversations I have on an average day:

Me: “Is there a reason you two boys were crouching in the corner instead of standing in line?”
Student A: “I don’t know.”
Student B: *Shrugs shoulders*
Student A: “Well, one reason is because it’s warm.”
Me: “Would you rather crouch in the warm corner than go to recess?”
Students: “No.”