Entertainment & encouragement

I believe this year is going to be entertaining, at the very least.  There are a few snapshots from the past week that I managed to remember:

• One girl gave me a bookmark that came with her book cover. She spent some time explaining why she was giving it to me and ended by saying, "I didn't think it looked very nice, so I decided to give it to you." 
• I overheard one student coming into the classroom muttering, "I'm a thirsty centipede robot." 
• At the end of the day on Tuesday (after coming back from Labor Day weekend), I was having the students write their homework assignment on their calendars, and one boy asked, "Is it Friday?" 
• During a Language lesson, a few students kept giggling, but I couldn't figure out why. Turns out they find the word "caret" amusing. 
• And this: 

I spent a lot of the week trying to make my expectations clear and enforce them, and it felt like I wasn't being a very nice teacher. So these little notes I found along the way were so special and encouraging. 

To top off a long week, I was so happy to find these two sweet notes in my mailbox on Friday afternoon. 

Miss Weaver, I like having you for a teacher. But I do not like math. Can you make math funner. and I do not like science. Can you make science more interesting.

Dear Miss Weaver, Thanks for being a kind and loving teacher to me. I like spelling it is fun we should do it more often. I'm glad your birthday is soon coming up. You are a very funny teacher that's what I like about you. 

A few favorite things

Last week I had my students fill out a sheet of their favorite things. These are a few that made me smile.

book:  Anne from Green Gables

       dictionary

holiday: Christmas Eve

         Black Friday

sports team: USA  

(Obviously this is a summer Olympics year.)

season: Math 

(Rejoice, math teachers! Math is apparently a season. And a favorite one at that.)

food: clams

      shrimp 

(When I was in third grade, I don't think I even knew you could eat clams or shrimp. Which is probably why I don't like them now.)

hobby: the beach 

(I never thought of counting the beach as my hobby, but I think I will!)

set the table, clean the dish washer, feed the cats 

(Her mom must love this!)

sitting around 

(I never thought I'd see a third grade boy whose favorite hobby is sitting around.)

And now for two of my favorite things from the week so far: 

Folded up and handed to me this morning 

Piles

If my word for the beginning of the week was checklists (Checklists and Pinterest projects), my word for the end of the week is piles. After school yesterday I stared at my piles for awhile, not knowing where to start.

So I took a big pile home with me.

Despite the piles and exhaustion, it's been a good first week with the kids! They have so much energy and so many words to say (well, at least some of them). As I was thinking about my seating chart, this image came to mind:

I'm pretty sure that's what some of my kids are thinking.

I'm so blessed to work with such supportive families and parents. I already received a couple of gift cards for food, many encouraging notes, and a few handmade treasures. :)

Yesterday at lunch time, one boy said to me, "You're supposed to say, 'Who needs milk?' and then they raise their hands." It's good to know someone is here to help me if I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do.

Checklists and Pinterest projects

There's no denying it; school begins tomorrow! I've told people that since this is my seventh year teaching, I'm pretty much good to go with my checklist of to-do items for the beginning of the year. Essentially, I'm a pro at this by now. Or so I thought. I forgot just how long that checklist is, and then on top of that, I always find new Pinterest projects that I decide my classroom has to have in order for it to function properly. (Case in point:)

Today I couldn't stand the messiness of my haggard-looking list any longer, so I made a new one. When I looked at my clean, neat, newly-typed, but, once again, long list, I remembered what my summer self forgets - a teacher's work is never done, and there's always a to-do list somewhere.

But even though all my items are not checked off, my classroom is beautiful, and I am excited to meet my 26 new third graders tomorrow morning!

Ahh, summer

And it's another last day of school. There are many things to think about and many emotions to feel. These are forefront in my mind:

And here are a few pictures of my own.

August:

May:

I had this girl clean out her desk a couple of weeks ago, and it still looked like this. Yesterday I made all the students take all of their things home except a pencil and a folder. She literally had her backpack stuffed full, plus two large bags full of stuff, plus a lunchbox and a few other miscellaneous items to carry. She wanted to leave some it there, and I said, "Nope! It all has to go today." Well, today, she showed up with a full backpack. I said, "Missy, what is in your backpack?" "Stuff." *cheesy grin*

As I reflected over the year, I really had a good year. My students were so cooperative, and they learned so much! I will miss them. They left me with a few goodbyes that I will treasure. :)

Haphazard hodgepodge

I've been meaning to write for months. As is evident by my notes piling up. Literally.

I don't even know what some of my own jotted notes mean. So this is going to be a haphazard hodgepodge of stories. Bear with me.

We'll start with some writing samples.

One girl wrote that her grandma makes malicious cookies. Eventually, I convinced her that the word she was looking for was delicious. But now when I see the word malicious, I'll always think cookies.

When writing sentences with vocabulary words, I always remind my students to make sure that I can tell they understand what the word means. One girl wrote: I hate molasses, that thick, sweet, dark thing. 

In March, I had them write in their journals about spring.

- I do not like spring since you need to wear shoes. 
- I'm looking forward to being in the woods with my dog. 
- I like spring because it's the perfect weather to have some lemonade and just chill.


On a reading worksheet, they wrote about sounds.

Sounds that might make you feel sleepy or content:
- Mom and Dad talking politics. 
- a donkey neighing 

Sounds that make you feel happy or excited:
- gun shots 


And this is possibly my favorite journal entry ever.

Imagine you had a hundred dollars, but you could not keep it. You had to give it away to a person or charity. Who would you give it to? What would you want them to do with it?  

If I had to give a hundred dollars to someone, I would give it to my mom and dad when they are old and in a house for old people. I would give it to them and tell them to go buy a house, job, car, and a camper so they could live in a house not a house for old people. The end. 

And  now the things they say.

• "Adam is eventually sick."
• Girl who is acting grumpy: "I fell out of my bed! So I had to wake up." 
• Boy, upon hearing the year 1999: "I think my dad was alive then!" 
• To me, the day after a substitute teacher was in for me: "I feel a little bit better acting bad for my mom than for a teacher. Especially a substitute teacher." 
• In the morning, before beginning achievement tests: "Can I get my pillow from my backpack, for when I'm finished with the tests?" 
• Listening in as I re-explained directions on a spelling page to another student: "I don't think he tried real hard." 
• And today, as a reminder for how they should be standing on the risers for the spring program, I asked, "Where are your toes?"  Without missing a beat: "They're on my feet!" 

Distractions & smiles

My students have been making me smile. It's amazing what I overhear when I just listen in on their conversations. I hear about everything from their dads' motorcycles to Lady Gaga's red eye shadow to how we're going to get six feet of snow on Friday. Yesterday as I was listening to them work in groups, one of the girls must have told the boy she was working with that he spelled Elisha's name wrong. His reply (instead of erasing and correcting):"Well, I'll spell the next one right hopefully."

Sometimes it's hard to stay on task, but at least it makes me smile. As I mentioned before (in Problem Solving), during class they sometimes raise their hands to tell me problems that I'm not quite sure how to respond to. Here are some new examples:

"My socks are wet."
"I got a drink from the water fountain, and water went up my nose, and now it kind of burns." 

Yesterday, we were looking at vocabulary words for our reading story. We were discussing the word treatment. One of the boys began to have a coughing fit and may have made a little more commotion than necessary and became the center of the class's attention. One of the girls piped up, "Do you need a treatment?"

The story we've been reading is about a girl who had a pet boa constrictor at home. She had to figure out a way to get it to the garage without a group of ladies seeing it. The students brainstormed some ways she could do this, and one of the ideas was for her to wear it like a belt. (None of the students thought their moms would allow them to have a pet snake at home, although many of them would like to.)

Later in the day in science class, I instructed them to keep their books closed on their desks while we reviewed the chapter. One of the girls raised her hand, not to answer a question, but to ask me how the 3 on the ant farm on the cover of their science books stays there.

As we were talking about water vapor, another girl raised her hand and said, "So that's why you're wearing your glasses, because there's water vapor in the air!" Another girl informed me she likes to do science "experiences" at home.

Today, close to the end of the day, one of the girls mentioned that the day seemed so long. I asked the rest of the class if they thought so, too, and some agreed. One girl said, "Because it's raining!" The rest of us looked outside at the sun shining and looked back at her. She continued, "When it's raining, it feels long." We looked outside again. "But it's not raining," I told her. However, they were inside all day. Some other teachers thought maybe I need to open the blinds wider.