Monday, April 28, 2014

Monday, 4/28/14

I feel like it's been forever since I've written. This time of year moves at a rapid pace, mostly because of the exciting things we have going on, but the rapidity (I just made that up!!) causes my blog to be forgotten by the time I'm getting kicked out of here at night.

Today we went to our middle school to see their production of "Aladdin." Oh my gosh, I might be slightly biased, but seriously only slightly, when I say they do the most amazing job with middle school students! The true testimony is the sheer number of students who volunteer to be involved. There are stage crews, light crews, the actors/actresses, make-up and hair--the whole thing! They work for months and months in preparation, and it shows. It is nothing less than stellar each year. Kudos to the staff members, parents and MIDDLE SCHOOL kids (it's a little mind blowing to me that so many kids of this age are so involved in their school's play--like I said, to me, that's testimony enough to what a quality production is created year after year). And, of course, then there's dorky me in the audience nearly in tears watching my former students up on stage lighting the place up. I'm a proud mama bear, that's for darn sure!!

That's it for today. My mind is a bit of a bowl of mush. I'm not sure why, espeically since we spent the afternoon enjoying the arts, so perhaps is the rain, but nonetheless, I'm taking it as a sign to say good-night, so Good-Night Gracie!

Monday, April 21, 2014

Monday, 4/21/14

I hope everyone had a wonderful long weekend and a special Easter (for those who celebrate). I loved every second of the weather. I got a pedicure and dug out the flip flops--there's no turning back now, so Mother Nature better have dug out her flip flops as well!!  I also got the car washed. It was a very cathartic, done-with-winter weekend!!

On Wednesday we have the first of 4 field trips over the next three weeks. We're headed downtown! Hopefully the kids will all heed my warning of limiting their "liquid consumption" in the morning before we go. There's no bathroom on the bus and who knows what traffic will be like, so it's always best to err on the side of caution when the bladder is involved. =)  I'll write with a full report on Wednesday. I hope the weather is nice and we have a lovely day together. And above all, I hope that I have some priceless photo moments!

I hope you heard all about our recent class visitors. They've already grown tons and tons and tons...if you don't know what I'm talking about, ask your favorite second grader. ;)

On that note...I'm out for now. Have a great night!

Saturday, April 12, 2014

Friday, 4/11/14

Happy Report Card Day! Earlier in the week I received some report cards of my own. This class cracks me up with that--they gave me report cards at the end of 2nd quarter too. Luckily, I showed some improvement from then until now. Lol!

Today was a big day. First, it was our "Day of Stars." I set a timer in the beginning of the day and whenever it went off, we dropped what we were doing so 5 or 6 randomly selected students could present their quilt square to the class and were able to answer questions from their classmates. Once the initial crew was done, I reset the timer and when it went off, we did the whole thing again with a few more kids. It was very exciting, especially when it went off smack-dab in the middle of our DOL quiz!!!

In addition to that excitement, we'd also received some more Flat Stanleys this week, so we learned about where he'd gone and added them to our map. Our map is getting quite full and looks super cool.

And above all else, my little pumpkins were finally able to go outside on a nearly 70 degree day and run around like crazy. Thank goodness! They were cooped up indoors for entirely too long this winter. They definitely deserve this weather!!

With that said, I'll leave you with some of my report cards to look over. I hope you get a smile like I did. Enjoy the weekend!!


Monday, April 7, 2014

Monday, 4/7/14

The first day back from spring break and we all survived! You never know what life will be like after everyone's been gone for over a week. I must admit, it was nice to see all of my favorite little faces! I have "door duty" (aka hang out with the kids from the time they first arrive in the morning until the bell rings) on Mondays. Today's was especially nice because I got to see the kids right away. It's funny how much you grow to enjoy seeing someone (or several someones) everyday, so much so, that even having a week off of school can make you miss them. 

Today is the first day of fourth quarter, which translates to the first official day that I start to fear the last day of school. Fourth quarter is always a blast because all of the work that we've put in all year pays off in dividends, plus there are just a ton of fun activities that occur, but it is very bittersweet because living in the back of my mind is the knowledge that my time of hanging out with these amazing little humans is nearing its end. So, I block that out and we just enjoy every single day we have together. Like today:

Nothing extraordinary except the announcement of our upcoming Day of Stars!! On Friday, April 11th, I'm going to randomly set a timer. When it goes off, regardless of what we are doing, we will drop everything and learn about a few of our star classmates. The kids were sent home today with a "quilt square." It's simply a piece of paper now, but by Friday will become a square which represents each of the kids in our class. I will put them together to form our class "quilt." Once we've learned about those first few kids, the timer will be reset, we'll continue on with business as usual until it beeps again--at which time we'll learn about some others, and so will go the day until we've been through all 23 of my shining stars. Some have a wacky Wednesday, we will have a free-for-all Friday!!  I'll fill  you in on how it goes! 

I'm off to finish up report cards! It's so hard to put into one little number or symbol what 9 weeks of academics, problem solving and growing looks like, so my favorite part is where I get to write on the bottom. That's the part I'm working on tonight. Good thing I seem to be in a writing state of mind. ;)

Happy Monday!