Getting sentimental...

I started making scrapbooks for each student and started off with a picture of their first day and then a letter to each student. I wrote to them from the heart and told them goals I had for them, and I realized how much I expect of these kids. Call me naive, call me sentimental, call me insane, call me a first year teacher but I truly believe that these kids are going to do something great, something that will change the world for the better. At the very least they will continue to smile, laugh, love and learn and pass these traits on to the next generation, and those four things are what make the world go round, right? 

As the year is coming to an end we have been extremely busy! CAT Testing was last week, Progress Monitoring, Benchmarking coming up, pushing to get through Read Well and Saxon and not to mention all the fun that comes with it being June... 

We rented out a boat in Telegraph Cove for a PreK-1/Community Event. We are going to continue strengthening our relationship with parents and community members while learning about our culture, and finish off our Living Things - Mammals Unit all at sea. I am not sure who is more excited, the kids or me! We have a Sports Day, Beach Day, Graduation, and about a million other things to do in our 13 teaching days left... oh and report cards! 

On a final note, I am writing a Do and Don't list for next year as reminders, I'll make sure to share. Until then, remember to breathe in between it all. Remember to stop and appreciate the small moments, the "I love you Miss C's", the "...he was being mean to you, so I got some help...", the unconditional smiles and laughter, the songs (Cups), the supportive staff, and the success no matter what size. Sometimes we get too caught up in the curriculum and the testing we forget that those small reasons make the biggest difference, and to most of us - the reason we got into teaching to begin with. 

All my love,

Miss Sea

May... where'd you come from?

May?! I cannot believe my first year in a classroom is winding down already! Where did the time go? I have learned many things during this first year that I'll start sharing periodically when I think of them. A few from this week? April is a LONGGG month - plan for it. Our behaviour chart worked well for the first part of the year, midway we switched to http://teach.classdojo.com Class DoJo (the kids LOVE it), and recently to a Smiley Review. What else did I learn? Hairspray is a teachers best friend, also Coconut Oil and Tea-tree oil. 

These kids have tested me, taught me, and enlightened me. They exhausted me, physically, mentally and emotionally. But the biggest lesson this year? Education is COMPLETELY different from when we were kids (which wasn't too long ago), but one thing has stayed the same. The innocence of a child is a delicate thing, one that I am happy to enrich as long as possible. The smiles, the tears, the head lice, the ups, the downs, the flips and turns, and I wouldn't change a thing about it.

My first year...and what a year it was. 8 weeks and 2 days to go... but who's counting? ;) 

Three of our 15 little fishies at the Carnival! Miss C got pulled in lots of different directions that day!