Welcome to Summer!!!!!

Welcome to summer!!!! I can't believe school is out already... although, the past three weeks have been rather a blur! I don't even know what happened to this week. Well, I have a vague idea, but it was all so fast and rushed! I would like the last week of school to be slow and savored. Ah well, that isn't completely up to me to decide.

On Monday I tried to keep some normalcy. We finished up academics and played a review Jeopardy game over all of the subjects. Tuesday things started to get crazy. We cleaned out our desks, had music and P.E. and a representative from the public library came to give a presentation about summer programs. Wednesday was party day. We had Egyptian day this year since we studied about Egypt quite a bit. The kids did Egypt activities for most of the day. I was beat by the end of the day! I came home and went to bed. Some pictures from Egyptian day...

Doesn't this little guy make such a great pharaoh?

It took a long time for this little man to warm up to me, but once he did he was always giggling at my lame jokes. He has dubbed me "a very funny teacher". He has one of the most adorable giggles and sweetest smiles.

This kiddo is such a sweetheart. He was so pleased with his Egyptian costume

Kids always love it when they have matching costumes! These two were some of my biggest huggers this year!

One of the activities was to put together a puzzle of an sarcophagus. It took all four rotations to complete the puzzle.

 

Another rotation was the game mancala. The kids LOVED this game!

Another rotation was a hieroglyph decipher. They had to figure out the secret message. I used some real hieroglyphs and made some up. ;-)

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What can I say...

The finished puzzle!

They said that this was the mummy from the sarcophagus! What imaginations!!!

The last rotation was an artifact excavation. They had to hunt for jewels, old pottery, and bones using their brushes to gently brush away the sand...

...but they're eight. So they ended up holding their brushes in one hand and digging for treasures with the other. Haha!

Treasures!!!

I have 17 students in my class this year. With the school moving across to the east side, some families will not be able to return next year. Also, a couple families from my class will be moving out of state. My class of 17 will be shrinking quite a bit, which is sad. :(  I tried to get some pictures of them all together, but by this point in a week of very little structure it was hard getting a decent picture. Ah well...

Oh my boys...

Crazy faces just for fun :)

I told them to put their arms around each other and they nearly choked each other! They seemed to think by "put arms around shoulders" I meant "wrestle with the person next to you" This was about as good as it got...

The girls appear to be more subdued...

But don't let them fool you! They can be crazy too!

I've been purging and packing. I was going through papers and came across a stack of papers in the classroom library. They were little books that my students had written. I encourage them to write little stories in their free time and it became quite the thing to do around December/January/February especially! Some of their sentences or things they wrote about just cracked me up!

"List of movies I like.
This is literally a list."
Hahaha!

"2 more books coming out next week!"
I love their productivity and marketing! Haha!

So far it appears to be an interesting story but...

...you know that this is the climax because the author has alerted you to the fact that "this is the exiding part"!

I was never able to determine how they picked their publication dates ;-)

I love it! :) 

I love how this student has put into words that Providence is harder in all the subjects, but that they still think it's fun. It just goes to show that kids need challenges and they are quite capable of enjoying hard work.

Thursday was clean up and clean out day. These kids have quite the work ethic! They wiped out desks, storage containers, and bookshelves. They stacked all the books onto the desks so that I could pack them more quickly and efficiently. They cleaned the white boards and chalk board. They took down my bulletin boards for me and neatly rolled up and put away my ribbon borders. They de-stapled things for me and de-stickied things. Thanks to them, I am well on my way to being packed up in my classroom!

Today was field day. And goodbye day. That was tough folks, even saying goodbye to the kids that I knew I would see sometime this summer and definitely next year. You see, they are not just some children I teach. They are MY students. They are my kids. I have worked with them and loved them. Like it or not, a little bit of my heart goes with them wherever they go. I guess teachers have to have extra big hearts, because each year a little bit more of their heart goes on to the next grade with the students, their students. It's rewarding, definitely! But also kind of painful. A happy pain. But a sad one. It's quite contradictory, I know. And I don't think I'll be able to explain it. You'll just have to imagine. And while you imagine that, I'm going to bed. A week at school with very little structures wears the teacher out!