April Showers Bring May Flowers

Today the students came back to school after being out for a week in the wake of the N1H1 flu scare. After all of the turmoil of April - stomach flu, broken arm, a long parade of substitute teaching assistants, the second new student in six weeks, a new Promethean board and training for it, deciding to build a house and trying to get ours ready for sale, TAKS testing, and the swine flu craziness - this has been one of my favorite days of this school year. My students were rested and happy to be back. I was rested and happy to be back after having yesterday to work on some of the organizational challenges of my classroom. Everything was pretty calm in the classroom and througout the school. We worked really hard all morning, and then worked on a Mother's Day project for the afternoon. My students were trying to use their words to solve the daily problems that arise in a classroom full of 5- and 6-year-olds. I still had three absent, but that left 18 students which is a practically perfect number. All in all, the students seem to have grown in many ways over the past week. They have been showing a lot of growth in many areas, but I think the time off was good for them. I didn't have to resort to using any official means of monitoring their behavior, it just flowed. And I think almost every child told me they love me at least once during the day. You just can't top that!

I See the Finish Line

This is the first post of 2009. School has been closed for a week now in the wake of the Swine Flu scare. This has been a crazy year of starting behind and catching up, moving ahead and falling behind again. There have been so many last minute changes and unknown elements in each day that I struggle to know how to make a plan for anything. The good thing about all of the craziness and flexibility is that the really important things start to stand out. Even though it sometimes seems impossible to press on through the mirky chaos, the finish line starts to look clearer and somehow we gird up and try again, even more determined and more focused. I can't wait to see what the last month of school will look like. I am excited to look back over how far we have come. But the time seems so short now, we still have so much to do. How will we ever get everything done? I'm already starting the mental checklist for next year...