Student of the Month Part 2

Today was the student of the month assembly. It was all kept a secret and I even played it up that his parents had to come to the school to talk to me about something important. He stood waiting for our class to be called staring up at the sky whispering "please let it be me". The look on his face when he heard his name was absolutely priceless. He was so excited and proud of himself. I met his mom and she shook my hand and thanked me for choosing him. My response was, "he totally earned it, I'm so proud of him." Mom was almost in tears. He gave me the biggest hug and said he was proud of himself and shocked and excited. I gave him a letter that I wrote to him explaining why I chose him and he smiled ear to ear while he read it. The rest of the day I didn't lift a finger, anything I needed he was there before I could move and would say, "don't worry Mrs. Barnes your student of the month will handle it!" It WAS the best feeling I have had in my short teaching career. I talked with him at the end of the day and asked if he was going to keep up the student of the month type behavior and he said definitely. He is most certainly the reason I'm a teacher. I have never been so proud of a student for any reason.

One of my tougher kiddos made his day every day this week which was a big feat. He will be going to talk with the social worker weekly starting next week. He has anger and self esteem issues which is just heart breaking. I was talking with the social worker about what I can do to help him and we decided that when he makes his day for a whole week he can go to the prize box. I had him stay after the bell and gave him a hug and a high five and he picked a backpack out of the prize box. We talked about how he will not always get prizes that big and eventually he might not get one every week, but for now we will work together to make his behavior great. He was super excited and has never smiled the way he did today.

Obviously it was a super rewarding day. I wish that I could legally post pictures of those 2 kiddies, but alas, I like my job and want to keep it.

As for Barry, last week he did an observation with his kids. He had a goldfish and a snail (the kids loved it). Over this last weekend the snail had 2 babies. This week Barry changed the water and all 3 snails went to snail heaven. Now just the goldfish is left, the kids have named it Swimmy. The PE teacher suggested Swim Pickens, but Barry went with the kids' choice.

Yesterday I had a very embarrassing moment. I raised my voice at the principal thinking it was a kid. He loved it, I turned bright red and I will never live it down. Thank goodness he has a sense of humor and plays jokes. I opened the door to my teammate's room to ask her a question. I was leaning against the door and felt it being pushed against me. I said "Excuse you!" and he peeked around the door with a grin and "yes?" I was mortified. My kids were in on it and proceeded to tell me that I was almost purple I was so red. My response being, well yeah I yelled at the principal, it's embarrassing. The kids loved it and so did he. I'm pretty sure the whole school knows about it. Like I said, thank goodness he has a sense of humor.

We met with our second grade buddies today and the kids had to make dogs out of water bottles or toilet paper rolls. We gave them cotton balls, tissue paper, straws, pipe cleaners and yarn to work with. They turned out so cute. One group made a poodle with all cotton balls and another group made a golden retriever by covering the water bottle with gold tissue paper. Again, I wish I could send pictures. I'm going to take pictures of every group and make a news letter for both classes called "Buddies Are the Best". The other teacher thought it was a great idea, so we are both really excited about it. I took some pictures this afternoon but the battery ended up dying.
I got the second book of folder games today, so finishing all of those is my weekend project so that I can have them laminated and cut before I start teaching a before school math class on the 13th. I'm excited to work with 4-6 graders and play a lot of skills games. I will have some of my old kids which will be fun.

I think that's enough for now, I'm getting the feeling that I'm starting to blab on and on and on.....you get the idea.

TTFN...ta ta for now!