"There she is!!! YES!!!"

*I have the sweetest, craziest, funniest kiddos in my classroom. It was HARD to get going this week--after a 5 day weekend, I was struggling on Monday morning. After pressing "snooze" for an hour, I got up and moving. I was grumpy and not wanting to go to work. Even when I got there, I wasn't moving nearly as fast as usual, but when the bell rang and I went to pick up my kids, I heard "There she is!! YES!!!" And my day was great from there. We had a wonderful week.

*I was teaching the sight word "want" on Friday. We talked about what we "want" for Christmas, clapped it out, and we were all reading our "sight word books" together. One of my kids raised his hand and said: "Mrs. -I thought you taught us that "ch" says chh--well-you said that word said "Christmas" but that Ch doesn't say "CH"...Why?" Good question kid. I am getting really tired of the English language. I teach the kids rules about what sounds the letters make and different blends...and there is ALWAYS an exception to the rule. You never realize how crazy our language is until you try to teach 5 year olds how to read/write.

*We have adopted several families for Christmas. Some of our friends came over last weekend to help us wrap all of the gifts. Our living room is FULL of gifts for these families, it is so exciting. My mom called today and said that she collected more donations, so now I think we can adopt another family! It has been so fun to shop/plan/have other people donate to these amazing kids. But I have still been a little nervous that maybe we were doing too much-that somehow the moms might feel a little offended. I was wrong. The absolute highlight of my week was when I dropped my kids off at music class on Monday morning. I was walking back to my classroom when I saw one of the moms from the family we are helping. She told me she wanted to talk about her daughter's progress. She rode the city bus up to school to see me...We went into the room and talked about her daughter, her family, how proud I am of her daughter (she started out knowing none of her letters, none of the colors, none of the numbers, didn't know how to write her name, etc. and now she is in one of my higher reading groups. She is SHOCKING me everyday)...I then mentioned the Christmas gifts...She said: "That is actually the real reason that I came up here. I wanted to say thank you so much-I really don't have no words. Bless you. Thanks so much." We went on to talk about a few more things and ways she can help her daughter at home and then she left. We haven't even given these families the gifts yet and they are so thankful.

*My kids love to sing more than any kids I've ever met. I was frustrated with my smartboard at the end of the day on Thursday, because I was trying to pull up a game and it wasn't working. I asked my students to sit quietly for just a second while I tried to fix it. One student started to sing a song I had taught them earlier that day. Then another joined. Before I knew it, my whole class was singing together. :) So sweet.

*We have been working on rhyming since the beginning of the year. Some kids picked it up really quickly...while others were a little slow to catch on. Me-"Let's try to think of a word that rhymes with 'black'." Student-"People". lol A few weeks later that student started to catch on. At any point in the day, if I would say a word, he would find a word that rhymes with it...During math time-"Mrs.-One rhymes with ton....right?!" "Recess...becess. That rhymes right?!" haha It is constant now. But at least he gets it, right?!

*I have been shocked at how VERY few of my students know nursery rhymes. I have started to teach one every few days. I hear them at centers practicing them with each other. Their favorite is "Hickory Dickory Dock".

*Usually all of the Kindergarten classes have recess together, but on Wednesdays, our schedule is different so we go to recess before lunch, alone. It is my favorite day of recess-because for one, there are less kids, so my kids get a chance to play on the equipment. But I also love to watch my class play together. They have become very good friends. This week was so funny. ALL of the girls were on the swings and playing "house" under the jungle gym. No one is left out...if someone is playing alone, my kids run up to that student and invite them to play. I love it....but the hilarious thing was the boys. They had organized a game of "Duck, Duck, Goose". Then they started to play robots and monsters. I just loved the way my students are so inclusive and such good friends. It was very fun to watch.

*Another highlight of the week was on Tuesday afternoon. I signed up for the "Junior Achievement" program, where a business person comes into your classroom once a week for 30 minutes to teach a lesson on money, healthy foods, etc. It was the final week of the program, so my person brought awards for each kid to have a little "Graduation". I had them sit on the carpet, and she called them up one by one to get their award. We clapped for each kid, and they were so proud. One student in particular was SO proud of each student. She was so funny as she was clapping and cheering for each kid. When it was her turn, the look of pride in her face was so sweet.

*One of my quietest students came up to me during math centers and mumbled to me: "Mrs...I think you look real nice today." And then walked back to his center. ha

*I had my principal almost in tears when I told her these funny quotes from Wednesday. I was wearing black tights under a skirt..."Mrs...now you have black legs like me! I LIKE it!" And another..."Mrs...you know who wears things like that on their legs? Superheroes. You kinda look like a superhero today!" When I got home and told my husband that, he thought I was making it up. I COULD NOT MAKE THIS STUFF UP! haha

*At the Med School my husband attends, there is a chance in the 3rd and 4th year that you will be sent to another city for clinicals. That city is our hometown. Not enough students signed up to go by choice, so they had a lottery to choose students to be sent. 20 students were going to be chosen. Although we have AMAZING friends and family there, and it would be nice to see them more often!!, I could not imagine leaving my school. I have the BEST principal, great teachers, I LOVE the kids, and I love how dedicated the teachers are to these students--we have walking clubs, running clubs, Science Nights, Reading nights, carnivals, cooking clubs, craft clubs, etc. all run and organized by the teachers. We love our Bible study and our proximity to our jobs. It would be so hard to leave the life we have right now. The night before the list was going to be released, I told my husband I was at peace either way. There were great benefits to both sides. And the truth is that we can not cling to what we have--not to the people in our lives, to the things, jobs, home, etc. that we have. I am positive that the Lord brought us here, so we had to trust that He would bring us to exactly where we're supposed to be. Well...we get to stay. No one in our Bible Study was sent, so we are very excited and thankful. It would have been nice to be around the WONDERFUL people down there, but for now, we really feel called to be here.

*For many reasons, I have never really enjoyed the Christmas season very much. But for some reason, being married has really changed all of that. I have had so much fun setting up our tree, buying/wrapping gifts for the students and for our families, and picking out things for my husband. I have Christmas music playing all the time, and tomorrow am going to buy all of the supplies to start making cookies/chocolate covered everything, etc. Of course, I am going to take them to school for the kids so that we don't eat them all. :) I feel very joyful and thankful this winter.

*I had a Smartboard (AMAZING technology-like a huge computer screen that you can touch/write on/interact with...great for games, etc.) installed in my classroom in August...but the projector needed to be lowered so that it would hit the screen. We were not allowed to fix it ourselves and had to wait on the district to come out and fix it. My connection for my elmo (camera projector) was in the back of my classroom and the screen was at the front. I had been running back and forth to project things for the kids to see and to point to what we were doing. My screen didn't have a "catch" so it was tied to a chair to hold it down...needless to say, my classroom looked kind of "ghetto". I didn't care, because I was just thankful to have the technology. Well-Monday, the men came to lower the projector. I was SO excited. They were drilling while my kids were at Centers. We jumped everytime the drill started. But I didn't care-I couldn't wait to use the Smartboard. I found out later that afternoon that I STILL couldn't use it, because the connection for the computer was both at the front of the room and the back of the room and there wasn't a cord long enough to connect them. Finally another technology person came on Wednesday and told me I could pull the cord to the front of the room myself. My kids were at Library class for 30 minutes. I told her I wanted to do it then to make sure it worked, while she was there. SO....I got a ladder, and pulled apart my ceiling...tile by tile...and pulled the cord to the front of the room. I moved tables, dust from the ceiling was all over the floor and me--but I finally got it out. Put the ceiling back, pulled the cord down. I won't go in to how we then got new teacher lap tops and I had to re-install everything and then it wasn't compatible with my board, etc. ...All I care about is that NOW I have a working Smart Board. The kids are SO excited. We have used it several times and they keep saying it's like "magic". I have been working like crazy finding fun games/etc. to reinforce skills. ha. What a week it has been trying to get it to work.

*My blog posts are getting longer and longer. Sometimes I think it's good just to type it out and reflect on my week. Some days feel crazy and exhausting, others I am smiling all day long. I am always praying that I can keep my eyes open for needs/issues that need to get dealt with...or just kids that need a little extra attention some days. There is so much that has happened/is happening in these kids' lives and they're only 5 years old. It really breaks my heart.

*Warning: Kind of sappy....I was running this morning on my treadmill, listening to Pandora and a song came on: "Who I am Hates Who I Was...by Reliant K. It got me to thinking about who I used to be in High School and College-the stupidity that I let define me, the relationships I messed up, and some of the very stupid things I cared so much about...I have changed so much in the last 5 months-these 20 kids really have changed me. I feel like I am living for a purpose and that the Lord is using me everyday. Working with these kids is slowly healing my heart and pulling me closer to Christ. Their natural SWEET instincts and innocent comments are helping me to realize why Christ called us to have faith like a child...

*I put some extra food in the "Backsnack" backpacks this week for my kids who take them home...The kids are always so excited to look inside to see what is in there for the weekend...One came up and whispered to me while the other kids were getting their things ready to go home on Friday-"Mrs...is this from you!? I LOVE it!"

:)