Best Last Day EVER!

Wow!!  What a week.  It was a week that ended up with the teacher passing out at 5:00pm and not waking up until 9:00am.  But it was worth it.

a short recap of our week.

Monday:  We finished our reading portfolios, did Literacy Place Studies.  Basically I let the kids pick which story, that we hadn't read yet, that they wanted to focus on for the week.  On Monday they had to look up the vocabulary words, write sentences, and draw a picture.  I used a modified Fryer diagram for this. (I did this with both the 2nd and 3rd graders)

Tuesday: Students read their stories, then answered the comprehension quetions at the end of the story.  Then we did some centers!

Wednesday: Students had to create a poster for the story they read with their partner.  The poster had to have the setting, main character, and a book review on it.  Then we did centers for the last time :(

Thursday:  Students presented their posters...THEN WE CLEANED!!!  My 3rd graders were AWESOME  they left very little for me to do.  THe 2nd graders only had to clean out the books in their bins and then I had them clean them out with cleaning spray and a paper towel.

The 3rd graders also got their end of year gift from me.  Since I loop with my homeroom for 2 years I only do this every other year.  Every kid in the class has to write a compliment to everyone in the class. We did this last week, the only rules were that they had to keep them a secret.

Then I typed them up creating each student a poster that looked like this.

On the back was a class picture and an end of the year teacher poem.  I then laminated them.  I present them by reading off each students compliments.  Let me tell you it was amazing!!  The kids were ALL smiling and laughing and I had many parents e-mail me and tell me how much their kids loved it.  the secret....this is an old cheerleading thing that I have done with my teams like every year I coached.

FRIDAY:  Wow what an exhausting day!  We played outside all morning!  I have to thank my good friends across the hall for letting us crash inviting us to join in on their Fun in the Sun Morning.  When you hear one of your quietest students scream with glee "BUBBLES!?!?"  you know you did a good job planning.  Then we did our end of the year awards.  It was so great to see all the kids proud of their friends for their accomplishemtns.  Then we had KONA ICE!!!  Shaved ice is so much better than snow cones.  Then I achieved the impossible.  I had a quiet class for the last half hour watching a movie.  I think a lot fell asleep. lol I know one of my teacher friends said her son fell asleep in the car on the way home:)  Then it was time to say good bye.  I almost cried like 28 times, was asked to go to 4th grade at least 10, and hugged a million.

Let me  tell you something.

Test scores don't prove if you are a successful teacher or not.....

seeing something like this on the last day of school is what lets me know I did my job.

I did not ask them to do this.....they wanted to have one group hug since it was their last time together.  Sorry its blurry but I couldn't show their faces.  

I'm so sad to say good bye to this awesome class.  They were my babies for 2 years.  My friend who is the resource teachers swears I will love my 2nd graders next year just as much....but I doubt it ;)