The end is in sight. Not that I am desperately awaiting its arrival, but I can't help but realize that the school year is winding down. I have now handed in my last month planning and we are in the middle of our last unit both in third and fourth grades. It's a longer unit, since it covers the last 6 weeks of the school year instead of the normal 4-week units. And I decided to take advantage of everything that the kids are supposed to learn and make them into 2 units about Christmas around the world. Fourth grade's focus is food and third grade's focus is...well, varied. It includes meeting people, having sensory experiences, etc... We're doing a lot of craft-type projects, which the kids love. And when the kids love what they're doing, they behave better. Which makes me happier too. The rule of thumb that applies to moms also applies to teachers, I think. "When the teacher ain't happy, ain't nobody happy". So far at least, I think we'll end the year on a good note in both classes.
I'm teaching all my students a song that I learned as a child from a tape of Scripture verses in song that we had. It comes from Luke 2:11, 12: "Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign to you: you will find the baby wrapped in cloth and lying in a manger." The kids seem to be enjoying it. We've talked about what the words mean, but I really want to get to what the heart of the verse means as well. Jesus the Savior was born for us. He was born humbly. He was born as the promised one sent from God for us. I was very excited the other week when I introduced the verse to my fourth graders. I was telling them that this was the last verse and the last unit for the year. Ronaldo burst out "Awwwww.....this is the last verse?" He's always the first one to wonder when we're going to change the verse (which we do every month), so I've always thought that he didn't really enjoy them. But the disappointment in his voice and the fact that, when I asked him, he told me he wanted more verses, told me otherwise. It was good encouragement to keep going.
And then last week the first graders did a chapel for the whole school based on the armor of God. Over the summer, we worked for several months learning that passage in fourth grade. Since it was so long, we put motions to it and everything. So I decided to do a little review with them after chapel. We went through the entire verse and most of the kids seemed to remember it well. I was very impressed.
This past week we studied Sweden. Fourth grade made St. Lucia buns and third grade made a St. Lucia crown of candles out of paper plates and construction paper. I'll have to put pictures on here. There are definite maturity differences between the two classes (beyond just the fact that one is third grade and the other is fourth). Fourth grade has a much longer attention span, so they caught a lot more of what I was telling them. Next up is Mexico. Should be interesting.
It's been a good last few weeks. Yes, they've had their challenges, but things have been going much better lately than they were during the summer. I'm learning a lot. Teaching is definitely a very complex and delicate process. And it all seems to happen at 80 miles an hour.
5 weeks left. 5 busy weeks. 5 short weeks. 5 weeks of teaching and learning. It's hard to believe. The year has gone so fast. I can definitely feel God's help in so many ways. And yes, I can most DEFINITELY feel the prayers of so many people. Thank you! Here's to the final weeks of the school year.
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