Last week of school

I have this many jackets that no one will claim in my classroom.

I sent an email to parents with the picture and said that if they weren't claimed by the last day of school, I was donating them.

Two parents immediately responded.  Amazing how much more invested you are when you bought the jackets.

We played math games.  I had candy to throw at them when they got Bingo in Multiplication Bingo.  I am terrible at throwing, but no one lost an eye or anything.  They loved Multiplication Bingo (and the candy).

I have more boys than girls, but I still divided them up boys vs. girls for Jeopardy.  I didn't think the boys would mind, but they did.

They whined and whined that there were more girls than boys, so it wasn't fair.  A few minutes later, I said something about the boys' team and one of them said, "We aren't boys, we're men."

Hmph.  Then stop whining, I thought.

The girls ended up winning, but not by too much.  

We made thank you notes for Mr. Dawson and Janelle had a bag and fabric markers and she had the third graders sign the bag.  My hardest behavior child was messing with someone else's thank you note and I told him not to.  So that made him mad and he refused to sign the bag.  Every day he is randomly defiant about things that don't impact me.  I don't know.

A lot of them have saved pennies and they are shocked that I won't bring back the Skittle Machine after they emptied it and tried to break it when I was gone.  They say, "But I have a penny."

Yesterday we had our reading party for students who brought back their reading calendars, reporting they had read at home.  For the past two weeks, I've been reminding them every day that they could have their parents email me or send a note if they lost their calendars.  I emailed the parents saying the same thing.

I had a student tell me he did read every day, he just forgot to ask his mom for a note.

I said, "Then you can't go to the reading party."

Another one said, "I read, just, my dad works, so I don't have the note."

I said, "Then you can't go to the reading party."

They both acted extremely put upon by that turn of events.

Sometimes I look around and feel sad that it is coming to an end.  I love these kids and I will miss them.  Other times the last week of school feels like the plane has landed after a very long flight and you are sitting in the back of the plane.  You just want to get off the plane, but you know you still have a little longer.