Cheered up

I was a little grumpy when I wrote my last post.  What followed was a day of being cheered up.  Children will do that to you.

Several of my girls hugged me when I opened the door yesterday morning.  I was happy to see all of them too.  We missed each other.

One student's mother had made a hat for Sam.  He is our sloth light that flashes through different colors and we "breathe with Sam" sometimes when we need to calm down after recess.

And now Sam has a candy corn hat.  He seems happy about it.

 A few weeks ago we read about voting.  The story we read talked about how a lot of people don't vote and why it was important to vote.  I tried to convince them and I could tell that some of them weren't convinced.  I got my ballot in the mail and I took it to school to show them.

They were so excited.  "Open it!" they said.

I put it under the document camera and I showed them the two choices I had for school board.  I told them how the school board impacts our school.  Then I showed them my choices for mayor and city council.  One of the mayoral candidates is a woman and some of the girls were simultaneously shocked and pleased by that. 

They were thrilled by the entire thing.  They wanted to know who I am voting for.  I wouldn't tell them anyway, but I told them that I was going to read about the candidates and see who I agreed with the most.  I loved seeing their excitement.  They wondered what else was in the envelope and I showed them the envelope I can use to either mail it or drop it off.  They wanted to hear all about the process.

Shortly before lunch, one of my girls came up to me in something of a panic.  "I think I left my glasses in computer class because they are not on my face!"  I loved her deductive reasoning.  Not on my face = somewhere else.  I told her she could go and check.

The computer teacher is the most laid back teacher at the school, but my girl came back and timidly said, "There was a class in there and I didn't want to interrupt."  I told her that I would go get her glasses after I dropped them off at lunch.  

When I went to the computer room, I saw that the class she didn't want to interrupt were 6th graders.  Then I understood why she was intimidated.  I used to teach some of them and they still seem like little kids to me, but to a third grader, sixth graders are scary.

When my class got back from lunch, my student threw her arms around my waist when she saw her glasses sitting on her desk.

We are increasingly like a family.  It is maybe my favorite thing about teaching.  I'm grumpy sometimes and they're naughty sometimes, but Sam got a new hat and I waded into a scary class of 6th graders for lost glasses.

We love each other.

Speaking of love, the Ivies, friends in our ward, stopped by with a beautiful bouquet of flowers and a card for me.  They are thinking of me and praying for me this week.

It's hard to not be cheered up.