Grateful Friday

 In college, no one told me that a big chunk of being a teacher would be meetings.  So many meetings.  Also, taping books.  At least 2-3 books make their way to my desk every day.  They get ripped and they need me to repair them. 

They also didn't cover some of the most delightful things either.

Like the children.

They are cute and tiny and come to school with enormous backpacks (that some of them call pack packs).  They give me a big smile in the morning and randomly hug me throughout the day.  Fourth graders sneak in my room at the end of our lunch recess.  They think they are hilarious and Big Kids since last year's fourth graders tried to do the same thing.

I love when they earnestly put their heads together to try to solve a math problem.

I love when they give me a look and say, "I don't get it."

I like that so much more than just quietly hoping I won't notice they don't get it.

In phonics we were learning about short vowel multisyllabic words.  They don't know the definition of some of the words so we discuss.  One word was shamrock.  I asked if they knew what a shamrock was.

One boy raised his hand and said, "It's the milkshakes you get at McDonald's to celebrate Pioneer Day."

Almost.

Another word was tropics.  That was a real puzzler.  No one had an idea.  Finally a girl ventured a guess that it was fruit, like watermelon.

Someone said, "Maybe it's like the Troppo Tourists in Nim's Island."  (I am reading Nim's Island to them, and yes, probably Troppo is a riff on tropical.)

I pulled out the globe and we had a whole demonstration of the equator and I showed them the tropics and I had a boy stand in the middle of the room and said he was the sun and I revolved the globe around him so they could see that the equator is always closest.  We made guesses about where Nim's island was located.

In the afternoon we read a story about Jacob Davis (no, he isn't related to me although my students were 100% convinced he was) creating the first blue jeans.  He invented rivets on pants.  In the story he bought fabric for the pants from Levi Strauss in San Francisco.  When he couldn't afford a patent, he teamed up with Levi Strauss to help pay for the patent and they worked together.

We investigated two boys' jeans who had rivets.  One boy's were Levis.  You can imagine the thrill.  I was wearing a Levi denim jacket and they studied me for rivets.  

Then an entire discussion involving patent law ensued.  They were fascinated and had so many questions! 

Turns out I don't know a lot about patent law, so I googled it.  I learned patents only last 20 years. I had no idea. 

I probably write this every Friday, but I'm grateful to be a teacher.  I love being there and learning along with them.

After school today we are going back to Starr Valley.  Some young men and young women from our ward are making the trip and we are going to go to the Elko temple tomorrow.  Because there aren't many temples around here....

I am grateful for my family enhancing the experience and making it work.

Marianne and Robert are hosting dinner for us tonight and the boys are staying at their house.  My dad is going to come over tomorrow morning before we go to Elko and give buggy rides.  Olivia got the temple appointments all arranged.

I am grateful for my village.  They are a good little village.