Five for Friday...on Saturday!

I have wanted to link up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for quite some time. All week I told myself this Friday....This Friday. Friday came and I had the chance to spend the evening with the best husband in the whole wide world shopping for kitchen flooring, watching Rockford Files and just hanging out together. Just so you know the best husband in the whole wide world happens to be married to me, so I'm feeling quite lucky! Now I'm feeling a wee bit guilty sitting at my computer while he works to get the old flooring up and out!
Here are my five random things from the week...



1.On Monday I had to say goodbye to my oldest after she spent her spring break with us. She is one amazing girl. She is quirky, fun and talented. At this very moment she is visiting Wash-U in St. Louis. We were hoping she'd go to MSU  just a couple hours from home. She is loving everything about St. Louis and looks like she'll be there for her graduate studies. I have so many family connections to St. Louis. My mother studied at Wash-U and so it seems only fitting that her namesake should go there, too. I wish it were closer, but I lived in St. Louis and I will love visiting her there. This amazing girl made everything in this picture! She cooked vegetarian meals for us all week. She wanted something special for her "last dance", so she whipped up a dress for herself and had to put on over 50 grommets!

2. I'm so excited to be planning a trip north for Spring Break! My daughter will be 11 hours south and my son will be 11 hours north next year. Over Spring Break we'll be visiting his college of choice in the beautiful Houghton, Michigan.

3. I had a Parent Visit Day this week. On Friday I invited my parents to come and watch my Owlets perform Super Brush to the Rescue. After performing it on stage we did it one last time in the classroom. The video production catches a lot of the noise from pages being turned, but I LOVE that they are all following along with their scrip and pretty much ignore the new tooth that joins the mouth. I was laughing through the whole thing, so it is a little shaky!

4. Some of our parents stayed and enjoyed the cast party. We celebrated by watching the original Lorax movie and eating Truffala Trees...Yum! All you need are pretzel rods, sherbet and  Brown Barbaloots  Chocolate Teddy Grahams! 

5. Goodbye, Mr. Seamus G. Leprechaun. We loved your tricks and will miss you. Next time we'll catch you and find out where you keep your gold.

Seamus's last trick was to toilet paper the room. and leave green glitter everywhere!
The janitor loves me!!

Thanks for visiting! I hope you'll be wearing the green tomorrow and dancing a jig. On St. Patrick's Day we're all Irish!

A Blessing and a Truffala Tree

This was probably one of the longest weeks I've had in a long time.  I would like nothing better than to teach first grade all day.  It is my first love!  I am fortunate to have three part time teaching jobs.  If someone had told me in college that I would one day teach music and computer I probably would have dropped out or at least not gone into teaching.  Teaching middle schoolers anything was about as pleasant sounding to me as having wisdom teeth removed.  I  have high admiration for people who love to spend whole days with that age group!  I have grown to enjoy 7th and 8th grade quirkiness.  Having a 7th grader myself has given me a new perspective on this unusual group of people!

Thursday night was the final performance of our schools spring musical.  I directed it with the help of the wonderful teachers I work with.  K-8 puts on a show every two years.  This was my third musical.  It went very well.  I had planned an escape route in the event of a flop, but was instead happy and proud to receive flowers and cheers.  Any way...

Friday I walked into my classroom which should have been empty.  There, sitting in the room was a single student lost in a book.  It brought me to tears.  This is not a child who would normally be reading.  He had fallen in love with reading because of Dr. Seuss.  I was so moved that I had to attempt to capture the moment.  Taking a picture wouldn't have done it.  I've attempted to write a poem and thought not only of this child, but other children I have had the joy and privilege of working with over the years.  I hope that you enjoy my attempt at poetry!

Blessing

I got a special gift today it was not in a box,

It involved a special child and a book called Fox in Sox.

At the end of a long day, I walked through my classroom door,

And I must admit quite sheepishly I almost hit the floor.

His head was bent over a book; his eyes were on the page,

It may have been an easy one for a child of his age.

Some had given up on him, thrown their hands up in despair,

I think to do that to a child just really isn’t fair.

There’ve been days he’s been disruptive, and some when he’s been mad,

I try to meet his needs like no other teacher had.

He looks up from his book, and says that he is done,

He finally thinks that reading can be a lot of fun.

He’s carried many burdens, not had an easy life,

I pray that God has somehow helped me ease his strife.

I’ll always count him a blessing, when I think about this year,

I know that when he leaves my room, for him I’ll shed a tear.

 If you have made it through this far, thank you!  Now I have to show you my Truffala Trees!  We read the Lorax on Friday and made trees.  We started with a pastel M&M and then WOW a Truffala Tree just sprouted!  Well, the kids figured out pretty quick that it was really cookies and sherbet!  After their AWESOME performance at the school musical they deserved a treat!  I got the idea from snacksandstories.blogspot.com via my favorite search engine...Pintrest!!

The rainbow sherbet even smelled like a Truffala Tree!

The Brown Bar-ba-loots even showed up!

We made sure that the Oncler was no where around!

One student wanted to save the plate!  It does look pretty awesome!