Life Lessons from a Fifth Grade Boy

Theme: This is the topic that we have be focusing on during reading the past couple days.
What is the moral of the story?
What does this story teach us?
What is the life lesson the story tells us?

Today I read the story Sleeping Ugly. Think princess, fairy, evil sleeping spell, and a prince's kiss as the wake up call. Your typical fairy tale with a fun twist. Well after I read the story the students were supposed to respond in their RRJ (reading response journal) about what the theme of the story could be.


Here are a few examples:
"It's what is on the inside that counts."
"Don't judge a book by its cover."

But my personal favorite...
"Don't marry someone, if you don't know their name."

While this is a very true and wise statement, I don't think this was a main and hard core theme of the story. But yet, I can some how see his wisdom through the comment. Very wise.

Playground Bliss

When I was a young tot my favorite thing to play on was the see-saw (do you remember those!?!) and the swings. I remember having to always be the second person to get on the see-saw because I was a quite chunky child and no one could push it down themselves to get me up to get on... so I had to always get on second and push the first child up into the air and then get on...

But I also LOVED the swings. I would run to the swings and jump on them (stomach down) and pretend I was flying like superman. My sister and I used to chant " Wakka Wakka Wakka Fozzie Bear" when we would swing. Why? I have no idea what so ever...

Today my students went out to recess later then the rest of the 5th graders and they had the playground all to themselves. My kids know I LOVE the swings so they saved me one and let me swing. YAY!!!

Today, as I swung and watched my children, I was overcome with an overwhelming sense of happiness and peace. I loved watching my kids play with each other. They played tag and swung with me. Some stood around a chatted. Then toward the end of recess my class play cheese tag (will explain in an upcoming blog), boys vs. girls. It was so fun watching them. I loved seeing how they were getting along. I have told them since the beginning of the year that we, all 25 (including the teachers), are a family.

Today we felt like a family. I am so blessed to have this class in my life.

This Year: Last Year

I had two visitors in my room today. One was there to talk to me about reading workshop and the other was the guidance counselor. They both made mention as to how different my class this year is from my class last year.

Now don't get me wrong when I say this, but this class I have this year is just not like my kids from last year.

In true teacher style I would love to do a Venn Diagram to show you... but I am not sure how to get one in my blog, so I will just list the differences (the major ones at least)

Key: this year : last year

sweet: fun
quiet: voictrous
subdue: energetic
hard working: hard playing
friendly: social
loving: nurturing
creative: creators

As I said to the counselor today, my class last year fit MY personality. I guess God wants these current students to have me so I can break them from their shells. Here's to trying!!!