Favorite Photo Friday

Have I mentioned before that I was a second grade teacher? I taught for 10 years. I LOVED IT! I considered teaching my ministry, so I put my whole heart into it. I taught my first 7 years in a "low" performing district. I had no parent volunteers, and worked my booty off teaching the kiddos. It was the most exhausting job, but I loved it.

My last 3 years were spent in a "high" performing district. What a difference. I had more parents than I could handle that wanted to be involved. I really didn't know what to do with them because I was so used to doing it on my own. I soon learned the awesome value of a parent volunteer.

I worked very hard teaching the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS), but had a blast with some of the special events. This first picture is how we celebrated Halloween. Instead of dressing in Halloween costumes, we dressed as story book characters and had a Story Book Parade. I prepared "cookies" for the kids who did not come to school in a costume. Have you read the book If You Give a Mouse a Cookie? Well, I was the mouse and the kids were my cookies.

Every year we dressed as Pilgrims and Indians for our Thanksgiving Feast.

For Christmas, we had a Polar Express Party. I was doing this WAY before the movie came out. We read the story, I gave them all a silver bell, we drank hot cocoa and wore our jammies.

I put together an awesome Arthur Unit. We studied Marc Brown and his Arthur & DW books. Did you know that Marc Brown puts his children's names in all of his books? Look for the names Tucker, Eliza and Tolon. You'll see them everywhere. We had all kinds of literature activities that went with the books, and then we celebrated the last day with an Arthur Campout! We set up tents, made s'mores, rope tying, flashlight reading in tents, making bracelets....Then at the very end of the day, we wrote a postcard home. This is where my parent volunteers were a HUGE help.

I loved teaching, but I love being home with Spicy Girl more than anything. I appreciate that I get to teach Pre-K two days a week now. That's about all I can handle. But who knows, maybe one day, I'll go back.....maybe.