Friday, March 20, 2009

Slices times three...slice of life

First off...the run. Over. Glad it's out of the way and my body is too. My lower half of my body aches today. Oh well...sleep will be great (if I get any - my small group girls are having another sleepover at my place).

One thing that I enjoy most about my teaching is the little conversations that occur throughout the day with my students. For example, we are reading The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo. My students can name the authors we've studied and are tuned into them...looking for them wherever we go. They wanted to know if she'd be in the book fair and where we'd find her books. One boy brought me today Roscuro's heart. It was a mini eraser neon-striped heart. I asked why it was his heart. He showed me that the heart had been broken and could be put back together incorrectly just like Roscuro. Wow...deep thinker. Had to hug him for that one.

Two...one of my boys apologizes allllllllllllll the time. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Today, I said, "Stop saying sorry." Yep, you know what happens next. "Sorry that I say sorry." Ugh! Heard that two more times.

Third...I noticed that as my students came into the classroom from recess, one of the girls looked different. Her shirt had become a bathing suit. She had the cutest pink flowered shirt with pink plush pants. Her shirt was actually a body suit and amazingly enough during recess, it become unbuttoned, so she rebuttoned it. Outside the pants instead of inside. After I chuckled, I decided to save her dignity (okay, I really did just want to leave it alone because it was really funny). Explaining that it goes inside the pants buttoned, she went into the bathroom and fixed it.

I am thankful for this slice of life challenge simply because it forces me to look more through my day for what is really sticking out. And six of my students are joining me for half the month and we had a writer's luncheon today. They shared with me how they were going to try and make their slices strong this weekend and how they decided on what they wrote. It's been pretty neat. I can see growth in all of my students and the way they refer to their writing...love our workshops!

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