Some stories that make my job all worth it.

Mr. H reminds me of Mr. T last year. He is a ball of energy and he always has a lot to say. Plus he has a mischievous look on his face and flaming red hair. So, naturally I love the kid. He is however, a toned down version and doesn't cause me near as much grief as T did last year. But, he still makes me laugh quite often. Just today he came up to me in the morning and asked, "Miss Collett do you ever have bad dreams, because I had one last night. I had a dream that I wrote my story on the wrong paper and so I had to re-write the whole thing again and my hand was hurting. It was a very bad dream." Ahh, the things 3rd graders stress over. It made me laugh a lot though. He was dead serious and he had such a funny expression on his face as he told me about his dream.

The other day I had a girl in my class ask me if I was a "tom boy or a girlie girl." I laughed and asked her what she thought. She responded with quite a surety, "a tom boy, because you like to be outdoors and you like sports." I think she knows me pretty well. :)

It made me so happy the other day when a student in my class came up to me and said, "Miss Collett, I used the word "stunned" in my story, because oh it was just the perfect word." Haha. To give you some background I put up vocabulary words on my whiteboard that come from the book I am reading to the class. I encourage them to use those words in their writing and to also look for the words when they read. He was so excited about it and I was so proud.

There is a girl in my class who struggles in math quite a bit, but sometimes it is hard for me to know, because she doesn't ask for help. Well I talked to her about it at parent/teacher conferences and she told me she would ask me more questions when she was confused. Well the other day she did asked me a question and I helped her. I didn't think anything of it, but then about 5 minutes later she came up to me and said, "You are right Miss Collett, it is really helpful to ask questions. It is so much easier." I was glad that she felt comfortable to ask me a question and I thought it was funny she wanted to tell me about it. I must be doing something right.

And finally, it is not just the kids that keep me smiling throughout the day. Now, you can't judge me for this, because it was a mixture of things. I was tired, when I am not suppose to laugh something inside of me can't stop, when others laugh I laugh, and when things are too cheesy I think they are funny. At our school we have a "anti-bully" program and my assistant principal sent us a link to a video we needed to show our students. I really had no idea what it was about. But I put it up on the projector for the students to watch. It ended up being a slide show of pictures and short video clips of people with disabilities along with a song "Don't Laugh at Me". I know it sounds awful, but about half way through the song I looked over at my amazing aid, Britteni and she had turned toward the wall because she was laughing and didn't want the kids to see. So, as soon as I saw her I couldn't stop myself from laughing either. I had been trying so hard to keep it in, but after I saw her it was over. Am I a terrible teacher or what!? But after the kids were all asking us why we were laughing and so I told them Britteni had told a funny joke. I think they bought it. I am evil.


Well life is moving right along!