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School here starts later than other schools. When it comes time for school to start, I always like to think of the end of school... That's just natural. Well, I still do that. So, I was thinking of the times when we used to have the End-of-the-Year Assemblies. That didn't work out very well because the kids would get restless unless it was their class' turn to get the awards. Toward the end, we decided to have the principal come to each room and hand out the awards in the classroom. You know the usual awards: Perfect Attendance, Most Improved in Reading, Math Citizenship,etc., etc.
Since the principal would be coming into my class, I would make up some awards, so that all of the kids would get one. Some of them got two or three. I loved the made-up ones because they were kind of silly. The kids didn't know that, but the principal did. I had a list of old songs... Each year I would give them the Shel Award, or the Captain Underpants Award, or Whatever I was calling the general award that year... It was always book-related because I wanted them to be reminded about the importance of reading.
But the individual awards were always songs. Kids love songs... even ones they don't know. For instance I would give the "Important Words" award to the kid that always argued, even though he knew he was wrong. You always have more than one of these kids, so I gave the other one the "My Way" award; "Sugar,Sugar" or "Lollipop" was for the sweet little one who was so shy. It seemed to me that the titles that would mean something to them were older songs, so they really didn't know a lot of them. I would find them and make a CD of the songs so they would know that they were real. I usually played them after they got them, so they could pick out "their" song. I used to do it before, so they could guess which one they would get, but I found they forgot the songs that way, so I changed it to after they got them.
In the last week of school, we always had "Prime Time." This was a day when they brought their sleeping bag and a huge number of books and a lot of snacks. It was a day when they spread out on the floor and read the entire day. They took off their shoes and were disappointed when they learned they couldn't make tents with their blankets, but they did love the day! I got to read all day, too.
Well, enough of the end of school... Many of the kids are in the first days now... Excitement of learning the ways of a new teacher, of new rules, of new friends, of finding kids who had just moved to the neighborhood, brand new supplies, new seatings, new everything!!
I had written an article about how horrible the last few days have been, but this was better. Perhaps I do miss teaching....
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