On Friday afternoon, as the students were all pouring out of their classrooms and heading to buses, I stood in the hallway, attempting to wrangle my class into a line. As the older students walked past, one of them stopped and gave me a hug. This student, a special-needs kiddo, was in my class last year, and I hadn't really seen him yet during this school year.
He hugged me and then said, in a shining example of a double-edged compliment: "Mrs. Goertzen! You've...you've been taking a diet! You're belly isn't as fat as it was last year!"
Um...thanks? :)
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Frog Funeral
8/24/10
So our classroom has had two little aquatic frogs as our classroom pets - until today. Mister Hop died today, sometime during the school day. I realized it during the morning, but didn't say anything, just kind of moved their tank a little behind a flower vase, hoping the kids wouldn't notice. Which was, of course, not to be. So the kids realized it in the middle of the afternoon, and we all crowded around to see the dead frog. Anyhow, the ultimate outcome was that we had a frog funeral after school today. L and her two friends, M & B, planned the funeral during my staff meeting after school, and they were all ready to go when my meeting got out. They were longing to dissect it, but since it was only about 1 inch long, I ruled out dissecting. We rounded up a few plastic spoons to serve as dead frog transport as well as grave digging tools and headed outside. The girls decided on the "reading garden" beside our playground as his ultimate resting spot, and used the spoons to dig a hole. Then L read the eulogy she had written for him, which was truly one of the proudest moments I can remember in recent history. I asked her if I could borrow her writing journal so that I could copy it here:
"We stand here today to honor Mister Hop. He was a good frog. But sadly he has passed on without us. So we only got to know him for a short while before we bury this young frog. His pages have been turned and his story read so that we could fully understand him."
For a child who has never been to a funeral, I thought that was a pretty good eulogy!
So our classroom has had two little aquatic frogs as our classroom pets - until today. Mister Hop died today, sometime during the school day. I realized it during the morning, but didn't say anything, just kind of moved their tank a little behind a flower vase, hoping the kids wouldn't notice. Which was, of course, not to be. So the kids realized it in the middle of the afternoon, and we all crowded around to see the dead frog. Anyhow, the ultimate outcome was that we had a frog funeral after school today. L and her two friends, M & B, planned the funeral during my staff meeting after school, and they were all ready to go when my meeting got out. They were longing to dissect it, but since it was only about 1 inch long, I ruled out dissecting. We rounded up a few plastic spoons to serve as dead frog transport as well as grave digging tools and headed outside. The girls decided on the "reading garden" beside our playground as his ultimate resting spot, and used the spoons to dig a hole. Then L read the eulogy she had written for him, which was truly one of the proudest moments I can remember in recent history. I asked her if I could borrow her writing journal so that I could copy it here:
"We stand here today to honor Mister Hop. He was a good frog. But sadly he has passed on without us. So we only got to know him for a short while before we bury this young frog. His pages have been turned and his story read so that we could fully understand him."
For a child who has never been to a funeral, I thought that was a pretty good eulogy!
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| Laying Mister Hop to rest |
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| The mode of funeral transport |
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| L reading the eulogy |
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
First Day of School
Today was the first day of school, and in a cosmic collision of fates, it is the first day of 4th grade for BOTH L and I - in the same class! I had been compulsively thinking through all of the "what if" scenarios - "What if other kids tease her about it? What if she hangs onto me at recess instead of playing? What if I regret this in the first week and can't do anything to change it?" But I think that it is all going to be okay - everything today was so smooth and comfortable. I'm so excited to be part of L's school life for a year - to have the chance to impact this area of her life for this one school year!
Puppies
Oh, where to start?!
We are the proud owners of ELEVEN puppies, born about 1 1/2 weeks ago.
Muddy had eleven puppies during the night - 5 of them are weimaraner colored and 6 of them look like their black lab father. They are absolutely adorable!
L spends most of her free time cuddling puppies, now that Muddy is slightly more comfortable with allowing us to handle them. They are growing astonishingly quickly - they have doubled in size in 10 days! We had prepared Lauren from the very beginning for the fact that some of them probably wouldn't live - eleven is quite a few puppies for one young new mama to provide for. However, they are growing by leaps and bounds, so we are feeling cautiously optimistic about them all living.
We are the proud owners of ELEVEN puppies, born about 1 1/2 weeks ago.
Muddy had eleven puppies during the night - 5 of them are weimaraner colored and 6 of them look like their black lab father. They are absolutely adorable!
L spends most of her free time cuddling puppies, now that Muddy is slightly more comfortable with allowing us to handle them. They are growing astonishingly quickly - they have doubled in size in 10 days! We had prepared Lauren from the very beginning for the fact that some of them probably wouldn't live - eleven is quite a few puppies for one young new mama to provide for. However, they are growing by leaps and bounds, so we are feeling cautiously optimistic about them all living.
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