hidden gems

These past two weeks have been different. This last week showed steady improvement and better air quality. The week before, however, was one of the hardest weeks I have ever experienced. Without all the grungy details here, suffice it to say that I felt defeated, deflated, disheartened, and discouraged. I was ready to be done with my job, constantly wondering why I thought I had the stuff in order to teach first grade. I wasn't any good at it, so why keep trying?

The kids showed me why. I started seeing hidden gems in my day, one of those being homework. A good laugh is healthy for the soul, especially my soul. Anyone that knows me knows that I love to laugh and do it more often than necessary. I haven't had a lot of good laughing here, so these gems gave me some good moments.

The Frozen phenomenon wasn't just in the good ol' US of A. Chinese kids, especially the girls, are obsessed with it! Angela is one such girl. Her homework, which was to write 5 sentences about yourself, reads: "I like Elsa. I from china. My birthday is on july ten. I like watching Frozen." What I love? Forget capitalizing the country she is from, but make sure Frozen gets the important stress.  

I don't know why Harry, who doesn't play with dolls, wrote "My bad doll has a small house." Um, okay!

Oh, Jerry. He is a good kid and is one of the few that has the guts to sound out a word before asking me. What a champ! I love this: "I play wife my studet. I am skeard to." 

This particular day for homework was to write about your first day of school. Dove, the tiniest first grader ever to exist, obviously thought that the first day of school wasn't too thrilling when she wrote "I sleep on the desk." They don't have nap time. 

This is Jerry again. Goodness, I just love this kid. He is a bit of a lone wolf and tries so hard. This assignment was to write 5 sentences about your best friend. He wrote: "My favorite friend is my furry blanket. I hug my furry blanket at night. There is a chicken on my furry blanket. It's blue all the around the blanket. The other side of the blanket is not furry." He drew that sweet picture of himself with his furry blanket. Not gonna lie, it brought a tear when I read that his favorite friend is a blanket. 

By far, this is the funniest of the bunch. The assignment was to write 6 sentences, one with each of the spelling words. The spelling words this past week were focusing on the digraph ck: rack, quack, tack, etc. YoYo's best sentence: "She has a great rack."

Sometimes you wonder if the students know something you don't. Tim wrote "You will get sacked by tomorrow morning." Well, I didn't get fired....

Another winner. "I tack Regis to the wall." Hum, this was written by Ben, whose best friend in class is Regis. 

These kids are showing me so many things and I am learning a lot. Most importantly, I am learning to love them. Teaching first grade is an experience, an event. It is not easy and by the end of the day I am properly knackered. But if I remember to look for these hidden gems, I think it will help me along.