It sure is quiet in here. I have Pandora music playing quietly and I'm sipping on an actual cup of hot coffee that hasn't been warmed up over and over. I'm enjoying the silence. The books are collected, the desks and lockers are cleaned out, and the mailboxes are packed with the last of the last. It's 3:59 and I'm looking at some empty desks and oddly enough, even though we still have two half days left and even though my 27 students have at times truly tested my patience, I almost miss them a little. Today was a day of true excitement...the day of cleaning. Everyone knows that day in school -- we used to have lug buckets and rags to school in order to scrub the 9 months of filth out of our desks. Cleaning day is always that day when you KNOW summer is coming and school is ending and ALLELUIA! Let's Celebrate! Today was that day in first grade. My kids were giddy and smiling, giggling and goofy. There were some that were sad, but then quickly remembered that summer means they can sleep in and watch cartoons and play games and not come to school and oh yes...no homework! The sadness doesn't last long. Teachers get excited, too. The end of one year always means a brief intermission and then the beginning of the next. It's the life cycle of school -- everything comes full circle on the last few days of school. It was a good year, kiddos. I hope you enjoyed it, I hope you learned something and I hope that some day when you look back on your first grade year, you remember that teacher...what was her name again? She was funny. She liked to read. She drank a lot of coffee. She loved us.
