Stayin' Alive in K5

At the beginning of the school year, my Computer Teaching days terrified me. It was my Teacher's Aid days that I looked forward to. I was assigned to assist our 2 Kindergarten & 2 First Grade classrooms. How hard could it be?

As the year went on, however, I found out it could be plenty hard. And plenty rewarding.

Many of the tasks I was given might seem a little mundane and some days they felt it. I mean, there are only so many times you can listen to a beginning reader take a turn at "A New Hat" before you want to reach across the room and shake the short "a" vowel sound right out of him.

The phonics & math assessments I did for each child became a bit redundant too. Child after child would come to a table in the hallway and I would ask them to identify a a series of letters and their sounds. Then they were told to circle the lowercase letters. They would spend minutes and minutes making their own special design around each and every letter before I would finally snap and say "JUST CIRCLE THEM FOR THE LOVE OF HUMANITY AND BE DONE WITH IT ALREADY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Or maybe I just said, "that's enough sweetie. You did a great job!" (If I did say that, I was totally thinking the other thing.)

And then there were the art projects. I will never forget (or forgive) Mrs. Wahlman greeting me one morning in the hall with 4 bottles of paint, a bucket of water and a long sheet of paper. "Oh, you're going to have so much fun today Mrs. Wood! You get to make a footprint poster with all the children!!!" Paint. Water. 18 sets of 5 year old feet. What part of that sounds like fun to you?

I came to cherish the days where all that awaited me was filing phonics papers and a trip to the laminator, but those days were few and far between. Usually, I was the go-to gal for supervising class potty breaks and recess when it was 40 degrees outside. I also got to handle snack a few times and taught them my favorite phrase "You get what you get and you don't pitch a fit." I had to laugh when I heard one kid shout it at his classmates last week when they whined about the graham cracker selection.

So, after all of this, I watched our kindergarten students graduate this past Monday. And do you know what I did?

I cried.

Because despite every miserably cold recess. Despite every painful reading group. Despite every whine, every disobedience, every painted foot...... I loved them. Loved each and every one of them, more than I even realized until they were gone.

I got to watch 36 kids learn how to read and add and tie their shoes right before my very eyes. I got to watch some come out of their shell and some learn self-control. I developed serious crushes on a few and serious admiration for their parents.

At graduation, each child was asked to walk to the microphone and tell what they wanted to be when they grow up. These 2 classes that have been both completely adorable and completely frustrating came up with some of the most mind-blowing answers I've ever heard. We got the standard answers; policeman, nurse, horse rider, army man & firefighter. But we also got FBI agent, fashion model & priest.
But the kicker for me was a little boy named William. He was the most precocious kid in K5, probably the most precocious in the whole school. He'd pulled his fair share of stars over the year. So nobody was expecting his answer.

When asked what he wants to be, without a moments hesitation he said it loud and clear.

"A Man of God."

I love my job.

Me & Mrs. Tobin's K5 Class:

Me & Mrs. Wahlman's K5 class: