Dear Area 24 families,
It is the end of another year. It has absolutely flown by. While I am, of course, looking forward to the summer, I am also sad to say goodbye to this class. I have been very lucky to have worked with wonderful kids and great families every year since I started teaching - there has not been a group I didn’t enjoy. However, for some reason I have felt very attached to this class. I feel we built a very close-knit classroom community and had a lot of great moments together. They make me want to teach grade 2 so that I can keep them!
One of the best things about grade 1, as a teacher, is that there is such a noticeable progression between the beginning of the year and the end. Recently I’ve been looking back at their writing from September. Back then, we relied heavily on sentence starters and it took a whole writing period to write one sentence. Our writing was mostly in caps and was generally scrawled across the page. Now we have written our own stories complete with a beginning, middle, end, dialogue and character descriptions. We independently imagine and sound out what we want to say and can revise our own work based on teacher feedback. It blows my mind!
At the beginning of this school year, most of us were just learning what sound the letter A makes in French. Now, we are reading short stories, putting on crazy amazing plays, and even sometimes speaking in French at recess when there is no teacher listening!
I could go on, but I think you get the idea. I am very proud of what our students have accomplished this year and am honoured to have been a part of it. YOU have been a HUGE part of it. Thank you for involving yourselves in our classroom activities. From reading my blog, talking about school, going over rubrics and reports and helping your child set goals, to helping with at-home projects and practicing words of the week from the first week to the last, your involvement has positively affected how the children feel about school and how successful they have been this year. I know that you did all this while balancing busy family life. I only recently had to start scooting home at lunch and after school to take care of a puppy and I found that stressful! I want you to know that I do not take your work for granted.
I will miss these kids very much and look forward to catching up with them next year. They are always welcome to come visit and read a story to the new grade 1s. Please keep in touch!
This is not goodbye, I will see you this week!
Tamara
Tamara