Tomorrow is the last day of school: the last day of my first year teaching fourth grade, the end of my first boomerang year at my current school. It was Field Day. I marked the occasion with my first run down the awesome slide, and had the student ahead of me in line get photographic evidence.
It's been a great year. Exhausting, but great.
We watched several episodes of Phinneas and Ferb this morning before Field Day and another half episode during the staggered dismissal. It seemed appropriate to watch a show about summer vacation on the second to last day of school. There was an interesting mix of kids who seem to have every episode memorized vs. kids who had never heard of the show.
Field Day was actually pretty similar to my memories from past years at this school, except that instead of moving as cross age school families, we moved through as class cohorts. Every station was set up outside this year, without the library game of Heads Up 7 Up, and without a crazy loud activity in the gym (games on scooter boards or inflatable obstacle courses). It was also shorter, with fewer stations and grade levels split to help maintain physical distancing. Thus the Phinneas and Ferb marathon in my room.
The kids seemed to have a great time, even the student who had a recent emergency appendectomy followed by another run to the emergency room. She was not allowed to run, and I had to remind her more than once to stop showing her excitement by jumping up and down. During the Balloon Smash (where kids run around trying to pop the balloons tied to the ankles of their classmates) she hung out on the play equipment with an activity book sent with her by her forward thinking mom.
When I asked what everyone's favorite station was at the end of the day, the enthusiastic replies tripped over one another. I believe a good time was had by all. During my drive home today I had high hopes of cleaning a bathroom, mopping the kitchen... but I came home and fell asleep on the couch for two hours.
Tomorrow is the last day of school. Cleaning up my classroom and closing it out for the summer was more emotional than I expected this year, even though there wasn't much to do. I have only been teaching in person since the end of January, and my new room used to be the middle school science lab. The science teacher is finishing clearing out the science equipment from the cupboards in my room this week. I'm already ready to check out, even though I haven't even handed out report cards yet. That has literally never happened to me.
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