Time ticks away...the last weeks...

It seems as if last week was long ago when I write this on a Monday morning.  It was somehow calmer last week-perhaps, because the weather wasn't all that good.  We began the week with the third session of Mindfulness and although I still had a couple of who have difficulty settling down, it went well.  I honestly think these sessions are most helpful to the teacher.  I consciously told my class a couple of times that it was time to use STOP-Stop, take a breath, observe, and proceed.  I may have to do this a great deal the next few days.



The class put on the last lemonade sale-running out of freezies so profits weren't as great but $124 is still rather good for a day's work!  All in all my class made over 1800 dollars for various charities and foundations this year!  I think that is kind of incredible!  This afternoon they get to give cheques to Sharon from Room to Read and Luella from Compassionate Eye.  One secret to success I have learned is let the kids do the planning and basically stay out of the process as much as possible so that it is their project not yours.

Big excitement this week was that the Grade Sevens got to plan (with the help of our wonderful PE teacher) and run the Sports Day stations.  This was new for our school and I think all the teachers were very grateful!  Other than a couple of small problems it all went very well and the Grade Sevens had a great time as well!  My retiring principal and I got to (had to) lead the parade on to the field.  Our school really knows how to celebrate endings.  I think most kids love Sports Day far more than the teachers! Almost as soon as Sports Day ended we were all mainly all trying to get report cards written.

It was a strange feeling Friday as I put things together for this week, knowing there were many tasks I will never do again.  Usually this time of year, I am thinking how much better a job I am going to do next year, looking forward to that clean slate.  I can honestly say I feel as if I have made the right decision but it is still all a little strange.  What state will I be in September?  Well if I am lonely, I know that there is no end of volunteer work available right at my school!

This weekend I finished my last set of report cards and I can't say I will miss writing those.  And now it's on to the usual end of year tasks and preparing for the final real week of teaching.  I have a French unit to speed finish.  I want to at least touch on chemistry.  And there is one more math unit that we at least need to try to glance at.  And today I think it's the day that we are going to finally read on the roof!