Bright Shadows of First Grade

I just got an e-mail from a parent inviting me to a reunion of graduating high school students to the grade school where I taught first grade in Illinois.  Both of the parents organizing this reunion are parents of children I had in first grade.  I can just picture those beautiful children.  One of the mothers told me that her daughter is in college studying to be a history teacher and that her son will enter college, planning a career in aeronautical engineering.

She also mentioned that her son still had the silhouette I cut out for him in first grade and that it's hanging in his bedroom.  I love it!

It was a tradition for me every school year to cut out silhouettes of each student during the first week of school as we were getting to know each other.  I taught them how to write their names correctly with upper and lower case letters and glued them below their silhouettes.  I then laminated their picture.  The next project was for each child to tell me in one sentence something special about themselves.  I  wrote it out and had them copy it in their own handwriting.  I then cut the clue out, taped it over their names and hung the silhouettes around my classroom.  I LOVED seeing their expressions when they walked into the room and saw their silhouettes for the first time.  The children then had to guess who each friend was by looking at the silhouettes and hearing the clues.

At the fall Open House, parents always loved looking for their child's silhouette and seeing what clue their child gave.  Cutting out the silhouettes was a time consuming, exhausting job, but it was worth it to see the joy it brought the class.  And I loved seeing the way parents carefully took down their child's silhouette to bring home.

This project always started the year on such a high note.  Sigh...
An aeronautical engineer, a teacher...  Wow!  I'm so happy!

Teaching Again

While our daughter, Tif and her husband, Ed were staying in Waikiki alone for a couple of days we got to babysit our granddaughter, KC.  Tif asked me to work with her on word families and brought some paint chip cards that she'd (ummmm...) collected from several hardware stores.  Good thing there's a lot of hardware stores in Illinois.

The paint sample cards already have a nice little square punched out in them from which you can see the beginning consonants or consonant blends and digraphs.  I dug out my 1st grade lesson plans and pulled out appropriate word families.

At first, KC enjoyed sounding out words that I created for her by sliding down the paint chip word family on each beginning sound.  Then she said she wanted to do it on her own, which she did.  She had the most fun creating her own nonsense words.  Why stick to box, fox, pox when you could have mox, zox or gox? 

We then worked on handwriting.  Tiffany told me that handwriting is no longer in the public school curriculum.  What?  Yes... yes, I know the kids need to learn to keyboard.  But are they never going to need to write properly?  What the heck?  So she asked me to work on handwriting also.

Let's see, I used to work on handwriting for half the year when I was teaching.  Could I do it in 1 week? 

Sigh... I suppose not.

Not to worry, we'll be visiting them for a month in fall.


Just kidding.  Please don't worry about us pushing her.  KC has a very strong personality and she comes by it naturally.  If she doesn't want to do something, she won't do it.  I can't even get her to taste a 1/8" slice of lychee.

KC is definitely ready for kindergarten and I'm remembering the joy of opening windows for young minds who are eager to understand their ever expanding world.

Michael's Christmas Gift

This teddy bear reminds me of a beautiful student I had some 18 years ago. He came from a family consisting of 4 brothers and sister with a mom addicted to drugs and no father. Life was not easy for a child growing up among gangs and drugs. He came to first grade not knowing all his alphabet and missed the first few weeks of school. However, there was a spark in Michael that was just waiting to be tended into fire. Bright and eager, at the end of the year, he was reading at grade level and loving school.

During the holidays when so many children bring gifts for the teacher, I usually hide them so that children who are unable to afford them cannot see that other students have brought colorful packages with such pride and happiness.

On the final morning before winter break, Michael came in and handed me a bundle that was wrapped and taped awkwardly, parts of the surprise gift showing. He handed it to me with a look of such nervous expectancy that during recess, I called him in and opened it with him. It was this teddy bear. I was astounded. He had given me his only teddy bear. I gave him a hug and told him I would always keep it and think of him whenever I look at it. And I have. I think of Michael whenever I look at it. During the holiday break I stopped by his house and gave him a special bear from me so he would have it to remember me.

Unfortunately, the years were not kind to Michael. I would stop by and check on him and ask him about his work. I tutored him when I could but he gradually lost the marvelous footing he had gained in 1st grade. I felt helpless.

When I look at his teddy bear on my shelf I see his beautiful face, his brown trusting eyes and sweet voice. I ask myself, could I have done more? I'm afraid of the answer.