Flowers and Sunrises: Bittersweet

Today was definitely bittersweet. I left my adorable second graders after being with them every day for the past month. It was kind of humorous because on Tuesday they found out I was leaving on Friday (today), so all week they have been making me banners, writing me notes, and drawing me pictures, all of it saying "Bye Miss Moran. We will miss you!" One little boy even got me a gift!

I have absolutely loved this experience! I have realized first hand that teaching is something you just gotta do; you can only learn so much about it, but you have to actually teach to become a better teacher, learn what works and what doesn't, and gain that vital experience. I know that I am still in the beginning stages of learning how to be a good teacher, but I have gained so much more confidence for teaching. I use to be so insecure about teaching and even questioned if I was in the right major! I got to the point, though, this past month where I wasn't so worried about my lesson plan and teaching as I was just having fun with the students and seeing them learn new things. It's the best! My passion for teaching is so much stronger now!

Looking back on this experience, I really hope I made an impact on my cooperating teacher and my students. I wanted to point them to my Savior Jesus Christ even though it was a public school and His name couldn't be proclaimed. Coming from a Christian school background, I am so used to God and Bible verses like the air I breathe, but being in the public school environment, it has to be way more subtle, for lack of a better term. It's challenging, for sure, but I know God can work in ways I cannot even fathom...and I hope this was the case during this experience, especially because I may have been one of the only people in their lives that point them to Jesus.

I wish I would have posted more often through my experience to document the funny things my students said each day or other things that happen throughout the day, but I could barely even get my lesson plans done on time. hehe So, like all my posts are becoming, I will have to catch you up on a few:

I wore my glasses one day and a little boy said, "You're wearing your glasses today. I think you look better without them. You kinda look like a nerd." I just had to chuckle at that one!

One of the students was writing and spelled 'walk' as 'wock' and baseball as 'bace ball.' I love the phonetic spelling!

My teacher gets the students' attention by saying "a-go," (like ah-go). The students respond by saying, "a-me," (like ah-may). She didn't know what it meant exactly, even though it works very nicely, so I decided to google it. The words are African, from a tribe in Ghana; "A-go" means, "Are you paying attention?" and "a-me" means, "I am ready to listen." The words are very respectful. How cool is that, though? She was speaking Ghanian and didn't even know it!

One of the little boys has a legit English accent and says "Miss Moran" the best. I wish I had voice recorded it or something. I always wanted him to talk to me so I could hear his voice. Is that bad? haha o well.

Welps, here are a few pics of my kiddos...

The girl on the right came up to me the next morning and said, "We were giggling all the way to the bus after you took our picture!" How cute?!?

Wright State student teacher...we ended up in the same classroom somehow. We had a blast!

windy!

He always walks and stands like this, so....

...I worked on him, telling him to put his shoulders back and stand up straight. It kinda worked.

silly picture! I was bad and keeping them from being in a straight, quiet line. woops.

I was reading them a book that had certain actions that the students copied. So fun!

The learning calendar behind them...just about every day, a student writes what they learned that day along with the date and temperature. It is basically one big long piece of paper, and at the end of the year, the teacher will roll it all out in the gym and the students get to walk around and read it. What a cool idea?!

They all wanna write on the calendar :)

This kid like loved me or something...He even got me this gift!

My precious class! The boy on the far left (red and gray) is closely related to THE Tyra Banks! I was blown away when I found out!

One of the special ed. teachers who is in the classroom a lot made me a cookie cake that said, "Thank you Miss Moran!" It was so sweet of her!

cutest picture ever!

They loved being silly!

frog suit!

so here are all the picts of my notes...

I feel the love!

hehe I just realized it says Miss Moan...they had the hardest time spelling my last name. At least I won't have that name forever (at least I hope not)