done and done

i am no longer a first year teacher! yesterday was the last day of school for the kids. now we spend next week cleaning our rooms. i got through the whole entire year without a sniffle, cough, or sneeze. unfortunately my body finally decided to shut down one minute after the children left. i was wondering when i was going to run my body down. luckily it lasted me all year.

so as of now, i am confined to the couch with a box of kleenex, several empty cups which used to contain orange juice, cold and sinus medicine. you name it. we were supposed to go to a crawfish boil today but it seems that i will be missing it. although it is supposed to be raining for the next 9 days so maybe lots of people will be missing it.

so anyway, although my first year of teaching did entail some crying, over all i think i had a extremely good first year. just in the past few weeks i had people shocked that it was my first year. they had no idea! i feel like i have accomplished something. i retested my kids this week to see how their fluency increased. in 2nd grade you should be reading 90-100 words per minute at the end of the year. i have one child that went from 68 words to 142 words per minute! that was my biggest leap but have some other reading well into the third grade level!

also, back on March 31, i took two kids down to district (second grade took a total of 6... and we were the only grade to take anybody downtown). which means i spent all year doing interventions with them and put together a binder of all their work and all the extra work i had been doing with them. if district approves them, they are tested for exceptional ed services. all six of our kids were approved for testing ( and my binders were passed around the board room because nobody had ever seen such organization)! well they came to test all the children and none of the kids tested in except my two kids! one child i knew for a fact had ADHD and he was diagnosed with it so he will be moving onto 3rd grade with services and will not have to spend his 3rd year in 2nd grade! so excited for him. he has the best character you will ever find in a 2nd grader. my other student had medical problems so i have put in a request for home schooling. so we are well on our way to getting her the education she needs!

so all this good news was a great way to end my first year teaching and lift my spirits that i am in the right profession!