Best & Worst

Although it's already been about a month since school ended, I'm just now getting around to posting about it.  The end of the school year is always a little bittersweet...  I love my job, but I also love having a summer vacation to re-energize and prepare for a new school year.  I think one of my favorite things about teaching is that I get a fresh start each school year.  I enjoy having the freedom to change things up and have a fresh start with a new group of kiddos each year.  

 I thought I'd take a little time to go back and reflect on how this past school year went.  During the last week of school I had my students discuss and vote on the best and worst things about third grade.  I figured I'd do the same thing.

The worst...

• My class this past year was very needy.  I had 13 boys and only 5 girls.  My boys were criers.  We're talking tears everyday from 8 and 9 year old boys.  It was very taxing at times and I feel like a lot of time was wasted dealing with their tears.  I can be a pretty sympathetic person at times, but I was totally and completely over it by the end of the year.
• I missed A LOT of school days.  I'm on a lot of teams and committees with my school, which I really do enjoy, but for some reason this year it took me out of the classroom a ton.  I looked back and saw that I missed a total of 24 days of school this year.  23.5 of those days were professional days and the one half day that I did take as personal was to attend a funeral.  I spent soooooo many hours creating sub plans this year!
• I didn't quite feel like I was on my "A game" all year.  I started out the school year on fire.  I kept up with everything and really felt good about the year.  That started slipping around October (when I started having to miss days and took on after school tutoring) and felt like the rest of the year I was just working to keep my head above water.  I think in a lot of ways I've learned from this and know what needs to be done next year to stay afloat a bit better.

And now for the best!

• I had a really sweet class.  Despite their neediness, I really did love this group of kids.  It's amazing how they can completely drive you up a wall, but they're still just so sweet (and usually well-meaning) that you can't help but still love them at the end of the day.
• I loved my after school tutoring kids.  Adding an extra hour to my work day is totally exhausting, but the 10 kids that I had for reading and math tutoring after school were really good kids and very hard workers.  It totally made that extra hour not all that bad after all.
• I had some really supportive parents this year.  With all of the needs of my students, I really feel blessed to say that I had a lot of support from parents this year.  I had a few really tough kids and some of them had the kindest and most supportive parents that recognized how much I was trying to help their child succeed.  Having the support of parents make such a huge difference!

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Now that things are starting to settle down, I should be back into posting at least a few times a week!  

What were your best and worst things about this past school year!?!