Saying Goodbye to Kindergarten and Terms I-III

Tomorrow is my last day of student teaching with my kindergarteners. It feels strange to say it, but I have plenty of experience saying goodbye to students. I student taught when I was in college, and I had five different placements because I was working with a traveling music teacher (a middle school, a high school, and three elementary schools). I had a lot of goodbyes to make then. After that, I did two years of City Year, which meant getting to know and love two schools' worth of amazing students and saying goodbye to them when my term of service was up. My first City Year's goodbyes were the hardest goodbyes.

Tomorrow, I will be able to handle the farewells, mostly because one of my classmates is going to be student teaching there next semester. Also, I am accompanying the 3rd and 4th grade choir in their holiday concert next Tuesday, so I feel like it's not really goodbye yet. Check in next week to see how I'm feeling about it.

I have some fun things planned for tomorrow! First, I am making them a poster that is based off of a DIY holiday card I saw on Buzzfeed. It's going to have a string of lights on it (with the colored lights being painted fingerprints), and I'm going to write "Thanks for lighting up my life!" I know it's cheesy, but I like it. Then I'm going to cut it up into 25 puzzle pieces and number them. Each student will get an envelope that has their name on it. Inside the envelope will be a little note from me as well as a puzzle piece. We will count around the room and one by one the students will put the puzzle together. After they read the message on the card (or I read it to them), we're going to make a poster for their new student teacher. Part of the poster will have questions for her that they want answered (e.g. What's your favorite color? Where are you from?), and then the rest will be things they want her to know about their classroom. Hopefully the poster will ease the transition from one student teacher to the next.

In other news, Term III has been successfully handed in, and the semester is quickly coming to a close. Tomorrow is my last day of student teaching and then Thursday is my last day of class! Say hello to the last big assignment I am working on:

"Poppy" is a children's book I am writing and illustrating for my Elementary Literacy Methods course. Poppy is a soda can who is manufactured in central PA and sent to a corner store in West Philly (slightly autobiographical). Someone buys her, and drinks her, but they don't recycle her! They drop her on the ground so Poppy has to make it on her own, exploring all West Philly has to offer until someone picks her up, recycles her, and…

I honestly haven't figured out the ending yet. It's due Thursday, so hopefully I will have one by then!

Best,

Rachel