I made it through!

OMG! (These are letters straight from the mouth of my students.) Today was the longest day of my life, also known as the Writing TAKS! It all began around 8:15 this morning and didn't end (in my classroom) until 2:15. I spent the day "actively monitoring" 18 students sit in their desks reading and writing. While following all 1,000 of the very strict guidelines of a test administrator, I became bored out of my mind. They don't teach you how to stare at a classroom full of kids for an entire day without talking or saying encouraging things while you're in teacher school.

I know how bored I was and I also understand how bored kids were that finished before the others. I had one student using goldfish (the snack crackers) to write out names of every student in the class. He asked if he could take a picture of them even, too bad we were testing, cause I totally would have. The best part of it was that the letters in each person's name he made with the crackers looked like his handwriting.

One high point of today was that I sat with them at lunch. This is something that doesn't happen very often and I enjoy it when I get the chance. Although I'm not eager enough to sit with them every day...once a while in nice. Instead of being the teacher, we get to talk about non-school stuff. I find out what things they like (the vegetable sticks from the cafeteria) and what they don't like (the boys when they act weird). I found out that: one kid only likes fish sticks, but not any other kind of fish (very similar to when I was a kid); they all love strawberries and cantaloupe; one kid is tired of selling Girl Scout cookies; they love being in my class; one kid has an adorable little brother that is going to have a birthday soon; and the boys have a group called "The Boys' Club".

All in all, I'm so glad tomorrow is back to regular teaching. I get to teach volume, ecosystems, the Underground Railroad, book clubs, and no more of this writing to the prompt. I don't know if I've ever been so excited about poetry. :)