Schooooool's Out For SUMMAHHH!!

 270 Days

1,080 Lesson Plans

4,050 Emails

7,020 Morning Greetings

810 Meetings

14,040 Hugs

26 Future Leaders

 1 Last Day of Third Grade

Well, at 11:30 am this morning my SUMMER officially began! It hasn't yet hit me that the school year is really over. I mean, tomorrow is Friday and I don't have to set my alarm. What?!

So as I predicted, the end of the year did not come without tears. In attempting to write thank you cards to my students last night, I cried like a baby for an hour straight. Then, when I woke up this morning, all it took was Chris asking me if I was excited about the day for me to start blubbering again. I managed to get through the actual goodbyes with my students without completely falling apart, but I think it was only because my eyes couldn't make replacement tears quickly enough. 

I tried to make the last 2 weeks of school for my students as fun as humanly possible. I packed our agenda so full I could hardly keep all of the dates straight on my calendar. Here are some of the memories I captured from this past week (minus any of their sweet faces of course!).

Here I am with Zeus @ my class' Ancient Greek Olympics! 

One of the ancient civilizations I taught my students about this year was Ancient Greece, and one of the facts they are expected to remember is that the Ancient Greeks started the Olympic games. What better way for them to remember this than for them to compete in their very own Olympics? The week before the games I assigned team colors to each group and they each tie dyed a t-shirt to wear as a jersey throughout the games. Of course that also meant that I tie dyed a t-shirt using all of the colors, because I was the referee. I then conned my brother into dressing up as Zeus and leading the games with me. He literally walked around the entire time in 90 degree weather in a toga and it was hilarious. My students LOVED his outfit, and of course all of the games, and afterwards I even presented each of them with a "medal" while the Olympic theme song played in the back ground.

While one brother was dressed as Zeus, my other brother SURPRISED me by stopping by to meet my students! He brought one of his bulldogs, Big, and my students went crazy over both of them. They had been asking to meet the "other Mr. Robinson brother" all year and finally their wish came true!

I called the last 7 days of school the "7 Days of Favorites". We brainstormed then voted on 7 "favorite things", one for each of the last 7 days of the school year. This is from favorite outfit day. Of course some of the boys wore head to toe sport gear :).

Another favorite day was favorite book day. I had each of them bring in a pillow and blanket too, and the surprise was that I let them build a huge fort to read under. This is a picture I took with my phone of part of the fort. Believe it or not, 26 silent readers are underneath reading their favorite books!

They also chose to have favorite stuffed animal day, and here is who I brought in:). Curly's on the left, Bun Bun's on the right. My mom brought home Curly after visiting my brother at camp when I was 7 years old, and she bought Bun Bun the day she found out that she was having a girl (me). 

Here I am playing in the Teachers vs. 6th Graders Basketball and Volleyball games. All of my students signed the back of my t-shirt to give me good luck:).

After our assembly this morning I put shaving cream all over their desks so they could play around before we officially cleaned them. They had the best time making a mess and writing messages to me.

Last but certainly not least, I have to show you a present that one of my students gave to me. It might just be the sweetest, most thoughtful gift I have ever received. I don't know if you can tell, but the letters are formed out of legos! He loves legos and talked to me about them every day throughout the year. He wanted to make sure I knew that he made it all by himself :).

After the desks were clean and the yearbooks were signed, I ended our last day the only way that felt appropriate with this group: with a dance party. The playlist consisted of our favorites- the Cha Cha Slide, the Cupid Shuffle, Who Let the Dogs Out, the Macarena, and YMCA. I looked around the room at 26 happy faces boogying their little hearts out, and felt content. I know in my heart that I gave them the very best year that I could have, and that this year is one that they will always remember. Here's to you, 3rd graders of 2010- I'll miss you a whole lot.