This was my Friday: One of my students, RF was having a fantastic day. He used to have a lot of displaced anger that he would take out on the other students and teachers. This child has turned into one of my favorites this year, oddly enough. During station time, he went over to every single child in our class (16 kids) and gave them a hug. Not his usual "I'm going to try and squeeze you to death" hug, but a "I'm a normal, happy go lucky six year old". I watched and my jaw dropped. I started laughing with joy and one of the other kids after seeing my reaction said, "Miss Abby are you crying again," to which I responded with "Nope, I'm really happy." It seriously made my whole week to see a child come from such an angry place to one filled with so much happiness.
Another neat moment of the day happened during my reading station. One of my students, JC, will be retained because she is academically very low compared to the rest of the class. I gave her a worksheet to work on that had four problems on it. Each one had a picture on top and then two words to pick from. Her job was to sound out the word and circle the correct one. She did the whole thing by herself without asking for help!!!! I was so shocked that I probably didn't breathe for that whole minute. She talked to herself like this, "Okay, it's a picture of a bag. B-A-G, bag. Starts with B and ends with G. Next one. It's a picture of a pin, P-I-N, pin. Next one. Goat, G-O-T. Goat. Wait, nothing starts with G, uh huh. Try again. Ram, R-A-M. Got it!" I almost said, "Hell yah!" out loud but luckily I caught myself. Even thinking about this moment makes me smile so big.
Thank goodness for these kids.
