Shortly before Christmas I gave in and we got a class pet. He was actually donated to us by a PTA mom. He was a guinea pig and we ended up naming him Buttercup Morrumotto. Interesting name, but that is what the kids voted on. About a week and a half ago, he died. Luckily he died overnight or something because I just came back the next morning and he was gone. I was really nervous to break it to the students, but we just talked about how sometimes things get old (I don't know if that is why he died) and sometimes they die. We held a little commemoration ceremony for him and talked about what we loved about him. The Blue class was very calm about it all, then when I did it with the Red class, half of my students were bawling. It as pretty sad, but it was also a good experience. Two of my students from the red class wrote this note and read it to everyone during out little "ceremony":
The underlined words are spelling and vocabulary words we had that week. They are so cute using those words for the letter. One of my boys also wrote this and had me read it to the class:
To me, these are just heartwarming. These kinds of things are the unpaid benefits of teaching. Seeing my students growing and writing things like this just makes all of the hard times and low pay worth it.
I have to end with some funny things my students have said this last week. On Wednesday I had to go to a meeting for half of the day so I was having a sub in the afternoon (when the Red class was in my class) and I told them this at the very end of the day. When the bell rang one of my students asked me: "Mrs. Monson, but do you know her?" I said "no, not really but I'm sure she will be nice." Then she said "THEN HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO TRUST HER?!?!" It was really funny and made me laugh.
The next day as the classes were switching another student came up to me as I was leaving and said "Mrs. Monson, do you know what my first words were when I was a baby?" I said, "Mrs. Monson?" (in a joking voice) she said "No, I LOVE MRS. MONSON". My students are truly the best.
