A special week

Hey Everyone,

I don't have a lot of time tonight for the post that is really on my mind so instead I though I would share some "Hoppy Happenings" with the First Grade Froggers.

On Monday, the students in our X group got to meet the German Ambassador as he toured our school. The children were very excited about this and it was difficult in our classroom because only some of the children got to meet him. It is hard to talk with some children about the importance of the ambassador and how special it is to meet him (I mean how many of us adults have actually met an ambassador to another country?) without "rubbing it in" for the other children. In our classroom we used it as a mini- social lesson...Sometimes you get to do thing or not get to do things that other people do. It is okay to share these things with them, but it is not okay to make them feel left out or like they are not good enough (one girl in our class told the other children that their group got to meet the ambassador because they were the "smart" group). We explained that ambassadors, like a lot of community helpers are very busy and had a lot of things to see and do on his trip, and that, if he had time, he would have really liked to meet and talk with everyone.

On Wednesday we had another special visitor...Channel 5 news! Channel 5 was doing a segment on our school's ability to achieve an Excellent rating from the state and the parents' camp out to enroll their children. Who did they tape? Our Y group in German class! This was really fun for the children and it helped reinforce the idea that not everyone gets to do special things, but we should be excited for our friends when they get to do something special. Surprisingly, today when we watched the news segment in class not a single child said "Why didn't I get to be on the news?" (though I was not there yesterday so that doesn't mean no one said it...)All of the children were genuinely excited to see themselves or their friends on the news.

For me as a student teacher, this week's special events have helped me realize the quality of a building that I am in. We are not perfect by any means, but we are helping our children learn and grow, which really is the bottom line.