Thankful for Weekends

It seems like at the end of every week we are more and more thankful to see the weekend begin.  We love being with the kids all week for sure, but at the same time the nine and a half hour days during the week can be long.  When the feeling of being able to relax and do what we want, but never have time for during the week finally arrives come Friday evening, we are pretty happy!  We definitely enjoy having two days to feel refreshed before starting the week over again.  This is the first time either of us have had a job where we simply can't just take a day off because we want to.  There is no calling in sick, you have to show up to work first to prove you are sick, or personal days to pick and choose from.  So we are definitely thankful for our weekends!

The Korean teacher who usually takes a few of my youngest kids who have just started kindergarten and teaches them in another room for most of the morning was sick today, leaving me with all ten of them in a small classroom by myself.  If I was just running a daycare this could have been a very manageable job.  But I knew I had a lot of work to get done with my group that has been there all year so I attempted to keep the younger ones happy with paper and crayons while I taught reading to the others.  It didn't go so well and I finally realized it would be much less frustrating for everyone involved if we simply had a day of reading books and playing with play dough and white board crayons.  It did make me realize how much my kindergarten group has grown in the last ten and a half months.  When I look back to last March I realize that all five of the ones who have been there just about the whole time acted just like the two and three year old I have now- won't sit down, can't hold a crayon, push, fight, don't listen, etc.  I didn't realize how much they have grown and how far they have come until I really saw how they all acted today compared to the new babies.  It's getting close to the end of the school year (the weeks go by so fast I know the end of February will be here in an instant) and now I know how teachers feel when they see how much their students grow in a year.  I only hope all of my kindergartners will come again next year so I can watch them grow for one more year, and see how much the new little ones will grow over the next year.  I can't help but show off these pictures of Tommy.  All of the kids have grown in maturity, abilities, and physically but I notice it the most in Tommy when it comes to how much he has grown physically.  He turned four this week and sometimes I'm sad he doesn't look like the little baby he was when I first started teaching him, but I am thankful he at least still tells me how much he loves me! 

                         March 2012                                                                    January 2013