Friday

High point of today:

We decorated my classroom for the holidays. Nothing like a gaggle of 2nd graders for that job!

I witnessed:

• about 75000 tiny little pieces of paper (from cutting out snowflakes) get picked up in 2 minutes flat.
• an athletic Salvadoran boy who loves drums but sings halfheartedly at best, whistling the March from the Nutcracker - note-perfect.
• 4 boys who sometimes don't get along decide to take their four pieces of paper, tape them together along the edges, and make a bigger poster together. Without anybody suggesting it. And without fighting.
• Numerous children doing their best impression of "on point" while going to the shelves to get more supplies. Only a few of them fell over. No children were harmed in the decorating of this space.
• Pictures of everything from the manger to Santa to Frosty to a one-horse-open-sleigh to general outdoor winter scenes. (This is a very multi-cultural school)
• Not one student arguing or complaining about another person's picture - as in, "Santa isn't real," "Jesus isn't real," "You just made snowflakes?" Because we have taught our children to respect one another, they respect different ideas of what "Winter Holiday" decorating might look like.

It's finally starting to feel like the holidays for me.