Bittersweet

Today I "graduated" my first class of kindergartners. I absolutely can not believe they finished their first year of formal school! What an amazing thing to be a part of!

On the other hand, as with all my classes, I was a bit ready to send them off at the end of the year. There can only be so much of a good thing.

They had their wings. It was time to let them fly. I can't wait to see them succeed!

The end of the year has been difficult for everyone. As much as I love teaching and being in my classroom with my students, there was lots of junk going on within our county that resulted in lots of stress in our building. Teaching is stressful enough with day to day demands. The added external pressures (and resulting expectations and tempers) really became a burden as the school year wound down this year. I know that part of it is my pregnancy and additional hormones. I really need this summer to reclaim my passion for teaching and gather my excitement for a new year. I need time to recharge my batteries.

I hope that I was able to protect my students from the stress of the past few weeks. I'm not sure that I fully succeeded in that, so I hope they know how much I loved each and every one of them. I plan on writing each one a letter to give them at the end of their first grade year and one again for their graduation from high school. They will always be a special class for me because they were my first kindergarten class. I have the privilege of watching them all the way through their education. That is truly one of the highest privileges a teacher can have.