Time to say goodbye...

I have a pile of social studies quizzes to mark, an art project rubric to make and a final math lesson plan to create.  But right now I'm tying up little hallowe'en goody bags for my grade fives.  The fact is I'm stalling.  Because the minute I start marking and making and creating, I'll have to admit that tomorrow is my last day and I'm really going to miss my grade fives.

I wasn't planning on telling my kids that this Friday would be my last day.  My associate teacher and I agreed that we should slowly wean the kids off from me teaching (versus earlier where I was teaching for about half the day)... but my kids noticed, I guess I shouldn't be surprised.  They were asking me today why I haven't taught all day and instead conducting a social studies quiz but I just casually answered and moved on with whatever I was explaining at the time.

At the end of the day my teacher explained that tomorrow would be my last day and that the Hallowe'en party would be a great good bye time for all of us.  They were in shock and worried that I would be gone from the school forever.  I told them that I'd just be in a new classroom in the primary hallway and they all let out a sigh of relief.  We've really gotten close in such a short period and I know I will be tempted to visit them when I come back to the school in November even though the primary and junior hallways are far away from each other.

Considering how well we meshed as a class it makes me worried how I will cope with primary level now (I'll be in a grade 2 class next) or even my last block with a new set of kids.  I guess it's normal to worry but it's going to be hard to build up this kind of rapport with a new set of kids two more times.  It may not even be possible.  My last block is actually the class who has a student teacher right now... what if I just don't mesh with them as well as she did? 

Ah well I guess those kind of worries are not worth mulling over now especially because we have such an awesome party tomorrow.  We'll be doing a survey math lesson and I think a hallowe'en theme would compliment it beautifully ... plus it would be way more fun to end off my month of teaching with something creative!

In the meantime, fingers crossed that my associate gives me a nice review on my formal assessment tomorrow.

Better get back to these baggies...but happy teaching!