Mrs. Hannon's First Grade Fly on the Wall 

I hope your summer has been fantastic! For me at least, the beginning of school is looming. Ahhhhh….how I long for the days when, as a child, summer seemed endless. Now it goes oh so quickly! Of course in my childhood school didn’t begin until after Labor Day. Sometimes I think it would benefit us all if that was still the calendar we followed. In any event, I wanted to post once more for the 2017-2018 first graders. Here are just some photos from some months past which I wanted to share with you. There is a lot here…just normal days in the classroom, a visit with a specialist teaching us about the food chain, award winners, 100th day, Christmas program, field trip to Benjamin Harrison Presidential Site, Christmas party, crafting, field day, babysitting Champion the duck while 5th grade went on a field trip, fun outside on our last few days, etc. Some “could” be duplicated from previous posts, but I tried to just post what I thought I hadn’t earlier in the year. Enjoy! Have a wonderful 2nd grade year and beyond! Please keep in touch! Blessings upon all of you!

This just about wraps it up I guess, although as I post it is June 22. The last couple of months are very chaotic/crazy for teachers, but I eventually get things done. At the moment, I am also awaiting my first grandchild (just two-three weeks more). I have spent all of “vacation” so far doing things like helping my daughter prepare, hosting a shower for her at my home, crocheting like crazy,  renewing my license, going through files and things I brought home from school to clean out/add to, planning for next year, organizing, doing some professional reading and learning, reading for pleasure, getting doctor appointments set, and MANY other things I simply don’t have time for through the school year. Oh (and really cool), I have over time become a sort of free lance editor. A former professor of mine (from my Masters courses) asked me to edit her and her co-authors’ textbook, 2nd edition (I also edited the first one), and I was also asked to write a “voices from the field” piece to be included in a chapter about the importance of reading aloud to children. So I guess I’m sort of being published. I can edit quite well as long as it’s not my own writing! I really enjoy that opportunity. That began in April and I just wrapped it up. Once the publisher’s proofs arrive, I may be asked to read through once again to catch anything I (or the authors) may have missed. And I absolutely love the book and this particular professor. And I do get paid, but to me that is just icing on the cake.

We had a great ending though, and it was a great year. Thanks to all of my parents, and to my sweet students. I miss them already as I look through all of the photos from the last couple of months (which I am late getting placed here). Maybe I’ll be more timely next year. Some people say “You don’t have to do that you know.” Well, it’s something I enjoy and hope you do too. It is a ready-made memory book for me (I wish blogging had been around and more accessible when I first started teaching). Good teachers do extra things. I love doing extra things. Yes, they take time, but they are as meaningful to me as they are to (hopefully) you and my students.

I did a ten-day count down in balloons this year. Each day, I popped a balloon and read the slip of paper we found from the inside. We had coloring days, read with a partner day (we invited 2nd grade over), extra recess, write with shaving cream, etc., etc. At this point I can’t remember it all. Sometimes things didn’t work out (like drawing with chalk…due to rain), but we still did something fun each day as we wrapped up the year.

Field Day was awesome as always, and we lucked out with the weather. We had our water games, ate lunch in the classroom, and watched Charlotte’s Web in the afternoon.

Over the last few days we worked on a First Grade Memory Book. Everyone exchanged autographs. There were some very sweet messages to me.

Well that’s it! I took our final group photo, and then a couple of my (bittersweet) empty classroom! They and you have given me wonderful memories to cherish. I hope I have done that for you as well. I hope you have enjoyed being a “fly on the wall” in Camp Care-a-Lot! Hugs!

 

Here are just a few random things I caught during the last couple of months of school!

 

I thought the students (if you parents care to share) might like to see what my school was like. I attended IPS Abraham Lincoln School #18 located on the near south side of Indy (just a bit south of Fountain Square). I grew up in that, and the Garfield Park, area; and I had a wonderful childhood. Things went sort of south when the interstate came through, but they are bouncing back which is very exciting. While the building is no longer owned by IPS nor does it function as a school, it was purchased by a church and serves the surrounding community in very positive ways. Recently I was able to tour it with a group of others who graduated there (it was K-8). Fortunately, they honor the history of the place and have retained much of its originality. It is built on the site of what was once where Native Americans (Miami tribe) lived. Across the street from the school is the oldest house in Indianapolis which is on the historic preservation list.

Chalkboards! This is the front of the typical classroom. Behind the chalkboard was a kind of long closet where we hung our coats. It was really special to be asked to clean the chalkboards with a bucket of water and a sponge. Also, we would take erasers out and bang them against the brick of the building. (When I started teaching at St. Malachy we did still have chalkboards and banged erasers as well.)

Here I am standing in the hall. I lived in many of these classrooms. It’s just the same…tall ceilings, very echo-y, and smells the same too (that may sound weird, but do you know what I mean?) A couple of things (there are many) which were different: I went home for lunch every day. My mother had my lunch tray ready, and I sat in front of the television watching cartoons (I loved Popeye). Then I went back to school for the afternoon until 3:15. I believe school started at 8:15 a.m. Everyone walked to and from school. Sometimes I would go home with a friend for lunch. My mother still lives in the same home just a half block away. Across the street from the school was a tiny family-owned grocery store (Newman’s Market) where we would go to buy penny candy.

Here is my first grade class. I so loved my teacher, Miss Schneider. She seemed ancient to me, and she never married, but she was probably only in her 40’s..ha! I have some special memories, like when she asked a friend and me to come back to school after dismissal on the last day. She was cleaning out things for the summer (just like teachers still do now), and she gave us all this cool stuff to play school with. Now, can you find me? Leave your guesses or email me and I’ll let you know! (My sister, brothers, and I have NO IDEA why our mother had to write our names on our class photos…did she think she would forget us? LOL!)

Our summer birthdays! I hope they have been full of surprises and happiness!

  We wish you the best in your new school and new home, Grace!

 These lovely ladies and former first graders of mine came to visit on the day of our Senior Mass. 🙂

A little meditation to start our morning!

Our countdown to summer!

These two thought maybe they could sneak in and enroll for the 2016-17 year.

 

I have broken camp, and it is a bittersweet fairwell. See you soon!

And here is a sneak preview of what is coming…a new campsite.

 

Here we are…what a great group…love them all! Am already missing them. Emma Kate’s picture says it all, and the feeling is mutual, my dear Camp-Care-A-Lot campers.

We did have such fun! We have learned so much and had fun doing it, didn’t we?

Two families bid on and won the last tosses into the basketball goal in the St. Malachy gym. They were able to shoot and count baskets for a few minutes as music played, and once they took their last shots, the nets were cut and presented to them. All of these lasts have been tear jerkers to some extent, at the same time we are all excited about the new school.

For Mardi Gras, our annual school fundraiser, each teacher at SMS places a number of fun silent auction items for their students. Here are a few of my (and Mrs. Dean’s) lucky winners.

I took Brady out to lunch. His choice was Jimmy John’s (thanks for picking one of MY favorites Brady)!

I took Ayla (along with her choice of two friends) to Orange Leaf after school for an ice cream treat. She chose Aubree and a student from Ms. Nell’s class (who I won’t show here since I don’t have permission). We happened to run into Mrs. Dean there who also was treating some of her own students to an after-school treat. Yum!

Ayla was a double winner, because she was also my aid for the day, putting Mrs. Dean out of her job! Doesn’t she look oh so professional and like a veteran?

Another traditional item of mine is to treat a student to dinner and a movie. John chose his little brother Todd (which I thought was oh so sweet). We ate dinner at Firehouse Subs and then went to see Rio2. I hope I didn’t snore in the movie theater. Matinees through the week are when teachers are at their tiredest! Seriously though, it was great fun. I think sometimes parents think it is a pain, but I sincerely enjoy this (after all…there is nothing like movie popcorn for an after school snack)! It was also so cool that we were the only people in the theater!

Mrs. Dean put up the item “car rider duty” as one of her silent auction items, and Zachary was the winner. He chose to do his duty on the very last day of school at St. Malachy’s Green Street location.

Other than a free homework night which doesn’t involve a picture, I have one more Mardi Gras winner to treat, and that is a family whose children were former students of mine. That means dinner on the deck at my house this summer!