You may not know that I am an elementary school teacher. Last night (on my birthday!) we had Open House to meet our new students. I absolutely loved talking to my students and getting to know a little bit about them. The evening made me recall my own childhood school days and it gave me an idea for my blog. I decided to list my top five favorite memories of school. You may have some of the same memories or yours may be completely different. Either way, take a walk down memory lane and share your top five memories with me.My Top Five School Memories
#5- Finding the golden egg at the Easter Egg Hunt and winning a silver dollar.
#4- Putting glue on my fingers, letting it dry, and peeling it off.
#3- Learning to read in the claw foot bathtub that my second grade teacher brought to school...no water or soap invovled!
#2- Writing letters to my friends--the old fashioned way.
#1- My second grade teacher blessing our lunch before we left the classroom.
12 comments:
My Top Five:
5...I loved that brand new box of crayons with the fresh smell of wax. And the colors that flowed from their tips as I scribbled swatches and patches all over the paper. Then we'd color over our beautiful swatches with solid black crayon. We'd trace the shape of a fish, butterfly or simply a free-style with the tip of a wooden stylus. Ever so gently we'd scrap away the black and make magical positive pieces of art.
4....I loved the parties and recess and games of 7-up in the classroom on a rainy day. As long as I was at school, I felt like I was a part of something. That is, until I became a teenager. Then educational pursuits took a nosedive.
3....I loved lunchtime and saving my milk money all week so I could buy a dreamsicle. It was so good. I imagine the four day wait was what gave it such flavor.
2....I revelled in the fall of the year when we'd be assigned to meander through the woods and collect leaves to press between wax paper with a hot iron. The colors of coral and purple maple, red sumac and and golden oak leaves gave me such delight.
1....I loved the red numbers 100, 90, and 80 on my papers. But better than that was the handwritten encouragement of Mrs. Laury that said, "You are a very imaginative and expressive writer. Very good." I felt brilliant and dreamed of becoming a writer someday. selahV
Here are mine in no special order:
#5- No one caring what you wore for Halloween, dressing up for school and then having a parade.
#4- Having the love-of-my-life (my 4th grade teacher) find out I couldn't see the blackboard and telling my parents. I had to get glasses but wouldn't wear them to school the first day. Again, she caught me and told on me. So much for young love!
#3- Trying to forge my dad's name on a test that I flunked. It didn't work and neither did my backside.
#2- Finding my pattern in life, even in kindergarten. I had a girl friend and it never changed. I never went through that yuk stage!
#1- Saying the pledge, having a prayer and not even hearing of the ACLU or any of the other "intruders".
I can think of more but you only wanted 5.
SelahV sent me here. Actually she threatened me. :) Come visit me!
1. Playing Double Dutch jumprope during lunch (yes - I grew up in NY)
2. Being bus monitor and getting to sit at the front of the bus.
3. Watching a new student see her first snow fall - don't remember where she was from, just remember the teacher stopping class so she could go to the window and watch the snow fall.
4. Ummm... leaving the school grounds via "noon mass" in order to buy rice cups for lunch - they were sooooo goooood!
5. Reading all the Nancy Drew and Nurse Cherry Ames books in the library.
Thanks for taking me down memory lane - it was fun!
Blessings,
Trish
SelahV: I knew you would have splendid memories of school! How eloquently you relayed them to us. Bill claims that you threatend him--we can't have hostility around here. Thanks for supporting me.
Bill: I'm sorry that SelahV threatened you. I'm also sorry that I have very little control over her. It goes back to her being my youth leader and all. I do appreciate you playing my game with me. And you would have been welcome to go beyond the top 5--I love an overachiever!
Trish: Thanks for visiting my site. I'm sure that SelahV threatened you, too. Bless her heart! I think school days in NY were very different than school days in KY.
selahv sent me over to your meme.
Here are some of my favorite school days memories:
A--The heady scent of clean, unbroken crayolas...with all their wax points intact...brand-new graphite pencils with pink rubber erasers...
B--The first time I sat in the "big kids" desks in our one-room school, the ones with lift-up lids, instead of the old ones with lift up seats...
C--Being the one chosen to take home the big, decorated Valentine box after our all-school party...and it was a 2-mile walk home...
D--Sitting in a desk next to the "library" shelves and reading "Little House on the Prairie" when it was first published. I'd open it and keep it inside my desk to sneak read during class...Our little in-school library was supplemented once a month by the traveling library from the county school system--two big boxes of treasure!
E--The exquisite squishiness of cold pumpkin guts on my feet during the school Halloween party. We were blindfolded and made to walk through them bare-footed. Then we had to shake hands with a rubber glove filled with ice water and eat peeled grape eyeballs...Delicious for all the senses!
F--The first day that I home schooled our youngest son...when we opened the box of new crayons and sharpened the new pencils and read and read and read...and the days that I sat down with six of my grandkids and we all did art with Grandma. How time flies when you are having fun.
I don't use numbers when letters will do...and we are still making school day memories (at age 62).
Kat
5 huh...
#5...punching the bus bully in the nose, causing it to bleed! He'd picked on me all year, and I finally couldn't take it any more---he was the bus drivers son...and she spanked him!!!
#4...seeing the school on my first day, and thinking, how in the world will I remember where my classroom is!
#3...The day the beagle got loose in school and went room to room, chair to chair and visited everyone in second grade!
#2...Miss Elizabeth...my first grade teacher--the best teacher ever on the face of the earth.
#1...My homeroom teacher telling us not to talk any more, and since we had just studied Helen Keller, signing into his hands. Only to get caught and sent to the office! We were the only kids ever to get sent to the office from homeroom!
Kat & Steve: Thanks so much for visiting my site and taking the time to give such thoughtful input. Steve, it sounds like you were rather mischevious! God bless both of you.
You guys are super! this is so much fun. I love learning about all of your memories. Steve...and you're a preacher! what can we say? the devil made ya do it, huh? Bill, you win...you beat Steve.
Karen I did NOT threaten Bill, just tried to give him a running start to beat Steve at posting. And that's the thanks I get.
Trish is amazing. She's taking seminary classes. Karen went for her master's over the summer, everyone. She's a perfectionist. hee hee.
Kat...how neat to see you out and about! selahV
Hi--hope you don't mind if I play, too. Sorry I'm a little late to the game!
Five memories...
#5--I am indebted to Matt Terrell. In the fifth grade he refused to rat me out. On the playground was a huge, upright slide with three twists in it. It stood a good twenty-five feet tall. You could surreptitiously stop in the first twist on the way down and STEP OUT of the slide and slide down the support beam. Matt got caught; I didn't. When the teacher asked if anyone else did, I stared at the floor--Matt wrote thirty pages and his parents grounded him for a month. I got off scot-free.
#4--I won first place in the egg-in-a-spoon race on field day in fourth grade.
#3--I sent Lisa Snyder a love note in third grade; she said she would be "friends" with me. I was elated! We buddied around for a few days; in eighth grade when I asked her to "go" with me, she told me she could do a lot better than me. :)
#2--In sixth grade, I wrote "I will not talk in Mrs. Smart's class so that I will not disturb the education of others" 750 times for Lisa Malone, who I had a crush on (I must've had a thing for girls named Lisa in grade school). It didn't help.
#1b--I wrote "I will not talk in Mrs. Smart's class so that I will not disturb the education of others" 750 times myself because shutting-up was a virtual impossibility. I wrote it again, 1000 times, a few weeks later. Stayed in every recess until I had it done, too.
#1a--When I was a senior, my sister brought a letter home to me. It was from my fifth grade teacher, Mrs. Hall, who I dearly adored. Mrs. Hall had seen my sister get into my dad's four-wheel drive tow truck, jacked up on monster tires. The truck was named was named "El Bandito". Mrs. Hall recognized the truck and not knowing who my sister was, searched her out and then wrote and gave to her the letter to give to me. I wrote her back, telling her my future plans (though at that time ministry sure wasn't it). I still have her letter tucked away. I had hoped to correspond with her for a while longer, but teachers are a fairly busy lot.
So those are my five (six!) memories. Thanks for letting me play! Many blessings upon you and yours.
Tony: Thanks for going above and beyond on your childhood memories. I guess all of that writing in grade school prepared for writing now...maybe????
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