Dear Class, This is it. It’s the LAST day of school…and it feels so weird!! I loved getting to visit each of your houses to give you your graduation sign and some summer reading books. Our classroom is all packed up, and the last of the bags full of your cubby materials were picked up this afternoon. It’s been an eventful few months at our house since quarantine started. I got the office straightened up and all of the kids’ stuff moved to the playroom and organized, we refinished the dining room walls and ceiling, and the birds we’ve been watching grew up and flew away. I caught a picture of both parents watching the nest from the porch swing during a storm. The babies were old enough to be on their own, but they were there watching…just in case they needed help. I can’t wait to see the big people that you will become, and know that I will be here watching and ready to help if you ever need it! You and your families will always have a piece of my heart. Third grade is lucky to get you next year. You will be AMAZING. Love, Mrs. Smitley
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Dear Class, It's been a crazy week since I checked in with you last! I'm so excited to be moving to the junior high...and nervous, too. Change is hard and exciting at the same time. Knowing that I'm going to see you again in a few years as students helps ease the abrupt end to this year. And of course I'll run in to you all around town in the years in between. Hopefully, we'll be seeing each other at the pool and at the parks later this summer! I checked on our bird nests this weekend and a tragic accident happened. I'm the worst babysitter EVER! When I was trying to rehang the fern on Friday, I accidentally dropped it. It didn't fall far, but it did tip over and the babies tumbled out. I quickly scooped them back up and plopped them in the nest. I'm not going to lie, that was the first time I've touched a bird, and baby birds are gross. It was traumatic for them and me. Luckily, I saw the mom come back, and when I checked on them yesterday they seemed ok. Lucy was a bad dog this weekend and took off Sunday morning. She usually runs around the block and comes back, but apparently she wanted to go on an adventure in the pouring rain. She eventually came back over an hour later soaked and STINKING. She had to be kept in the basement until I could give her a bath yesterday...and she's still a little bit stinky, so she might need another bath today. Emma and Anna came with me to my classroom yesterday. They will be coming in for a little bit each day to practice piano since our piano is under sheets while we fix the ceiling and walls in our dining room. Emma helped me move the piano from Mrs. Hildebrand's room into our room so they can practice while I clean and pack things up. Emma has been a huge help...Anna not so much. She just likes to make messes and videos. This is the last week of school work. Next Thursday, May 28, I'll be at school from 12-3pm to hand you your things from the classroom. If you get your things when you come earlier in the week with a younger sibling, you can still come just to see the 2nd grade teachers and wave. We always love seeing your smiling faces! I'll be driving by your houses this Saturday to see you. If you will be busy Saturday, I can come Friday if you let me know. I can't wait to see you! Love, Mrs. Smitley Dear Class, We are almost done with the school year. Can you believe it? My kids are over doing school work at home, so I'm guessing some of you are too. Remember this week and next are when you can fill in the memory pages in the back of your memory book. You might try looking through your Seesaw journal to remind yourself of some of the things we did this year. I hope you got to enjoy some family time this weekend. I specifically requested warm, sunny days for Mother's Day Weekend so I could lay in my new patio chairs...but it didn't happen. I did have a pretty great day reading the last book to finish my reading challenge this year. I've read 60 books since January 1!! I'm going to have to set a higher goal since I've spent so much time reading during this shelter in place. The kids each gave me gifts. Emma took pictures of everyone and put them in frames for me, Luke gave me a gift Mrs. Scamihorn made for me (ha!!!), and Anna gave me a necklace and a concert free of charge. I keep checking on my bird nests, and Friday we had a baby!! The brown egg that was different from the others was the first one to hatch. I'll keep checking on them a couple of times a week. The moms get mad at me when I take the ferns down to peek. A couple of times I thought they were gone, and they exploded out of the nest in my face. Eek! I'll let you know when we have more babies! Love, Mrs. Smitley Dear Class,
Today I went to school and took Emma and Anna with me. It's the first time they've been in my room since you guys left. They don't have to wear masks, but they are suppose to stay in my room. They can't play outside on the playground, and they can't wander the school like they use to do. They were working on birthday posters for a drive by celebration this afternoon. We kind of left the room a crafty mess today, so we'll have to go back tomorrow to clean it up. Ms. Stone was a super awesome friend, and she came in to help me put your memory books together. They require a special binding machine that I always forget how to use. But they are done and in the mail! Most of you should get them on Saturday. They have your beginning of the year pictures when you were so little and cute, along with some projects, some Seesaw pictures, some memory journal pages, and a letter from me. The journal pages are part of your packet work for the next two weeks of schoolwork. You can do the ones in your memory book instead of the ones in the packet, so you can keep your memories in one place. I don't know about you, but I will ALWAYS remember the crazy year we spent together! Love, Mrs. Smitley Dear Class, It's been a week since I wrote last. I've been busy, but I can't tell you what all I did. Isn't that crazy? Some days seem to drag and others are over before I know it. Time is weird right now. One of my most favorite things this week were all the visits and treats and mail from you guys. I'm getting more real mail than ever before, and it's so much better than the bills and junk mail I usually get. Thank you!! I mailed out this month's newsletter and a fun activity today. Miss Danielle saved me a bunch of time by printing your addresses out on labels. She's the best. May birthday mail went out today, too. Can you believe that over half of our class will have birthdays while we are out of school?? That is so crazy, and this winter birthday girl is JEALOUS of the fun birthday things you can do outside. I'll give you a rundown on our past week. First, we spent A LOT of time in the sun. This time I remembered sunscreen! We are anxiously awaiting our neighbors opening their pool. We are a swim team family and miss being in the water. I usually help the littlest swimmers for the Marshall Aquatics Club, but I don't know if we'll be able to have a swim season this year. We've also been checking on our bird nests and planting and watering flowers. I'm not very good with figuring out what to plant where, so I just get a bunch of flower pots and hanging baskets. Those are pretty easy...as long as I remember to water them. The kids and I also moved their desks out of my office and into their playroom. Anna's been on a kick performing dances for us in the evening. She had Emma make her posters and tickets, and then tried to charge me $10 to come to her show. Can you believe that? Concerts are expensive! Finally, I'm trying to exercise more. Emma went on a run with me the other day. Ok it was a jog. Fine. It was a wog, part walk part jog. I HURT so much afterward. I'm getting old, and she had fun making fun of me. Kids are great. Whatever. I'm sure I use to do that to my mom, too. I'm going to attempt to run again tomorrow. If you don't hear from me for a while, it's because I'm too exhausted and sore to even type. Ha! I miss you! Love, Mrs. Smitley Dear Class, Happy Wednesday! I'm trying to get motivated to clean up the playroom and fold a bazillion loads of laundry...but I don't want to do those things. So I'm writing to you instead! The kids are all done with their school work this morning, except for practicing piano and doing their journal. I'll make them do that after lunch. Anna is still in her pjs, and Michael and Luke have already started playing video games. Daisy and Lucy are taking their morning naps at my feet. Working from home has been kind of crazy. When I meet with the other second grade teachers to plan, I have to use my home computer for the video group so I can see everyone, my school laptop to access all of my work files, my binders that have all of my standards, lesson plans, and your info in them, my cellphone (in case my kids need me), headphones to hear better, and I got a light to make my picture look clearer on the computer meetings. There's not much desk left! I sent you mail yesterday, so check your mailbox later this week. :) I wrote your notes outside since it was so nice, and now I have my first sunburn of the summer. My knees are bright red and HURT. Oops. I also got my flowers planted and watered the ferns. One nest is full of eggs, but one of the eggs is not like the other. I'll have to do some Googling to find out why. I'll let you know what I find out! Love, Mrs. Smitley Dear Class, We are starting Weeks 4 and 5 today. Yay!! Just kidding. I'm still missing you. You don't argue with me like my own kids do. I know some of these skills and activities look different from what we've done at school. Just do your best, take breaks when you need to, and keep trying. And READ, READ, READ!! Here's what it looks like at our house this morning: I'm trying to do my work with Anna and Daisy under my desk. She's kind of working and kind of playing so it's going to take her longer to get her school stuff done today. Luke did his work while he lounged on the couch. He found some good audio books on Epic, but they only have the first one in the series. We'll have to see if we can find the next ones online. I think Amazon has digital kid books free right now and Audible has some free kid audio books, so maybe we can find the next books in the series without having to buy them. Emma didn't get up until almost 10! She did her work as soon as I brought it home from North School, and then practiced piano. The girls have virtual piano lessons today, but Luke is stuck with me for a piano teacher because he didn't like virtual lessons. We are working on several house projects while we're home. One of them is clearing out the playroom so we can move the kids' desks into it. Their desks are a mess, and I'm tired of looking at them while I try to do my work. So I'm kicking them out of the office. They've outgrown some of their toys, but they still have too many. It's like a giant puzzle trying to make everything fit in the playroom. Right now...I'm not sure if it's going to work. We might have to get rid of some more things. Or some kids. Ha! Love, Mrs. Smitley Dear Class, Good afternoon! It's beautiful outside! Emma and I walked Daisy and Lucy to my sister-in-law's house so they could run around in her big backyard and get their spring crazies out today. Have you been running around getting YOUR spring crazies out, too?? I think I've told you before that I am not an outside person. I really prefer to snuggle on the couch and read when I have down time. Well, now we have SO MUCH down time, that I'm actually spending time outside. So that has been a good thing to come out of all this! We've got some flowers that we're going to work on putting in pots this weekend. Last week we bought five ferns for the front porch. So far, two of them have nests, and another nest has been built on top of the porch columns. I'm excited to see eggs and baby birds on the porch...but it does make it hard to water the ferns. Michael isn't crazy about all of the bird poop either. Oh well. They are my new entertainment, so they get to stay! Luke and I went to Cork to get his allergy shots on Thursday. It was the first time we'd had to wear a mask in public, and neither one of us liked it. It was hard to breathe, and my glasses kept fogging up. I am so glad we are mostly at home so we don't have to wear them often. I had to take Anna back today, and it was easier to breathe because I wasn't as panicky about it. As a bonus, we got to see Thomas's mom, Dr. James! On Monday, packets and the link to the digital work will be available for weeks 4 and 5. If you are doing work digitally, you don't have to turn anything in. The school is able to see who is logged on to iXL and which levels you've worked on. They can also see how long you've been working, so it's ok to stop a level after 15 minutes if it's frustrating you. If you are printing from home, the easiest thing would be to just save a huge pile of work and drop off multiple weeks at once when you are in town. If you don't want to save the papers, you could just photograph the work that was done and save them as a digital file that can be emailed to me at your convenience. If you are picking up new packets, feel free to drop off completed work at the same time. Please call the school if you need them to mail a packet to you for any reason! The school is working on a system for you to get your school supplies and any other items you may have left at school. It will probably be towards the end of May. If there is something you need now, just let the school know, and they'll get it for you. I miss you! Love, Mrs. Smitley Dear Class, You have mail coming! In your note, I tell you which candy I sneak from the kids' Easter candy stash. I shouldn't be eating candy. We have been on a baking streak this week, and we have TONS of sweets. Emma made brownies from scratch. (Who does that when the box ones taste so good?!) She also made baked chocolate donuts with chocolate frosting. And I clearly lost my mind when I thought it would be a good idea to quadruple the waffle recipe I used. We will be eating waffles for breakfast for the next two weeks!! Have you been baking at home? Or do you prefer to finish off your Easter candy before someone else in your house does? Ha! I'm also really missing my teacher friends. Mrs. Scott visited in her red convertible, and we chatted in the driveway. And then Mr. Benefiel stopped by a few days later to talk outside. It was so good to see them and catch up on how they are doing. All the second grade teachers have been texting, emailing, and google meeting. We KNOW you miss your friends...because we miss our friends. I miss you! Love, Mrs. Smitley P.S.--Here's a glimpse into our Sunday baking craziness. Brownies, doughnuts, and waffles all got made in the same afternoon. What was I thinking?? |
AuthorWelcome! I'm a second grade teacher in Marshall, Illinois who is now unexpectedly homeschooling my three kids while our schools are closed for the coronoa virus. While I've always wanted to homeschool, this was not how I wanted to do it! Archives
May 2020
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