I Miss...

...my classroom sometimes and the kids that come with it.  Don't get me wrong, I love being with my kids at home, but I loved coming into my classroom everyday and having a plan, knowing (almost) everything about them, and helping them become 20 independent learners, readers, and writers. 

I miss them coming to me with their problems so I could lead the way into helping them solve the problem themselves. 

I  miss the hugs. 

I miss reading to aloud them and the kids being so quiet because they are thinking and I can see them thinking, then when we discuss, they can't stop talking because they have so many questions.

I miss my older students who have moved on coming to hang out with me for a while after school because they just want to talk and telling me about their day or their little sister who was just born. 

I was digging around in my school stuff today and came across this note (poem) from one of my students who gave it to me on my last day of school in December.  It was tucked inside the gift she had given me. I was moving to Pennsylvania from Florida to prepare for our adoption in Ethiopia and they had been hearing all about it for many months.  I was always telling them about important things in my life. 

When I reread this letter it made me think again of how important a teacher can be in a child's life.