Just the ordinary...

This past week I had nothing super special going on. No one was visiting for the weekend, there were no days off. Nothing absolutely crazy happened at school, there were no special plans for the weekend. It was an ordinary week.

While in the past years of my life, I may have labeled this past week as boring or dull. At this stage in my life, I would like to label it as lovely.

Yes, I said lovely.

Amidst the busy and crazy of adult life, I have come to greatly appreciate a rather uneventful week. I can simply work hard at my job and come home to enjoy my evenings, then do it all again! My students thrive under this kind of week, when we have our normal routine, they know exactly what is coming, and they know exactly what to do throughout the day. I have discovered just how delightful these weeks really are.

I took special notice on Friday of the classroom atmosphere I've worked on creating and the systems I had established. At the beginning of the year, I had to instruct my students on everything. Where to put papers, where to get this or that from, what to do when they were done with an assignment before anyone else, and so on and so forth. Friday I simply watched and enjoyed as I moved from one subject to another and my students simply did what they needed to. Put away certain books, grabbed out other ones, took out pencils, put assignments in the appropriate place, and waited quietly to begin.

It was LOVELY!

This progress isnt simply in their behaviors, but in their school work as well. I have moments like that when I think back to the beginning of the year and how far my students have come. It makes me so ecstatic to see their progress! This is especially evident in my students' reading.

We do a lot of reading throughout the day, whether it be in another subject, me reading out loud, the students reading from the basil reader, or silently to themselves. Well, as of the past few weeks, some of my students have been asking me to make a reading list of great chapters books for them to read for their own personal reading time. I've been pulling books for them, such as "The Mouse and the Motorcycle", "Pippi Longstocking" and "The Littles". I have students running up to me saying  "I just read this part and it is so good!" or "Can't I just read a little bit more, please?!" I love that!

A classic! SO good! And one of my personal favorites.

One of the most rewarding parts of being a 2nd grade teacher specifically is to be able to watch students develop in their reading. My students have grown from reading mostly children's books at the beginning of the year to reading pretty substantial chapter books such as the ones mentioned above. Their excitement for the stories and the characters is phenomenal! To have a role in perking children's interest in reading is unbelievably rewarding and is another one of the million reasons I love this job.