Stepping into class two this year for the first time reminded me of the saying, “there is a time for everything.” Indeed this has been seen over and over again with the children as well as with myself. Last year was our time to settle into what the year expected of us and how we would face the challenges. It was also a time to question why certain things were the way they were and how we would search for the answers. There was even a time to cry out in sheer frustration when our efforts seemed to hit brick walls. We hit those brick walls, hit right through and then stepped into the wonderful, amazing and love filled world of class two…
A world where a letter of the alphabet partnered with another letter to form one new sound! A world where we met a wizard named Stan who could change our big letters into small letters with the wave of his wand. Inside this world we also met many animals in the fables as well as having saints accompany us on our journey. The fable stories taught us that there is always a way to make things okay again even when we are very hurt. Our saints reminded us that we are actually perfectly imperfect just the way we are and that we all have a saint within each one of us.
Our love for each other grew and deepened and we learnt how our differences can enable us to become closer as a class. We crossed many thresholds-sometimes through tear streaked faces but we crossed! We challenged ourselves to the point of being able to let out a satisfying “YES!” when achieving our goal. We laughed-a lot! Laughter is part of our classroom community! We welcomed visitors with open arms and many times with arms held tightly around the waist not wanting to let go. We said goodbye to some classmates however we said ‘hello’ to many other wonderful experiences. These experiences helped us to grow (physically and emotionally) and to live!
“The meaning of life is to find your gift, the purpose of life is to give it away.” –Joy J. Golliver