What I Love About my Job; Let Me Count the Ways

At just after 4:00 today I was home from school and starting my five-day Thanksgiving break. Having worked so many years where the holiday was Thanksgiving, period, and I usually couldn't take leave the day before or after, having all this time is such a treat. Not to mention being home by 4:00 after a five-minute commute.

I do have a pretty wonderful job.

The fabulous Mrs. D who teaches band across the hall came by the school library today to give me this big, shiny, big apple. I quite liked having it on my desk; it made me feel very teacher-like, and after a while I realized how beautiful it was and had to take a picture of it. I had four different school cameras to choose from!

Mrs. D has a clarinet quartet practicing Christmas music during recess. The wonderful music is a treat to hear and a nice background to the quiet reading and studying that goes on in the library during that time.

I'm still smiling at something I overheard yesterday from one of the better students as she studied in the library with her friends for a test on early Civil War battles: "The Union is the North, right?" Uh...yup!

The art teacher gave me a rush job of scanning about twenty pieces of student artwork for a school publication. She was quite apologetic, but I was quite pleased to have the chance to see these colorful and graphic drawings up close and reproduce them to their best advantage.

I've been weeding the non-fiction books to make room for displaying books. It's very gratifying to see the students stop and look through the books I've put out and I confess to getting a thrill when they actually check them out.

Two of the fifth-graders who were scheduled to read to little preschool age kids today at recess were out, so I had the honor of stepping in to read in their places. What treat that was; so different from reading to a whole class on Story Time Mondays.

Speaking of which, we had a fun day yesterday in Story Time reading Jack Prelutsky's poem about Thanksgiving:


I Ate Too Much Turkey:

I ate too much turkey,
I ate too much corn,
I ate too much pudding and pie,
I'm stuffed up with muffins and much too much stuffin',
I'm probably going to die.

I piled up my plate and I ate and I ate,
but I wish I had known when to stop,
for I'm so crammed with yams,
sauces, gravies, and jams
that my buttons are starting to pop.

I'm full of tomatoes and french fried potatoes,
my stomach is swollen and sore,
but there's still some dessert,
so I guess it won't hurt
if I eat just a little bit more.

The kids thought this was pretty funny, and so did I.