Goodbye, Reading Buddies!

What a great relationship we had between Lakeview's 8th grade Reading Buddies this year and our 4th grade ELLs! Here are two final letters from our 8th graders to our 4th graders.

A little gem I found while digging...

We received a crisis e-mail last year about a potential mega drop in funding for ESL programs across the state of Indiana. Our ESL director, Wendy Long, invited us to write letters to the senator, telling him why this was a terrible idea. Well, senators tend to ignore teachers. But...who can resist kids?! We all wrote letters to Senator Kenley (below is one gem of an example), and he actually did not sign that awful bill. We still have ESL; it worked! (At least, we'd like to think that we're that influential.) Side note: He responded to all our letters, and we all wrote him thank you notes!

Birthday Card

So...last Thursday was my birthday--the big 2-5. I was out all day in a meeting at the CIMC, but when I arrived the next morning, I had a whole stack of birthday cards from my kiddos. While they were all absolutely delightful and self-esteem-boosting, this one tickled my fancy in a particular way.

#1: I love that she thinks I'm 20; I was in college at 20!

#2: I love that I "look young" to a 5th grader!! No wonder my colleagues can't take me seriously; I'm just a baby to them!

#3: I love that she needed to clarify that looking young is a "compliment," since some women would be "insulted" if they were told they looked younger than they actually were??

#4: I love that she thinks I may not know her (hence "Melissa's friend") but that she's writing me a birthday card, nonetheless.

Overall, I have NO complaints about this card. It made my day! :)

How life will change...

James and I found out some life-altering news just a couple months ago. And Friday, we got to see this news for the very first time.

Isn't that just the cutest blob you've ever seen?! Well, we certainly think so. ;) 

The reason I've posted this picture to my teaching blog is that it will change a whole semester of teaching for me. We're due just two weeks before Christmas Break, and we're currently planning for me to take the whole Spring Semester off to be with Baby Steele. I'll probably post a picture of the baby before I take off in December, but it could be a while after that that I would post after that! Man...our lives are about to change (we don't even fully realize just how true that statement is!). But it's a change that we're looking forward to. :)

"Playground Plea"