Feeling appreciated or showing appreciation or both??!

This is the poster my students made for me!! I'm not sure if you can read it, but they have words which I suppose are to describe me. I'm not sure why some of them put "smart" or "beautiful", but If you see the orange-y looking one near the bottom, it just says "hi hi hi hi hi" I think that one describes me the best!! The week has been great, though I would rather receive excellent behavior from my kids than any of the gifts they have been bringing (not that I'm going to give it back!!) Since Monday, I've received: a set from Bath and Body Works, a bouquet of flowers, a glass fish paperweight, a bag of Ghirardelli chocolate (milk chocolate with caramel filling -- it doesn't get much better than that unless it's dark chocolate!!), and today one of my students brought in a huge bag with a canvas teacher bag, a fleece throw blanket, and a book titled The 100 Most Important Bible Verses. I read through the first one and it is AWESOME!! I think I'll start posting them once a week (or twice a week, or every other week, depending on when I get to it!!)

This week has made me reflect a little. I don't remember teacher appreciation week very much when I was in school. I guess in our house we just called it "Mother's Day" (seeing we were homeschooled and all :-) Having my mom as my teacher from 4th grade through graduating High School, I don't have that much pre-college experience with other teachers. Going through my first year of teaching, though, I have thought a lot about MY 3rd grade teacher: Mrs. Seal. It was her first year of teaching. I remember all the little notes she would write on my work, the fun extra projects she would do with us: boiling salt water in the kitchen to show how salt doesn't evaporate, making coloring page books to go with a missionary story, and who could forget studying the Tabernacle and actually visiting a replica of one in Pennsylvania!! We went to the zoo that year, too!! It makes me think . . . when did she have the time to plan all this? She was married when she taught me -- it's all I can do to get my lesson plans done before I actually teach!! I can't imagine how I would be able to have any time for a family with all that I have to do! I admire her so much and appreciate her so much more for the sacrifices she made to be such an encouragement to me and my other classmates!