"Fun Friday"

I have volunteered in Ryan’s classes most Friday mornings for the past 2 ½ years. When he was in Kindergarten, I was the computer teacher. Last year I taught Service Learning, where we would do small service projects for the school or the community. This year, my mom and I do “Fun Friday” with all four second grades (just over 100 kids). We usually plan a lesson and activity having to do with what they have been studying. In the past few months, we have done the lesson and activity on such things as the life cycle of a pumpkin, seeds, leaves, Veterans Day, and all of the major holidays.

Last Friday, since the weather was really yucky, we had a “snowman” day inside. We did snowman relays - each kid had to put on a hat, scarf, and gloves, then take them off, and run and tag their next teammate in line to do the same. In case you were wondering, yes, it was very loud. After the snowman relays, we made snowmen with two scoops of vanilla ice cream, pretzels, chocolate chips, red hots, etc. Of course, the kids loved the fact that we were letting them eat ice cream at 10:00 in the morning!

Today we talked about the history of Valentine’s Day. Most of you know that Ryan and I LOVE books by Robert Sabuda. We have all of them. He did an amazing paper mosaic book called Saint Valentine (we saw his original mosaics at the UMFA in August), which is the history of Saint Valentine and Valentine's Day. I have a cold at the moment, and did not have enough voice to read loudly to a hundred 2nd graders, so my mom read it to the kiddos. Then we helped them make their Valentine’s Day bags. It was a lot of fun, and not as loud as last week.

My volunteer time in Ryan’s class satisfies my desire to be back in the classroom when it occurs, and then quickly helps me appreciate the great job I have now. But the real reason I do it is for the look on Ry’s face when he sees me walk in the door of his class. He tries to act cool, but gives me a little wave and a big smile when he thinks his buddies aren’t looking. He always tells me that his favorite school day is Friday, not because that is the last day of the week, but because it’s the day that I (and Rara) help in his classroom.