Spending time with Grace...

The past two days, I have spent quite a bit of time with Grace and her classmates at school.  I signed up to be a chaperone for Grace's 4th grade Outdoor Learning Center field trip.  I thought I was just going to tag along with the other parents and be an extra pair of eyes for the teacher...right??  Wrong!  On Friday, she brought home a packet and said, "Hey Mom, this is from Mr. Emery about the field tip."  I didn't read it...until Sunday.  Yeah, I had a job on the field trip on Monday!  They were going to the Outdoor Learning Center which has a one-roomed school house.  I had a script and I was the school teacher! So, I crammed on Sunday night and Monday morning to learn all about being a teacher and life in Texas in 1898.  It was fun.

I arrived at the one-roomed school house a little early and it was so cool! I had a costume to wear and got all of my props out.  Grace's class came in and I LOVED it!  The kids all had to dress up, too.  We had a 40 minute lesson and then about a 20 minute writing lesson with old sticks and ink that they dipped them into.  It was fun.  Grace's class was great.  The second class...not so much.  I really had to get into my mean teacher mode for them, but it worked and I wasn't too bad, if I do say so myself!  I really loved it.

Today, I volunteered to help with science lab.  It was fun.  They dissected owl pellets.  The kids didn't want to do it at first, but by the end of the lab, they all wanted to stick around and stay longer!  I was talking to Grace's teacher during the lab today...we had a ton of volunteers so we all just walked around and helped where ever....He and another teacher were talking about the upcoming TAKS test...a huge deal here in Texas.  They did benchmarks a few months ago to see where the kids were and where they need to be for the TAKS tests in March.  Grace had a perfect score on all of her tests.  So, needless to say, we aren't real worried about the TAKS in March.  Her teacher told me today that he has decided that Grace should just go ahead and teach the rest of the 4th graders.   So, when Grace decides to be a teacher in 10 years...her 4th grade teacher called it today!