Remember

Remember.  Memory.  Memorial.  We have a memorial service to remember someone, and come away from it thinking of that person and their impact on us.  Joshua built a pile of stones to remember how God had led the Israelites across the Jordan River.  My students and I made a pile of paper stones to remember God’s faithfulness to us.  My Sunday School students piled up stones as they related times that God had helped them.

As we approach the end of another school year, we remember.  We’ve made many memories this year.  Let’s reflect on the year and see.

Remember how you wrote at the beginning of the year?  Look at the first page in your Handwriting book.  See how you wrote your name?  Now look at the page we just did.  How has your writing changed?  And remember your drawing?  Look at this picture from the beginning of the year—the man has no arms, hair, or ears!

Do you remember when we did this page of 100 math facts in five minutes?  No one finished it.  Now when we did it, several of you finished it, and you all did more facts than you did that first time.

We’ve had a travel theme this year. Let’s travel back and remember.

In September, we had Bear Week, and did bear stories, bear games, bear projects, a bear picnic, and ate bear snacks.  You brought your teddy bears to school.  You wrote your first stories then, and some of you just wrote some random letters!  Now you write pages of stories. Remember when we hibernated?  You brought in blankets and made dens, and we had fun sitting in the dens, reading, or pretending to sleep.

In November, we wrote on the pumpkin, listing things we are thankful for.  Your parents came in for our Thanksgiving Tea.  Oh, yes, and November brought that snowy day when the buses weren’t allowed to leave to take you home!  Remember, your parents had to come pick you up, and some of you were here until 4:00 PM!  We had fun, didn’t we?  Reading, having a snack, playing games together.

December brought the Christmas program, Christmas lunch, and studying what Christmas really means.

We had fun in the snow when we went out on the big piles by the parking lot, and when we had science lessons outside in the snow, and we measured how long it took the snow to melt. February was fun with the Valentine’s party and my birthday, and you were so generous to me, and thought I might get spoiled!

You wrote about Easter and what it really means and you were very thoughtful with that.  You made me cry when Carter gave a perfect example of Jesus’ love for us.  Brad needed to pay a ticket for not following the class rules, but didn’t have any tickets left.  Carter came to me and said, “Here—I want to pay Brad’s ticket,” and gave me one of his own tickets.  I told you that is just what Jesus did for us because we couldn’t pay for our sins, but it was like Jesus said, “Here, Father!  I want to pay those tickets” and He died for us.

You are all reading, and some of you are reading chapter books.  It is great to look around and see someone here on the stool reading, someone under my desk reading, people on their desks or under their desks, reading, students in the hall reading together.  I hear Dale reading jokes to me from the milk cartons, and Ellen reading all the posters in the room.  There’s Brielle reading to Sean as they walk up the steps to the bus.

There are so many things I could say about each of you. There are many things you are good at, and you have made progress in many areas.  Samuel, you are great at fixing things.  Loren, I appreciate your good cooperation.  Marie, you have 100% in spelling for the whole year, and Dean, you have 100% in Math for the year!

Let’s remember our first-grade family, and the care you have shown each other and your teacher.  Let’s remember these fun times and all the learning and growth you have made.  God bless you, my class of 2018-19!