The Last Day

The time is 7:00 a.m. I rise out of bed knowing that this is my last day.


I arrive at the school and go about my day with the classes normal routines. Towards the end of the day I call students to the carpet and tell them to close their eyes. When I see that their eyes are tightly shut I bring out my presents for them. 


The first gift is a puppet. The children squeal with excitement as I show them how it moves and comes to life with the guidance of my hand. I explain to them that they get to name this puppet and use it during free-time. I also let them know that this puppet can be a reminder of all the fun times we had together.


The kids name it rockstar :)


The second gift I give them is a book I worked on throughout my 14 weeks with them. The book was a part of my "funds of knowledge" project in which I gathered unique details about each student, along with a poem I wrote for them, and a tree with all of our fingerprints as the leaves. 

Andrew hanging out with the new class buddy "Rockstar" the puppet.

The inside cover of the book with the poem I wrote for them  (right side)

The class tree with our fingerprints as the leaves

On each page I had pictures of the students with their unique qualities and funds of knowledge accompanied with their hand-print.

At the end I included pictures of our home countries.

As we get ready for the end of the day, students go around the room and share their favorite memories spent with me. With each comment, I have to fight back the tears and be brave. Finally, it is little *Joseph's turn (my chatty little scientist). He stands up out of his seat and begins his speech. 


"Ms. H., I liked when we built boats together and you taught us about the water cycle. We will really miss you and we just, we just really love you." 


With that I cannot hold back the tears any longer. "I love all of you too so much!" I say and wipe my wet cheeks. 


I hug each of them as they walk out the door, out into the world as the amazing 1st graders that I was so blessed to teach.