4th Grade Goodness

Now that I don’t have to be on my kids all the time to work on their mission papers and the group work of our history unit on missions, I find that I am enjoying them so much more! We have had the best last week and half of simpler, more low-key lessons, with plenty of fun ones thrown in there too. They really do have a lot of energy and can be so very exhausting… but that also makes them so much fun! They get so excited when we do something fun, or even if I let them cross off math problems from their homework, lol!

They had the best day on our half day on Wednesday, even though it started out with a geography quiz! However, that was only 1 of 2 scholastic things that we did that morning. We just finished a chapter on the rancho days when Mexico took over control of California. So after recess, we played a game outside where they got to “lasso” a “cow” by tossing a hula hoop onto a cone, while the other team pulled a rope on the cone to move it. Many of these kids live on dairies too, so they were very interested in this unit when we talked about cattle ranchos, rounding them up, and branding them. Then we went inside to the Mexican feast that awaited us (thanks to their wonderful moms!). They were again, SO excited just to be able to eat good food and choose who to sit by while we ate and watched Charlie Brown Thanksgiving movies. I had more than one student tell me at the end of the day, “Mrs. Jonkman, this was the best day, ever!” One of my students helped his mom make cupcakes to bring and had to make sure that I got a special one that he made for me with extra candy on top! How can that not melt your heart?

One more sweet, sweet, thing that my children do daily, is pray for Baby J. When we are sharing prayer requests, at least one of them never fails to pray for Baby J and myself to stay healthy. We have had several days lately, in preparation for Thanksgiving, that I only allowed them to share praises, or thanks. And each one of those days, someone always gave a big thanks for the baby as well. When you work with children, you have to treasure and remember these sweet, loving moments. There is no other way, sometimes, to keep on loving them through the all too frustrating times. And boy did I need a lot of these moments to remind me, after a good month of paper writing frustration (for both them and myself).