Reflections on fourth grade

This school year went by so fast. It was like a blink of an eye and just like that it was over. I wanted to talk about Noah's year in fourth grade. He had an amazing teacher who was funny and kind. She had all kinds of great ideas. 

Noah told me that it has been fifty years since I was in 4th grade. I still remember being in 4th grade. It was only 25 years ago. My teacher was mean and I didn't really care for her. 

Noah has been so lucky to have great teachers so far. Some of the activities his class did this year were life maps which I thought were so cool. It gave the class a chance to get to know each other. They did genius hour where they had to do reports on different topics. They also had genre requirements which I thought was neat because it gave them the freedom to choose their books as long as it's in the genre. 

They had a class store where they could buy stuff with money they earned from their jobs. They had to fill out job applications to be hired for the different jobs in their classroom. A couple times during the year, they had movie days where they had to use their dollars to buy a ticket. They could also buy snacks and could wear their pajamas. 

They raised money for St. Jude by creating a business with a business plan. They created notebooks using cereal boxes. They raised over $1,000 for St. Jude. They went on field trips and learned a lot. Their big field trip was an overnight trip to the zoo. They slept in the dolphin pavilion. 

They hatched chicks and the highlight of my day was getting the daily chick report when Noah got home from school. That's not something we did when I was in school. Naturally, I had questions. I love that he learned about that. Unless you live on a farm you normally don't get to see animals being born or in this case hatching  in real life. I don't think I have ever seen an animal being born.

They made cookie maps which I wanted Noah to share with me. We never did any of that when I was in elementary school. The closest thing I did was make a cell out of candy in 6th grade but it wasn't something you would want to eat. I did eat quite a bit of candy while making it. I do remember that. 

As his last year of elementary school has ended it is so bittersweet. He is moving on to bigger things but I hope he left his footprints on the school. We will both miss his elementary school, his teachers, the principal and all those who remain.