Today was the last day of school for students. We teachers have to go back on Monday and wrap things up for the year, but after that I'll be done. Yesterday, we had our big end of the year party. Jack came for the afternoon and joined in all the fun. The kids really got a kick out of getting to meet him, and the fifth graders bragged on "his famous cookies" (as they call them) that he'd been making for them all year long. It got pretty wild in our room for a while, but Jack handled it like a real trooper. Today was much quieter. We had our honor day program in the morning, and after that most of the kids went home with their parents. There were a few left in each class but they were kept busy watching movies, and playing outside so all the teachers could start working on their rooms. It wasn't until after the buses had left, and my aides had said their goodbyes and headed home that it really hit me that the school year was over. I thought I'd be jumping for joy because this year has been so rough, but instead I found myself near tears. It hit me that my fifth graders were gone, and some of them I may never see again. I cried most of the way home thinking about it. I don't think I have ever had this bad of a reaction to the end of the school year before. I guess I'm just really going to miss those guys. :( I knew I'd be a little sad, but I guess I just hadn't realized how attached I'd gotten to some of them. Many of them I have had for three years now (since I became the resource teacher), and things just won't be the same next year without them. I took some really great pictures yesterday and I wish I could share some of them here, but that would be a big no no, so I won't. *sigh*

So I took a personal day today. I had originally planned to take one on Wednesday for my birthday but I had a meeting I had to go to after school that day so I chose to give myself a long weekend instead. The funny or annoying thing is the person who was conducting our meeting that afternoon never showed up, but I'm kinda glad things turned out the way they did. All of my students were being very sweet about my birthday, making birthday cards for me and singing happy birthday to me. The student council came in and sang to me as well, and the principal gave me a cupcake while we were waiting for the person to show for our meeting and the other meeting participants sang happy birthday to me as well. I came away from work that day feeling pretty special that day, which is really a rarity. Anway I have ACR's coming up so I brought a lot of work home with me this weekend and had planned to work on IEP's today while Jack is in class. When Pam, my assistant, and good friend at work found out what I was planning she told me that she didn't care if I took a day next week to work on them during the day and that I should just leave them at school and just enjoy my day off. She actually got rather insistant about it saying repeatedly that I should leave them at school and enjoy my weekend. I told her I had to atleast take them home to maybe work on some of them Sunday evening, and that if I didn't take take them home I'd just end up fretting about it all weekend and feeling guilty. She made me promise her though that I wouldn't work on them today. You know what? I think I'm actually going to keep true to that promise. I need the time off.