Thursday we went skating with the entire 4th grade as our end-of-year party. It was really a blast. I got some inline skates and the kids were pretty impressed with my skating skills. I used to play roller hockey. The kids were pretty funny though. Just stopping by falling down or running into someone. Most of the songs were classics...like "Thriller."

At one point they played the Foo Fighters' song "My Hero" that has a chorus that sings "There goes my hero, watch him as he goes!" I told a couple of my coworkers that some of the kids requested the song as a dedication to me. Later on I suddenly hear the DJ say "Where is Mr. ____?!"(me) Then he said "Here's a song dedicated to you from the students." The song was the ultra-cheesy "You're the Inspiration" by Chicago. Of course, it was my coworkers that had them play it.

Clearly they are jealous.

Today was the last day of school. It was a crazy day. I was on my feet and going nonstop for many hours. It took me a while to decompress afterwards. I was seriously just on full throttle all day.

This morning we had a kickball tournament. My class completely demolished every team. They just scored one run after another and won at least one game by more than 10 points.

After that they had lunch. Any time they had down time I was trying to get my room together. I'm changing to a different room so I have to move all my stuff.

The kids went to PE and I gobbled down some mexican food made by our custodial staff. That was nice. Then I went back to getting stuff together, trying to get report cards and everything else ready to pass out to the kids, etc...

At the end of the day I had a reflection time with them. They recalled their favorite things about the year, etc. Then I asked them if they could have changed one thing about the year what would it be. One kid pointed to this shelf that was a mess of games and puzzles. I said "What about it?" and he said "Organize it." Then another kid piped in with "Yeah, you need to be more organized." Ouch! I guess I've been shamed into action...at least I hope I have. Organization is not my strong suit.

After that I finished getting the report cards together, gave them out with a hug to each kid and said goodbye. Later on that afternoon some of the girls from the after-school program came back up and they were all crying. They came up to me all hugging me and just crying. Awwwwww.. A couple of them weren't even in my class.

One year down.

Mr. DigMe

I'm not promising anything here but I'll try to do an end of year wrap-up this week. Maybe share some reflections and some stories from the the last couple of crazy weeks. It HAS been crazy. I don't have time for that this morning though. Sorry for just dropping off here... It's tough to keep one of these things going. At least it is for a slacker like me!

Mr. DigMe

Our trip to the big history and culture museum in our state capitol today was an adventure.

More at 10.