It was a great experience. First, I went in and answered a bunch of questions. Some were, "What's your favorite food?" Tacos. "What's your favorite color?" Purple, but not all the time. "What's your favorite animal?" Hawk. "What's your favorite thing to do?" Geocaching. "What is on of your talents?" I can't sing, play the piano (or any other instrument for that matter), dance, do Karate, or anything like that. I am good at fixing things.
The next day I got to go in and read aloud to the students. They were reading Mathilda. One of the things I miss most about not being in the classroom anymore is getting to read to the kids everyday. I like to really get into it. I love it when I stop to ask them what is going to happen, and they get so excited as they guess. I love stopping after someone's prediction has either been proven or disproven and ask them to guess again. I love the discussion about what caused us to believe what we thought was going to happen. Sometimes the discussion is better when our prediction was wrong. (Authors enjoy writing, and we enjoy the twists) It was great to have that experience again!
The third day I was supposed to share my talent. I thought it might be boring to ask someone to bring in something for me to fix. (Plus I was worried that I might not be able to) So I asked if I could take the class on a geocaching expedition. Mr. Lowe helped me hide a box full of tennis balls and recorded the coordinates. Then I took the information into the classroom and using the projector, computer, and Elmo I demonstrated how to look up a geocache from the website and program the coordinates into the GPS. Then we went out to search for our cache. It is hard to get 8 & 9 year olds to comprehend things like, the GPS says go one direction but there might be something in the way so you have to go around it. (They wanted to just walk right through the building. I was worried that we would be to noisy.) We eventually found our way around the building and I tried to explain how we had to use the clues to find it because the GPS only gets us close, but they were so excited about seeing it before we read the clues again that they wouldn't stop telling me that it was, "Right there! In the tree!" I had to smile. I still wanted them to help me "figure out" the clues so I let them know they were right, and asked if they would help me anyway just so we had the practice. They seemed to like that idea. Sorry, if the tennis balls have caused you problems at home but the students sure loved getting them.
The last two days were more difficult. The last day I was supposed to have someone from my family come in and talk about work. I don't have a lot of family here and with a child in Kindergarten, one in the Intermediate school, and one in 4th grade it was nearly impossible for my wife to be home when the kids got home and come over to help with this. So, sadly I wasn't able to take part in those days.
I love being in the classrooms, even just to watch. I am grateful to Mrs. Pfleiderer for the invitation to remember the best part of our job. The kids! Seeing the light go on when a concept has been difficult and they all of a sudden "get it". The innocence which makes it so impossible to understand why we would look at clues when we had already found the answer. The excitement of trying something new. The trust that the principal (or teacher) said it would be fun, so this must be something to get excited about. (I bet, if as parents, you gave your child a used tennis ball the excitement wouldn't be near as great as it was that day. Even if you hid it inside a box and placed it up in a tree.)
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