On the last day of school, I cringed as I saw many kids doing the usual end-of-school activity of signing their shirts. I didn't used to mind this so much when there was no dress code, and most of the kids wore cheap white T-shirts (or at least, if another color, still cheap). But now with the dress code of collared shirts, I just don't want to be the one that approves using magic marker on something that the parents might not want decorated.
Some of these kids were wearing REALLY nice shirts too, with signatures all over them. A couple of kids even asked me if they could sign MY shirt! And my shirt was patterned, with multi-colored stripes! What are they thinking??
So as an alternative, when the kids came to my room, I gave them each a big sheet of colored construction paper. We folded them up multiple times, unfolded them, and then drew lines on the creases, creating a nice autograph page with many squares to sign.
I even made my own for each class so that I could capture the kids' signatures and thoughts.
Most of them signed their name and wrote something like, "Best teacher ever." I think that once the first kid wrote that, the others felt obligated.
One of my sneaky devils -- really a sweet kid, but always doing something exasperating -- wrote, "Thank you for teaching me everything you know." Um, I DO have a few more tricks in the tank, sonny, but thanks for the sentiment.
On one of the kids' pages, I wrote, "You are a math superstar!" For the rest of the day, I heard this boy going around telling his classmates, "I'm famous!" or "I'm a superstar!"
One boy asked for my phone number, and then a bunch of them chimed in to ask for it. I declined, not really wanting to have to answer my phone at all hours of the night...
We've been out of school for a week now. I do miss my kids, but I don't miss having to get up early every morning!
Hope everyone's having a great summer so far!!