Today third grade was much better than usual. The halls were lined with construction paper christmas wreaths and santa clauses with cotton ball beards, and it was precious. The kids were all super happy because they have an early dismissal today. When I took them on their bathroom break, one girl said, “Tomorrow is my uncle’s birthday!” and that started a chain reaction. They were all lined up yelling their stories to me as quickly and loudly as possible. It went something like this:

“Tomorrow is my uncle’s birthday!”

“Tomorrow is MY birthday!”

“Tomorrow I’m going to the Smokey Mountains!”

“I knew someone who got Smokey Mountain Spotted Fever once!”

“I watched old Yeller yesterday. He got shot!”

“My uncle ate 6 pounds of dressing on thanksgiving!”

“I ate 7 pounds of cherry pie on thanksgiving!”

And so on!

And then we were reading about Johnny Appleseed, about how he lived with settlers while he was planting orchards because he didn’t have a home of his own and moved around a lot, and several of the kids were so puzzled over why he didn’t just buy an RV to stay in. I laughed quietly to myself for three minutes.

The very best part was during Social Studies. I was working with two boys who sometimes unintentionally disrupt class because of their inability to sit still and stay calm, and one of them said, “Ms. Martin, can you help me with this? You would be a really good teacher.”

And then he looked at the other boy and said, “Ms. Martin really would be a good teacher,” and the other boy agreed.

It completely made my day.