A Great Idea from a Teacher

My favorite teacher was from my daughter's 1st grade class. My daughter had just started at a new school. She was SUPER nervous as she had to start all over again with meeting new people. And she didn't take to starting preschool very well.

Well she came home telling me all about this "jitter juice" her 1st grade teacher gave the class that made their butterflies go away. She talked about how nervous she was until she had this magic juice. I will never forget this and had never heard about "jitter juice" before.

I'm excited because my youngest gets to have this same teacher this year!

Hi C.,

What a nice thing to share with us. It's a very thoughtful teacher who goes about building community in ways the children can grasp.

In sixth grade, I was in hell. I was a late transfer (left a middle school in November to go back to an elementary school-ugh) and out of place. The teacher we had noticed that some kids were struggling to fit in during recess and instead of letting us just hang out on the margins, she solicited us to join a 'jogging club' with her as our leader. This was back in the day when you didn't need 1,000 permission slips... in any case, we became a little pack of joggers who encouraged each other and had something positive to do instead of feeling rejected during lunch.

She also took the time to show off each kid's talents. I came to school on the morning before Parent's Night and found a poetry assignment I'd handed in, written out in calligraphy and mounted on a piece of colored paper. SHE had taken the time to do that. It really made me feel special.

Interesting, my daughter was given this same assignment yesterday and it is due Friday. I also live in South Florida, maybe it is the same school. It is second grade though and a small school, so she knows all the students from having had them in kindergarten, as well as first grade. It was hard for us to find things that could fit in the bag (I am sure you can relate if he likes ice skating since ice skates cannot fit into a small lunch brown paper bag), I hope we made good choices and that she brings them back home!