School's out...for the summer!

Wednesday was our last official teaching day, although it really was more like my last official teaching HOUR, since my students went to gym from 9 to 10, and had lunch at 11:15 before dismissal at 11:45. Which was okay with me. I had them work on a project involving Chris van Allsburg's book Mysteries of Harris Burdick. Van Allsburg, for those of you who aren't intimately familiar with children's book authors, is a genius. The book purports to be a series of mysterious drawings which once accompanied a set of stories, but which were lost when the author mysteriously disappeared. All that remained was the drawings and their (mysterious) captions. Of course, they were all drawn by van Allsburg, but the backstory is part of the fun. Anyway, I showed the students all the drawings, read them the titles and captions, and then gave them the job of writing the "missing" stories. It was great fun, and a good way to spend a final hour. (We'd emptied out desks and cleaned the room days earlier, so there wasn't much left to accomplish.)

I spend most of Wednesday afternoon, Thursday, and Friday organizing the classroom library, cleaning out my desk, and sorting through files. Not so much fun, but definitely in need of doing, and certainly nothing I have time for during the year. I think I'm done -- unless I think of something else, I probably won't be back until August. Which leaves me with a LOT of free time. On the 12th I'm meeting my mom for a trip to France to see my grandparents, and then coming back via Rhode Island, where there is a family reunion in Newport. Aside from this, and a short trip in July to Las Vegas for a conference, I have nothing much planned. Oh, I'll work in the yard, and read a bunch of books, but nothing definite. It should be lovely.