I love you more than honey

Yesterday was my last day volunteering with the first graders until Fall.  I am getting over a terrible cold with a cough and really did not want to drag myself out of bed.  But I wanted to tell them goodbye.

The children were working on memory pages.  They glued a picture taken  during the year and wrote about that particular event. They also wrote and drew a picture about their favorite place at school.  You would think the playground would be the number one place.  No, it was the library.  How that tickled me.  Books and reading won!

Then we did the end of the year testing for math.  As I walked around making sure they were on the right problem I was pleased how well most of them were doing.  This test is really hard: clocks, money, number families, reading problems, graphs, adding and subtraction, patterns, geometric shapes, and more.  Ms. H had taught them well.

I read a couple of chapters of Stuart Little to them and then Ms. H came up to me with a gift bag.  They had made a book of letters and pictures thanking me for helping them all year.  Well, that alone had me emotional.  And then she asked if anyone wanted to say anything to me.  The first little boy looks at me and says, "I love you more than honey."  Then nearly every child told me how much they loved me and how I had helped them.  I was in tears when I told them how I loved them and that they are the highlight of my week.  We were all so emotional by then that Ms. H said they needed to sing to me to cheer me up.  So they sang and danced the Chicken song.  This is the best link to hearing some of the words.  Then Ms. H and I taught them Do Your Ears Hang Low. 

By then we are laughing like crazy.  The kids are dancing around the room.  I am getting hugs from kids and from Ms. H.   It was a lovely ending to a school year.  I have promised Ms. H that I'll be back in the Fall.  What will I do with my Tuesdays until then?