Nostalgia

These days, this transition into fall, this time of getting back into a rhythm of school and home makes me miss teaching every year. I loved teaching. I loved the interaction with kids, making a difference in their lives and imprinting knowledge on them every day. Fall is the hardest time of year to not be a part of that. So when I wallow and swim in my nostalgia, I tend to create my classroom at home again. I throw caution to the wind and start investigating some sort of scientific question the kids had while paying no attention to a nearing bedtime. We explore the outdoors with fervor. I quiz them on letters and numbers and addition and subtraction while we drive around doing errands. But mostly, I create with them. My favorite years of teaching were my last years, teaching art. So we make and create and paint and inspire each other. This week we have made pumpkins, a painted box that seems to have endless uses, drawings of all sorts of things, a fairy crown and a car. And it's only Wednesday. By next week we'll be working our way into a full-fledged Van Gough inquiry study...which I might still have in my basement. Yay for finally cleaning out my classroom this August!