End of Year Gardening Club Update!

Here are some photos of my students' gardening club projects from this year...

Wild Flower Bed (actually Minnesota Wild Flowers because I received the seeds for free from the Minnesota State Lottery). This is located in the grassy area outside my classroom.

Vegetable Garden... (Left to Right: Various types of tomatos, Jalapenos, Habinero Pepper, Bell Peppers, Cuccumbers, Strawberries)

Jalapenos - Just about ready to pick! (I will not be eating them... but many people at the school have "spoken" for them...)

Some of the tomatoes are getting closer to harvest. I will probably pick them during summer school.

Strawberries - we just harvested some strawberries before these pictures. We have eaten probably 30 strawberries off of the three little plants we have!

End of the Year Celebration

On Wednesday before the last day of school the 5th grade team had an end of year celebration for our students. Parents, guardians, and family members were invited to celebrate the accomplishments of their students this school year. Below are some photos of my students all dressed up and looking nice at the celebration (hopefully more photos to come!)



This is my team. (L to R: Katie (Ms. Laird), David (Mr. Alviar), Me (Mr. Swartz), Colin (Mr. Weatherford).

We had a great turn out at the end of the year event... it was a "Pot Luck" with various types of Hispanic foods. To be honest, I wasn't sure what most of it was, but I ate it and most of it was good.

Nayetzi, Yulissa, and Kimberly....

Daniella and Mr. Swartz. Daniella was a great student to have in class. Not only is she very smart, she always helped translate for me. :)

Jessie Zapata (one of my three Jessie's). I liked his outfit!

The Whirl-Wind that is the End of the Year...

Bittersweet.

That is the best way to describe my feelings towards the end of the school year.

To back-track a little bit, I finally received my students science TAKS scores... although it may not be appropriate... I told my students that they were "murderers" because they killed the science TAKS! (They loved the play on words).

Honestly though, my students did an awesome job on the science TAKS. Out of both of my sections of science classroom, I only had two students not pass. I could not believe the fantastic results. The credit is not all due to me, since my students also see a science lab teacher during the day (who is awesome and my mentor), but I am still very proud of their accomplishments. Way to go Berry!!

Back to the end of the school year...

The last student day was on Thursday, May 27th. It snuck up on me pretty fast. It seems like just the other day I was trying to pronounce my students names and try to maintain some type of order in my classroom, and now it is already the end of the school year.

My students have definitely grown on me. I am going to miss each and every one of them collectively and individually. I am excited and scared for them for what is to come.

I know that some of them will make it, and reach their goals and dreams, but unfortunately, statistically, a large percentage of them will not. I hope and pray that their next teacher cares about them just as much or more than I did. I hope they are motivated and inspired to reach their full potential, because at times, I have had each one of my students prove to me that they were full capable of achieving great things. They just need someone to help them understand and realize that.

Hopefully I was able to leave my students with something. Whether it was a desire, motivation, inspiration, or encouragement... I just hope I was able to contribute in making their life a little bit better. It is hard to let my students go... they will be middle schoolers next year. What a crazy thought! I have been to some of the middle schools (for trainings) and I am worried about what is in store for my kids. I wish them all the best.