New Beginnings and Farewells in Sight

Dear Friends,
I'm so glad you are joining me in this new adventure.  I returned to teaching first grade in the fall and have fallen in love with it all over again.  I can't believe I stayed away so long.  This year I started a website to help my families be better informed and connected to our learning.  Now I begin this endeavor in blogging.  This should be an interesting ride!
Recently, I was looking for ways to make math more interesting and hands-on for my students.  I stumbled upon some great blogs like Swamp Frog First Grade and Teacher Tipster.  I found so many ideas that I was able to implement immediately!  As I discovered genius idea after genius idea, I realized that the sharing that happens online is an important kind of professional development.  When we go to conferences or participate in common planning time, we are asking for ideas and sharing our best thinking.  When we do this online, our learning community becomes much larger.  This can only lead to immense professional growth.  I thought that if I could learn that much visiting other teachers' blogs, then I could experience more by writing a blog and inviting you to join me.
I am attending a conference next week that would interfere with parent teacher conferences so I decided to hold conferences early.  While I shared my students' work with their parents, it suddenly hit me that we only have one quarter left together.  I have had a few  glimpses of our inevitable farewell, but the conferences made it so real.  Just recently I noticed impressive learning and thinking happening.  It's interesting that we spend so much of our time working to ready our students for the next school year.  As I mentioned earlier, I have been a special educator for the last 6 years.  The nature of my role meant that I worked with my students for about 3 years.  I'm used to teaching them and being part of their learning process for more than just one year.  Well, one of the occupational hazards is that we meet amazing little human beings and get to be part of their lives for a heartbeat and that is all.  As I prepare my students to transition to second grade, I prepare myself to say goodbye to them. 
In the next few months there is much to do, many skills to sharpen, and many lessons to learn.  Thanks for sharing this time with me!  I'll post about the conference I'm attending later in the week!
Be well!