Sixth Grade Comes to an End

Only one more 5:45 am wake up call left of student teaching! 

I am so excited to no longer have to return to our overpopulated, windowless prison cell classroom with smelly hormonal sixth graders. Yep, over the oppressively stuffy classroom.  
I am also pretty stoked to be able to stay up later than 11pm and not want to die midday.  
Oh, I'm also tired of not getting paid.  

However. 

I am going to miss the compliments from my girls first thing every morning.
I am going to miss the immature jokes that made me laugh at, if not always with, my students. 
I am going to miss the "aha" moments when a hovering light bulb almost literally turns on over their heads. 
I am going to miss the endless loose-leaf doodles "To Ms. Yelensis." 
The smiles when we start something new.
The notes on the floor.
The music performances.

I wish I could stay a little longer to watch them "Graduate" to the middle school.
I wish I could stay to join them on their sixth grade picnic.
I wish I could be there when they make the realization that the recess drama that is so momentous now is actually petty nonsense in high school.  
I wish I could see all my sixth graders grow and mature even more than they have in the past ten months.

But I guess that's my first lesson in teaching. I will get a new group of students every September without fail, and without fail I will probably fall in love with them.  And without fail they will move on in the spring.  I will have to learn to love and let go. Although I don't think I will ever forget these 22 sixth graders - the sixth graders that made up my very first class.