Wrapping Up

It's really hard for me to believe that in 48 hours I will be back in Kent, and in 72 hours I will likely be in Spokane.
I am so cliche. But I am totally leaving a little piece of my heart here.
Tonight we had our final meeting where we laughed and told stories and reminisced and shared our top 10 moments from the trip. Somehow I totally missed that this was going to be part of the meeting (those who really know me aren't surprised by this at all) and so I had to come up with them on a paper plate in about 3 minutes. But that's when the truly outstanding moments really come up, right? Here are my top 10 hits from my time in San Francisco..

Alcatraz for the Win by Alcatraz Cruises (2012)

I Like Long Walks on the Beach by Hopeless Romantic (2012)

Still cool in the eyes of a 5^th Grader by Teachers Love Teaching (2012)

Wharf-io by Chowder and Friends (2012)

I Left my Heart in Napa Valley by The Wineries (2012)

Does This Bridge Ever End? By The Peddlers (2012)

Penguin Sighting by Never Too Old (2012)

City Life by This Isn’t So Bad After All (2012)

Hallelujah by The Grace Cathedral Choir (2012)

Lightbulb Moments by Worth It (2012)

So these might be a little confusing. But let me explain the last one (Lightbulb Moments by Worth It) because this moment was one of the moments teachers live for.


I have a student who I have been working on all month with multiplication. When I got here, my teacher asked if I could work with him because he can do all the math, he just has a hard time remembering how to carry numbers and what order to do all the steps of a multiplication problem.
So we worked and we worked.
I made him some visual aids that somehow seemed to help him make sense of things in his head.
So we worked and we worked some more.
A math test came and things didn't go super well.
I got frustrated because I could see that the visuals were helping, but he wasn't seeming to memorize the process at all.
So we worked and we worked some more.
On Friday, Mr. A was trying to solve a 3x3 multiplication problem (e.g. 123 x 456). He did his first two rows  of work and tried to call it quits there... But that doesn't quite work. So when I told him he still had another line of work to do, he immediately realized what he had to do. And I was totally shocked. So I asked him to repeat to me what he had just done. And he told me fluently... It was so clear in his head! And he didn't have anything helping him! He just knew it! And thought the understanding is very much procedural (rather than conceptual) right now, it still clicked. Things aren't perfect yet, but I almost cried right on the spot and we spent the rest of the math period making a game out of checking his answers and cheering if he got them right and problem solving if something got off. He did awesome. And I wanted to cry the whole time.


Kindergarteners don't really have light bulb moments like that... Mostly because everything is kind of a light bulb moment for them. They're five, for goodness sake! But getting excited about math with little Mr. A was awesome... He's stellar.


One more day in the classroom with a little mini celebration before lunch, and then we are out of here! Caty and I hop on a shuttle at 7:30 Thursday morning to fly back to Seattle and retrieve our cars before heading back to Spokane over the weekend. Really weird to think that in 6 days I will be starting my student teaching classes on campus! Praying for safe travels and filled hearts as we leave this beautiful city.