I am one blessed woman to have been chosen out of many others to lead this classroom of students along life's way this year. If you would be so inclined to do, please pray for me~send good thoughts my way that I am able to step into a position that may well be one of the most challenging and at the same time rewarding ones that I have ever known in 36 years of education.
Have a good day everyone out there, friends and family! I love you guys all and hope that this day will be a blessed one for you all as well. This is the day that has been made for me and if you are reading this, then it has been made for you too! We woke up today~there is a reason for being here. Go out and find what you have in store for you.
Dear 4th grade students,
Good morning dear young ones and welcome to our classroom for this school year. It's very early as I type this letter to you, in fact most of you are still snoozing away sound asleep in your beds at home. Soon we will all be together in one of the most beautiful schools that I have seen in all of my life~Olathe Elementary School and thus our fourth grade year shall begin.
You know, I was in fourth grade once too even though now it was so very many long years ago. In fact, it was 49 years ago, so many that I actually just had to take out the calculator to figure it out myself! Yet even though it was nearly half of a century ago, I still remember so very many things about it. Our teacher was the most kind and loving woman you could have imagined and we called her "Mrs. Harris". She loved us very much and expected us to always do our very best each day. As a fourth grader I found my lifelong love for the spelling of words and my dislike for Weekly Readers. I made friends with other kids like Kathy, Becky, Terry Ellen, Allen, and Jenise. And I caught the red measles and was sicker than a dog for 3 weeks but I lived to tell the story. What in the world are the "red measles" you ask? Thank goodness that's one vocabulary word you have never had to learn in your young lives. I'll tell you about it some day.
We have so much to find out about this year, both you all as the students and myself as your teacher. Chances are extremely good that I will learn as much from you (or even more at times) than you learn from me. Who ever said that adults cannot learn from children? A very foolish grown up did, that's who! When I was a fourth grader, math was my least favorite subject. How about you? Do you sometimes feel the same way? Do you love to read? I hope so! How about writing? Does it sometimes become a challenge for you or perhaps is it one of the easiest things for you to accomplish? All of us in this classroom today have our own sets of strengths and weaknesses. My hope, my vision is that we can work together, collaborate with one another, to make this the best fourth grade year that was ever possible. Will you help me?
One last thing and then I promise I'll be quiet for a while. You know, we are going to learn so very much within the excellent curriculum that has been set up for the students of our school district this year. What opportunities await you all to become even better readers, writers and mathematicians! But not everything that I teach you, not everything that you learn will come from inside a book. I want to help you with the learning of some of "life's lessons", like how to become better citizens and neighbors not only to the 18 of us within these four walls but to the hallways, playground and beyond. I want us to find ways to help people in our community and if possible, those that live far beyond our borders here in Montrose County. And by the way you guys, I know we hear all kinds of bad things that happen in this world of ours but I am here to tell you this morning that I don't want you to listen to that. Instead, every single day I want you to find the "good" that this world has to offer all of us and believe me when I say to you that there is plenty of it to find. In fact I am going to make a wild guess that you yourself will be a part of that "good" in the days that lie ahead of us. I have a feeling and usually my feeling is pretty much right on target.
Well, it's time to go now and get things ready for this new day. I'm proud to meet you and very blessed that I will be your teacher. I have a feeling that despite all of the challenges that lie ahead, this will be the best year for me as an educator and by the way, I've had 35 years before this one to judge it from. My goal is to facilitate your learning in such a way that it will be the best year ever for you as well. Let's get started!
Love,
Mrs. Renfro
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