Favorites

Today we met with our study buddies, which was awesome because our study buddy class includes four of my favorite students from last year: Alice, Charlotte, Hank and Eli. My good friends know how much I love Hank and Eli because I talked about them constantly last year. If I have a son someday, I want him to be just like those boys. And if I have a daughter, I want her to be just like Charlotte (who I lovingly call Chuck in reference to Pushing Daisies). So it was a real highlight of my day having these special people come into my class and work with my squirrelly little first graders. And it will get to happen every Friday! Hooray!! 

I really do love a lot of my kids already, but the one I feel a real bond with so far is Kendal. I've already mentioned her - she's my birthday twin and oh-so pretty and cute. She's really young, and just kind of lives in her own little world, and it's awesome. She constantly hugs me and says, "I love this teacher." She told one of the other kids "I love Miss Gagliardi because she's so nice. And she's nice because I'm nice to her." 

Here are some more of my favorite moments with Kendal: 

"At the end of the year... I'll be in 4th grade... or high school... I don't know. I don't know where I'll be. But someday I'll be 8." 

We were working on writing, and she wrote an M to start the word white, and then said, "Oops! I made an M! .... Can we just pretend it's a W?"

And today she came up and hugged me and said, "Caaaan't we go camping together?!"