The End of the Year with eLearning

WHEWWWW... This week has been an emotional roller coaster. It is teacher appreciation week. I received many sweet notes from my students that made my day along with a nice sign and cupcake delivered from my school.

BUT, I also had to pack up my classroom, all by myself. My building is scheduled to have construction this summer.  Basically, the entire campus will be shut down because they are putting in new electrical and HVAC, replacing the circle drive and some sections of the roof, plus removing asbestos in parts of the building. This meant that we had to have our classroom packed up so that everything could be moved out while the construction was happening. With schools closed, we were asked to come in and pack our classrooms this week, so construction could start early in hopes that it would be finished early, and we could get back in our classrooms earlier. On the first day of school, I take a picture of each student and it stays up in my classroom the rest of the year. I take the down pictures, and write a note to each student and then give them back on the last day. It is always so fun to see their reaction to what they looked like on the first day of school. It really hit me while packing up that I am not going to get to say "goodbye" to my students or have any closure to this school year.

Our last day of school is May 21st. This means we have 2 weeks left of eLearning/school.  Teachers and students are definitely feeling that early May drop off this year more than in past years. Work completion is dropping, and students are not joining our Google Meets anymore.  I am struggling with my own motivation as we end week 7 of eLearning.  I am thankful for the next 2 weeks, my students are doing a collaborative project with our math teacher.  It is a fun project that we always do at the end of the year from teacher creator, Secondary Sara.  The students create a "bucket list" of items they want to accomplish and then choose 1 to research and present to the class.  This year the students also have a budget and other math skills to complete while they are researching. Most students are very engaged in the project and enjoy completing it.  I hope that will translate to the online environment as well.