Winter Break is well and truly over. It's ironic that this time that I thought would be rejuvenating and a good time to catch up on things around here got so derailed. The death of a student will do that.
The funeral was last Saturday. Monday morning, our 4th grade classes were back at school and careful plans had been set in place to deal with the students reactions. Two counselors were standing by in each room, should they be needed. As it turned out, the students reaction was pretty subdued since their parents had already talked with them about what had happened. The children were given paper hearts of pink and purple on which to write messages to or about Mariah and then they made cards for her parents. I put on some soft music and we had a peaceful morning of it.
This morning we started back on more of a routine in class. I think that this came as a relief to both the students and myself. They picked out new literature books to read and then we got silly and acted out the meanings of our spelling words. I began to feel almost normal again.
In the afternoon, Sue and I attended Mariah's burial. That was sad.
When I got home this afternoon, the dogs and I took a two-mile walk up and down the hills. That helped settle my emotions. This evening I spent working on my presentation for Saturdays workshop that I'll be giving on Writer's Notebooks. This will be the first actual workshop I'll be facilitating (I did a demo one last summer, but Saturday's will be the actual thing). I'm sort of nervous, but I've got enough other things on my mind to deflect any great worries about it.
And now I'm off to bed.
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