Report Cards, Check

Yesterday was a huge relief. All 46 of the report cards that I have slaved over for the last three weeks finally went home and are out of my sight. I think report cards are the thing that I hate most about teaching. My estimation is that I spend about 20 hours of my own time four times a year to get quaterly assessments graded and then turned into scores for report cards and comments written to parents. At least it's over. For another 4 weeks, that is. Then it starts all over again. :)

On a fun note, my students thougt it was great that they were taking their report cards home yesterday because we have been reading "Ramona the Brave" by Beverly Cleary and read about Ramona taking her progress report home just before I gave them theirs. That is one of my favorite things about teaching, read alouds. It makes my day. Yesterday's chapter was chapter 8 entitled "Ramona Says a Bad Word." This obviously gets students' attention! She is so upset about what her teacher has to say in her progess report and how unfair she feels the comments are that she decides to say a bad word.

"Ramona had had enough. She had been miserable the whole first grade, and she no longer arde what happened. She wanted to do something bad. She wanted to do something terrible that would shock her whole family, someting that would make them sit up and take notice. "I'm going to say a bad word!" she shouted with a stamp of her foot.

That silenced her family. Picky-picky (the cat) stopped washing and left the room. Mr. Quimby looked surprised and-how could he be so disloyal?-a little amused. This made Ramona even angrier. Beezus looked interested and curious. After a moment Mrs. Quimby said quietly, "Go ahead, Ramona, and say the bad word if it will make you feel any better."

Ramona clenched her fists and took a deep breath.
"Guts!" she yelled. "Guts! Guts! Guts!" There.
That should show them.

Unfortunately, Ramona's family was not shocked and horrified as
Ramona had expected. They laughed. All three of them laughed.
They tried to hide it, but they laughed."

My students absolutely loved that and were repeating it to each other as they walked out the door to go home. I just hope that none of them feel that way when I send their report cards home.