Week 2 Blogs

Every year for the past 3 years this is the book my team and I have chosen to read to our students on the first day of school. As a mother of two, I know the importance of the first day of school for my children. As a parent, you want to do everything in your power to ensure your child has a great first day of school. We go out and buy new clothes, shoes, socks, undies, backpacks,supplies, and make sure the kids have a nice haircut or cute hair-do. We want them to feel confident, proud, and excited about learning and school. In this book "The Kissing " a little raccoon named Chester is getting ready for the first day of school and is a bit nervous. He wants to stay at home with his mom and play. His mother explained to him, sometimes we have to do things that we don't want to do. She told him that once he got there he would love it. Chester's mom told him she had a secrete to tell him about school that her mother had to her when she stared school. She told him to hold out his left hand an she kissed the center of his hand. She told him when he gets lonely he should  put his hand on his cheek and he would feel better because he will know how much she loves him.
Before he went to school, Chester asked his mom for her hand. he reached out and kissed his moms hand so she wouldn't miss him.

I love the message in this story. One year I had a student who cried very hard on the first day of school. After all the student were in and seated, I called them to the carpet so I could read the book. This little girl was still crying at the time. I gave her a hug and told her I had a very special story I wanted to read to her. At that point the crying was beginning to cease because she wanted to hear what I had to say and she wanted to hear the story. As I began to read her crying became less and less. After  the mom kissed Chester's hand in the book I asked the class who received a kiss from their mom that morning, all the students raised their hand and wanted to share their experience. I was able to complete the story and allowed the students to share their stories. Surprisingly she was on of the first students who wanted to share. She told the class her mom gave her a lot of kisses that morning, so she had enough kisses to last her all day! I thought that was so sweet and funny! We made our classroom craft for the story and I had pre-cut red hearts out and had all the students write their name on the heart and give it a big kiss so they could give it to their moms to remind them how much they love them. We placed them in zip loc bags and the parents loved them!