PARTY ON!!!

My kids are amazing! They raised over $1800 during our school's annual Walk-A-Thon in December. Their reward: an all inclusive day at the beach - snacks, drinks, pizza, desert, games and swimming! It was great! I was a little nervous about taking 21 kids to the water because all the regular and expected safety issues of working with kids are magnified, but like I said, my kids are amazing: they listened to instructions, followed the rules and stayed inside the boundaries. As a result, no one drowned! I was very happy about that!

It was a great day! We swam, played volleyball, swam, played ultimate frisbee, swam, made sand castles, swam, ate lunch, swam, played Capture-the-Flag, swam, ate brownies, and then finally returned to school. It was a full day, but a lot of fun. I enjoyed interacting with my students outside of the classroom. It's a totally different atmosphere. It was cool, because the student that I have the most problems with in the classroom was the one that I had the most fun with today at the beach! His dream was to get totally burried in the sand from his neck down, and I got to do it to him! It was so much fun telling him that he couldn't laugh because he was causing an earthquake in the sand that was covering him.....that just made him laugh more! It was a really cool experience, probably my favorite part of the day.

Here are some pics from our amazing day on the beach.......