How to Remember the Year

Every year I did an activity at the end of the year where students got to list their Top 5 in various categories. They chose Top 5 books we read over the year, Top 5 funny moments in class, and other categories, as you'll see below. I collected the lists from every student and compiled a class list of the memories that were voted most memorable by the students, and we announced the results on the last day of school. It was always fun to see what the students remembered. Often, the list of funny moments in class was mostly filled with memories of people falling off chairs or farting in class, but hey, they're eleven-year-olds, what do you expect? Here are some of the lists from the end of my last year, which serves as a good recap of the memories I have from teaching in 5B. I'll present them in reverse order to make it more dramatic. Some of the lists are the Top 6 because there was a tie or a close vote. Enjoy!

Top 5 Special Events of the Year:
5. Alex Johnson (My roommate's brother visited the class and answered students' questions.)
4. Submarines (We took a trip to the high school physics class to see working submarines that the seniors had built.)
3. Field Day (We had a fun day with games and contests and activities for the whole school.)
2. Simple Machines (The high school science teachers did hands-on demonstrations of pulleys, levers, inclined planes, and other simple machines.)
1. Blind School (We did a service project at a school for blind children in which our students got to befriend and serve students whose lives are very different than theirs.)

Field Day festivities

Interacting with students and teachers at the Blind School

Top 6 Projects:
6. Biography Report (Students read a book about a famous person and wrote a summary of the person's life.)
5. Native American Dioramas (Students worked in groups to create a cross-section of a Native American village. There was clay all over my classroom for weeks!)
4. Simple Machines (Groups worked together to do a problem-solving challenge using the simple machines they learned about in science class.)
3. Play Writing (Groups wrote plays and performed them for the class. There were no restrictions on genre or theme, so we had alot of spies and aliens.)
2. Cereal Box Book Report (The students read a fiction book and invented a cereal based on the book's characters or plot, with the cereal box serving as a sort of book report. The "Indgredients" told about the settings and characters, and the "Nutrition Facts" gave a summary of the book. They also included a game for the back of the box, plus a special prize inside based on the book, and a clever name and design for the cereal itself.)
1. 3-D Buildings (After learning about 3-D figures in math class, we proceeded to build a miniature city filled with rectangular prisms, cubes and pyramids, all decorated to look like the buildings for our city.)

City of 3-D Figures

Top 6 Topics We Learned About:

6. The Story of Esther (It's a very dramatic Bible story that we acted out and made really exciting.)

5. Forms of Energy (Science lessons on heat, electricity, magnetism, sound waves, and light got very energetic!)

4. First Aid (Blood and guts and broken bones! What's not to like?)

3. Taxation (Remember the classic blog post from my first year about an activity where I gave the students tickets, then taxed them for ridiculous things? Well, I did it every year, and apparently I wasn't nearly harsh enough because they voted for it to be in their most memorable topics!)

2. The Revolutionary War (Because guns and battles.)

1. 3-D Figures (Not just the city-building part, but the faces, edges, vertices, and prisms were fun to learn, too.)

Top 5 Funny Moments in Class:

5. Certain Memorable Boy Student danced in the middle of class (This wasn't just one time that he danced, it was every time he had a lot of energy, which was all the time, except when he was falling asleep.)

4. First Aid Heimlich demonstration (I'm not sure why this was remembered as a funny moment, but I gave a practical demonstration of the Heimlich maneuver, using one of the taller boys in class as an example.)

3. Pancho Villa (The notorious Mexican outlaw made a surprise appearance in our class, and the students kept talking about how he looked like their teacher...)

2. Same Certain Boy Student farted in class (Well, I guess he was either dancing, sleeping, or flatulating...)

1. "Finit" (The same Certain Boy Student makes this list three times, and yes, he really is that memorable. In this episode, he was asked to give an example of a natural resource of the New England colonies, to which he replied "finit." I know he doesn't know Latin, and I don't think he was going for the word "finite", and when we asked if he meant fish, he adamantly repeated himself, saying, "no - finit!" It'll always be a mystery what was going on in his head, especially the definition of "finit.")

Pancho Villa visits the class. (I don't see the resemblance...)

Top 6 Things Mr. Stoddard Said or Did:

6. "But" (Leave it to eleven-year-olds to giggle every time I used a common conjunction.)

5. Mexican Taco Shake (Apparently, Pancho Villa did some special move involving our favorite Certain Boy Student. I'm not sure why this is in the list for Mr. Stoddard...)

4. "Ton of Fun" (This was a joke in our math book. It wasn't even that funny, and I didn't even make the joke up. I'm pretty sure the students didn't understand this category...)

3. Pancho Villa (Okay, the students did not take this list seriously, because this is another item that definitely had nothing to do with me!)

2. Handstand (Well this one definitely was me - I can't remember what I was illustrating, but I found some application to a lesson early in the year to give me reason to do a handstand in class. The students thought it was hilarious that my face turned red.)

1. Mutant (While learning about genetics, I explained that it is hereditary to have attached or unattached earlobes, and since I have one of each [true story!] I must be... a mutant! I apparently made some sort of noise and facial expression that really brought down the house.)

Top 6 Bible Verse Videos:

(I showcased some of these in my post the other day, but here they are in countdown form!)

6. Dynamite

5. Trouble

4. Just the Way You Are

3. When I'm Gone

2. What Makes You Beautiful

1. VeggieTales

Well, there you have it, folks - the recap of my fourth year in Honduras. I hope you enjoyed getting a glimpse into the mind of a fifth-grade student, and a glimpse into my classroom. It's been good, 5B!