Caught in a Web

Today was one of those days that affirmed my choice to leave the self-contained 3rd grade classroom and take a leap into the world of being a grades 1-4 STEM teacher.  My first week, I didn't think I would survive 1st graders, but over the past few weeks 1st graders have won me over.  Today was the icing on the cake.

We were exploring the engineering design process and thinking about nature's engineers, like spiders.  After looking at how spiders carefully craft their webs, we decided to make our own web design as a class.

These kiddos were proud of their final design and noticed the different shapes and lines they had created.  Suddenly, one student called out to me to be the "fly" in their web.  Being an enthusiastic educator, I happily crawled into their web.  Standing in the middle of their intricate design, I heard one little voice shout "Dinner time!" and was promptly bombarded with hugs from 20 awesome 1st graders.  Their excitement in that moment was a reminder to me that we teach kids, not subjects, and building community- even in a "specials" class - is vitally important.  

I eventually untangled myself from a mass of red yarn and am eagerly awaiting my next class of 1st graders.