We have one last message to send you to cap off a pretty incredible year together. Emily and I are boxing up and taping off the remnants of our classroom, and it feels emptier than when we held conferences with you just a few days ago. The mark of your children is truly what we miss, and I think that both of us look back in awe upon the magic combination that the twenty-one of us made here together in this room.
Some of the greatest decorations we took down from our windows, doors, and walls were the ten or so sheets of hard-sought-after homophones, enthusiastically collected over the course of months. We counted 314 pairs in all, a mere 127 homophones short of the 441 we have been shooting for since the fall.
A month or so ago, one of our students approached Emily very quietly with a sealed envelope and whispered, "this is for you, you can do what you want with it." It was a list of all 441 homophones. Wow! Emily guarded it safely, promising not to open it until we decided as a class how we wanted to conclude our homophone search. The last week of school, we held a meeting and presented two options to our students. One was to keep the list going, even if it took us until 8th grade. The other was to look at the list. There were good arguments for both, but ultimately, your children decided it would feel like a disservice to all of our hard work if we looked at the list now.
And so the search continues! It will forever unite this group to keep it as an ongoing project (it is also part of our grand, sneaky scheme to hold our class intact forever and ever).
We look forward to keeping in touch and continuing to share our discoveries and successes with one another over the years. Wishing you and your families a wonderful summer full of fun and sunshine.
If you would like to see our ongoing list, click here
With love,
Your First Grade Teachers – Emily and Caroline
