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Tuesday, April 05, 2011

The Wonder Years: Second Grade.

This was by far my favorite grade in elementary school. It was 1996 and I was 7 years old when I started second grade. I think this was my favorite because of my teacher, Mrs. Chapman. She was so sweet and made learning so much fun, and I wanted to be a second grade teacher because of her. The dream of being a teacher eventually ended before high school, but if I had to be one now, I'd still choose second grade... it was the best!

This was the year I learned how to write in cursive, which I loved. We used those really thin papers with the two solid lines, one about an inch above the other, and the dotted line in between them to learn. Those papers were the worst. If you messed up and had to erase, it would either smudge really badly or the paper would tear. Why couldn't the school invest in better paper?

Remember the kid who picked his nose and ate it on the school bus? Well, he was in my class again in second grade. One day when Mrs. Chapman was reading to us in the reading corner, that same kid sat behind me. I felt some kind of constant tugging on my very long blonde hair (it was literally down to my butt) so I turned around to see what was going on... what I found was this kid chewing on my hair. Do you understand what I just said? He was chewing on my hair! What in the world was he thinking?! 

That same kid also introduced me to the first bad word I had ever heard. I walked into the classroom one day and he was standing by my desk waiting on me. When I walked over to him and the small group that was forming, he put both of his hands on the name tag on my desk, one on the C and the other on the -ie and said, "Look, Cassie. Your name has a bad word in it." Then he proceeded to say the word. I was then very self conscious about my name. It made me feel like I was a bad person because I had a bad word in my name and was worried that three letter word stuck out to everyone who read or said my name.

I remember the Golden Shoe that acted as a trophy between each class, though I can't recall if it was only for the second graders or if it was a school wide thing. I feel like it had to do with the marbles that were put into the marble jar when the class as a whole did something commendable, so I think it was just second grade. Anyway, classes always wanted this makeshift trophy, so we always did what we could to be the best. When your class had that shoe for the week, it was as if you were far superior to your peers. The shoe was always placed in the window above the cubbies so the school could see. That was a great privilege to have.

I hope I am not confusing this with a different grade, but the second grade portion of the hall was called Polar Bear Parkway. I became really intrigued with polar bears because of this. We had to do some kind of project for the class, and I chose to do mine on polar bears. I was so proud of it, too... polars bears are boss.

For St. Patrick's Day, each of us had to make a leprechaun trap. I had so much fun building mine with my daddy. He always helped us with projects... and in my opinion, our projects far exceeded expectations and were so much better than everyone else's. Though, I may be biased. :)

I had this friend named Kimberly and for years, we played this secret game of tag. It wasn't tag like "run and if I get you, you're it" but it was whoever "tagged" the other one last wins. Most of the time, we stood one behind the other in line when our class went anywhere outside of the classroom. In line, of course, we always had to be quiet and couldn't talk, but we played anyway. If you were "it" all you had to do was touch some part of the other one and they would then be "it". It was a big deal to be able to go home without being it, but the game never really ended because whoever was "it" would just tag the other one the next morning. It probably sounds silly, but it was fun.

Around Christmas time, our class acted out a play. It wasn't for anyone outside of the class, but for ourselves. I don't remember a whole lot about the play except that there was a part that was on an airplane and that Poinsettias were a big part of the story. I am pretty sure I was the flight attendant.

I think I have legitimately summed up most of what I remember of second grade. The main thing I remember is loving every minute of it.

Movies seen in theater: 13
DvDs bought: 52

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