I am blogging through all of my years in school. If you want to participate, write a post of your own! Previously: Kindergarten.
The biggest thing that happened to me in first grade was that I wet my pants. Yup. I was wearing this new jumper for the first time. I’d wanted it so badly and my mom had finally bought it for me. It zipped up the back, though, and I didn’t realize until lunch time that I couldn’t get the zipper down. Instead of asking someone for help, I just didn’t go to the bathroom. There I was sitting next to my friend Elyse when I finally couldn’t hold it any longer. All down my jumper and onto my orange chair and then down to the thin classroom carpet. My teacher had another student walk me to the nurse. The nurse pulled out some sweats from a trash bag of extra clothes she had. They were ugly and too short and I really would have rather stay there instead of return to class wearing them, but that wasn’t my choice. Somehow I managed to escape a lot of ridicule. Elyse will bring it up every once in a while, but everyone else seemed to forget. Proof that I went to an oddly nice Elementary School.
- Speaking of Elyse, who is still my friend today, first grade was when we met. I think we sat next to each other and then we started playing together at recess. I have this very particular memory of this point later in the school year (after I wet my pants, I think) when we decided quite consciously that we were now friends. The only thing I remember about that conversation was each of us saying that we would invite the other to our birthday parties the next year. I guess that was a real sign of friendship.
- My pride and joy was this giant box of crayons I had with a sharpener on the back. Of course, it didn’t compare to my friend Mariah who had Crayola markers in the primary colors and pastel, each in both regular and skinny size. I’m sure I remember thinking that one day I would have all the markers I wanted.
- I had this amazing teacher who was also an artist. She actually painted us each a special Christmas card. I still have it. Oh what a difference an awesome teacher can make. She was my first.
- One day the teachers decided to put all of the first graders in one room to show us Fantasia. If it was possible to die of boredom, I would not be alive to write this post. Judge me now, but I hate everything about that movie other than the dancing brooms. To this day, I’ve refused to watch it again.
- By now we had moved from the big house my parents had shared to a duplex not too far away. My mom hadn’t been able to find a new house yet, so this was just temporary. I would ride the bus home to my daycare’s house and then my sister would come by later to pick me up and walk me home. We had to walk by this house with really mean dogs, sure one was going to attack us. It seems silly to me now, but that was a huge stress in our lives.
- I shared a locker with a boy named Michael who supposedly (and I still don’t know for sure) had an uncle who was a famous baseball player. Michael was kind of a weird kid, though probably not weirder than me, and yet I thought I was kind of cool for sharing a locker with him. I can picture the name tags on our lockers. They were shaped like apples. That reminds me that we always had name tags on our desks too.
- I must have done poorly on a competency test, because I was placed in remedial reading. This meant that when we did our reading lesson after lunch every day, the smart kids (including all of my friends) divided off to read their advanced book, the regular kids remained in class to read their regular book, and the rest of us who weren’t quite catching on went off to a totally different classroom where we worked with a special teacher. I was in class with the trouble makers and the boy who always had snot on his face. I didn’t have a lot of shame about it and my friends never bought it up. Of this class, I was the star and that felt great. On our way back to class, the special teacher would always give us a treat. Sometimes it was confetti. Even then I remember thinking, “what does this lady think we’re going to do with a handful of confetti?”
Related posts:
{ 16 comments… read them below or add one }
I just had to “like” this post in my reader. It’s fun reading about how you were a little kid. Sometimes it’s so hard to imagine anyone as a small child. If I imagine how small the desks were and how BIG small things used to be, I laugh a little. :) Confetti is an awesome treat though, I’d have loved it.
These posts are so fun! I’ve never watched Fantasia all the way through; I always hated it!
I love it! This brings back so many memories — I love the crayola box with the pencil sharpener! Also: PENCIL BOXES!
Did you ever get all the markers you wanted?
I’ve always been a huge fan of Crayola. I still love all things Crayola crayon, marker, and colored pencil. :]
I can’t believe the amount of detail that you can remember!
Haha, I sure did love the Crayolas myself!
I remember seeing Pinocchio in first grade and bawling my eyes out. I had to be taken out of the room because I was so upset by the whale scene and then the donkey scene.
Ahh, first grade. I mainly remember the boy who sat next to me–he would write all of his words in perfect columns, even when they wouldn’t normally match up. OCD much?
I’m amazed at how much you remember. My standout memory is how badly I wanted Power Wheels.
I thought I was the only one who thought Fantasia was completely and utterly dull. I was in 1st or 2nd grade when we were forced to watch it. Longest afternoon ever.
Thank goodness someone else out there does not like the movie Fantasia. I fell asleep during that movie. Hated it. Hate it still, but their fireworks show at disneyland is pretty awesome.
Hooray for wonderful teachers. I still remember all of mine, too.
dude, i was sent to reading recovery in first grade too! i went to two sessions and then later on in the year, they had me reading with some of the other reading recovery kids one-on-one in the hallway. i must have showed improvement.
I love this concept! I don’t have a very vivid memory of a lot of my childhood but I am really enjoying reading about yours. I agree, wonderful teachers do make such a difference. What I do remember from first grade — watching the space shuttle Challenger blow up on tv. The teacher snapped the tv off before we were able to really comprehend what had happened.
(sorry I’ve been a bad blog commenter lately, I do read though and as always love your posts)
One of my strongest memories of elementary school is the distinct smell of crayons, dozens of crayons in cigar boxes or coffee cans. To this day I don’t know if crayons smelled differently back then, or if children have a sharper sense of smell. If they could bottle that smell, I’d go back to it regularly. (“Hey, what are you sniffing?”)
I think the reasons Fantasia seems dull now are several. First, though it was once an exercise in cutting edge animation, now we’re so cartoon-jaded that it plain looks old. Also it was choreographed to grand, sweeping classical music and meant to be experienced in a movie theater. Watching it on a TV dilutes everything that was impressive to the point that it is indeed a snoozer.
Oh yeah, when we were rewarded it was usually a glue-on gold, silver, blue or red star on the forehead. You felt pretty grand walking around with one of those, raising your eyebrows to wrinkle your forehead to remind yourself it was still there, until you did it once too many and it popped off. I tell you, I think we enjoyed those stars more than a Nobel Peace Prize. And they meant more, too! :)-
This reminded me of how solid a concept friendship is when you’re a kid. Everybody can be divided up into “my friend” and “not my friend”, whereas when you grow up, it becomes a much more fluid, loose idea.
Birthday invites were THE most important thing at that age. That I remember. And to be uninvited to a birthday party? Ugh, the ultimate diss.
{ 1 trackback }