Blogging Through The Years: Third Grade

I am blogging through all of my years in school. If you want to participate, write a post of your own! Previously: Kindergarten, First Grade, Second Grade.

• My third grade teacher was probably my youngest ever. I’m guessing she was in her late 20s or early 30s. She had a super good looking husband and a cute kid. She drove a convertible. And she ate Slim Fast popcorn for lunch every day.

• We wrote these poems where you actually wrote the verses in the shape of whatever you were talking about. I wrote mine about an umbrella, so I cut out the shape of an umbrella and wrote the words along the edges of it. I remembered that poem for a really long time, but now I can only remember one part: “and in the rain, they do the same.”  I created very few things in school that I was really proud of, but that was one of the few.

• There was some kind of contest or raffle at my school. The prize was a giant bag of Peanut M&M’s. They announced the winner over the loud speaker and I won. It’s one of the only times I have ever won a random draw like that.  I got to leave class and walk to the office by myself to pick up my prize.

• My school had this program called Terrific Kids where every month each teacher would name three terrific kids who were then awarded a certificate at a school-wide assembly. You’d also fill out this red poster that asked you about your favorite things. Each teacher would display the posters of their terrific kids on the door of the classroom for the month. I was named as a Terrific Kid almost every year, but usually near the end of the school year after the teacher had gone through all the kids who were actually terrific. When it was slim pickings, then my name came up. But in the third grade, I was named a Terrific Kid in the very first month. And the thing was that no one told me. My mom got the letter in the mail and didn’t say anything. So there I was at the assembly and my teacher gets up to announce the Terrific Kids and she calls my name. I’m totally shocked and thinking there’s been a mistake, but I walk up there and collect my laminated certificate and when I walk back to my seat on the gym floor, my mom is there in her suit  and high heels clapping for me.

• What I remember most in terms of the work we did in third grade were the times sheets. You were given a page full of simple math problems and you had to complete them in a certain amount of time. I think that was the year we moved beyond just adding and subtracting and delved into the world of multiplication and division. Everyone started with the A times sheet and if you did well enough on that, then you got to the B times sheet. I blasted through all of those, but I remember getting stuck around O or P.

• I have this image of myself sitting at the little table in the back of our classroom trying to read Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume. I just couldn’t get into it. I was more of a Beverly Cleary kind of girl. I thought I was Ramona Quimby and my sister was Beezus.

• My school made this PC move to say that if we wanted to dress up for Halloween, then we had to dress up like a character from a book. I have no memory of my own costume, but I remember that my friend Elyse was a mail man from some book. She carried this pink plastic messenger bag with brightly colored letters all over it. I wanted that bag so badly that if I had the chance for it now, I would fight for it or pay good money.

• We went on some kind of a field trip that I remember nothing about, except that I got to ride in my teacher’s car. Yeah, the convertible. I felt super cool, becuase I thought she was cool. Even then, though, there was something sad to me about the fact that she ate low fat popcorn for lunch every day. I don’t remember having any consciousness of weight before then and I’m thankful that I didn’t connect any of that to myself or my body.

• There was a new girl in school that year. Her name was Brandy and she wore half of her hair up on the top of her head so that it spilled out like a fountain. I remember having this conversation with her about the kids who would leave to go to a special classroom for the reading lesson. They were the remedial reading kids that I had been a part of in first grade. She didn’t pick up on the stigma attached to being below average in reading–of needing special help. I pitied her for being so naive.

• And because this post wouldn’t be complete without a little more about me being a big cheater, I remember that we would grade spelling tests by exchanging them with the people around us. I would exchange with the people I knew would change some of my answers for me. I would do the same for them.