I have been writing about leaving, packing, saying goodbye and boxes for months. Months and months. And months. All of this writing means lots of processing. Processing means I am in a good place. Calm. Happy. Excited about what’s new. Able to be okay with leaving.

But, to fully arrive, I need to pay tribute one last time to the moving. This time, the actual move. One box at a time. Yes, again, those boxes!

Forgive me book lovers, posts about books will be returning very soon! But when there are lots of books + a move, the end result = lots of boxes.

And this is something to celebrate!

My old classroom with box towers and stacks of things to move.

This was the major load in the truck. We also took some things in our vehicle and then the truck went back for a few more things. I always have wanted a bookmobile! But this is not exactly what I pictured 🙂

Filling a room with boxes. There are stacks like this along two more walls.

And then the unpacking begins . . .

Every box had a base layer of books in it so I spent some time amassing all of the books in one location. Basically, turning partially full boxes of books into completely full boxes of books. Now that nobody needed to carry them, I could do this.

Setting out the books will be last – once I figure out shelves, systems and spaces.

Of course, this was and isn’t a job for just me! I have lots of gratitude for my family, the movers, the building engineers at either end and my amazing husband. All of them have helped and continue to help. It’s a dusty, dirty, exhausting job and I couldn’t do it without my team!

I continue to unpack, think about room design, source book shelves and imagine how students will share this space with me. I celebrate this happy mess full of all kinds of possibility.

Thank you to Ruth Ayres and the #celebratelu community!

Being part of a community that regularly shares gratitude and celebrations truly transforms my weeks.

Last week I wrote about boxes in my celebration post. Today, I am still talking boxes. When moving happens, boxes happen. They are collected. Taped together. Filled. Numbered. Labelled. Stacked. As the box towers got bigger, the leaving became more and more real. Soon the boxes contained most of what was coming with me. The stuff not yet packed tempted me to abandon careful organization and just shove it all in and seal it up. When really, I needed to handle item by item and commit to letting it go. The stuff that needs to stay? All that is more about history than future. Those last piles of things are the most exhausting.

I have done all of this box maneuvering while still teaching children every day. Arrive at 7:30 a.m. to top up and seal those last boxes I couldn’t finish the previous evening. Ready the room for children. Pour another cup of coffee and open the door to students at 8:55 am. Teach and work with kids all day. At 3 p.m. dismiss the students and begin packing again. Each box went much the same way: a heavy but thin layer of books at the bottom, then stacks of lighter things. Everything in the room considered for its shape, its weight, its depth and whether I needed it the next day to work with the students in the room.

Finish packing at 7 p.m. and spend up to an hour clearing up, readying the room for students again. Clear tables, bin up the things I pulled out and didn’t pack. Find new areas to stack boxes. Keep work areas clear. Leave for home around 8 p.m. – remedy the missed dinner, acknowledge the exhaustion, drink endless cups of water, visit briefly with my family, sleep. Wake multiple times in the night to worry about what still needs to get done.

I have done this routine for 2 full weeks. Each day packing up a room and then readying it again for children in the morning.

In the last few days were the goodbyes. The tears. The never ending hugs. The love.

Every afternoon for the past 2 weeks, these three girls stayed behind at 3 p.m. to show me a dance they had choreographed in my honour. It involved lots of giggles and some original poetry reading. Each day a new routine. All for me. What could be sweeter?

On my last day with students, I fed them all day. Morning baking. Popsicles after recess. Popcorn with their buddies in the afternoon. Eating kept some of the emotions in check. Here we are sharing a calendar made for me with student photos.

We ended our last day together with a gratitude circle. It was truly beautiful. I told them I am grateful for all of it. The laughter. The learning. The hard stuff. The tears. The joy.

“Even the not listening?” one child asked.

“Yes, that too.”

“The crying even?”

“The crying even.”

“All of it?”

“All of it.”

And I am. I celebrate my year with these students. I celebrate 21 years at this little school. I celebrate that I am brave enough to move. And that I have a new space to ready for students this September.

And a whole lot of boxes to unpack. One at a time.

Thank you to Ruth Ayres and the #celebratelu community!

Being part of a community that regularly shares gratitude and celebrations truly transforms my weeks.

I don’t know how many years ago (at least ten I think) I realized that part of my “survival” strategy for getting through a teaching day beyond a good sleep and a strong second (sometimes third) cup of coffee was one simple way of thinking about the day. I never worried much beyond an hour ahead of where we were “in the now”. It let me be in the moment with the children but it also let me relax and trust that it was all going to work out.

In a high needs school, with primary aged children and sometimes more chaos, trauma and drama than you could think possible, this perspective served me well. Very well. I made it moment to moment and always showed up the next day ready to do it all again.

In these last few weeks of the last weeks ever at my school, I am still drinking that strong morning coffee and still thinking just a little ahead. This lets me teach with piles of boxes everywhere. This lets me pack for hours after school every day and then clean it all up so it is “children ready” for the next school day. This lets me look around and see the box towers multiplying and growing but still things everywhere and still breathe. Deeply.

I celebrate this week that while I should be worried, anxious and absolutely panicked, I’m not. I’m going with it. I’m trusting it will all get done. I have faith in the end point and I am enjoying the small moments in between.

Like this little boy in a box during buddy reading.

I celebrate this. Each part of it. The fact that he dragged the box in from outside my room and smiled so beautifully when we told him yes, he could climb in. I celebrate the calm of his reading buddy who didn’t bat an eye when we asked her to just sit beside him and read. I honour that I sat on the floor just a few feet away with a few colleagues and had a great conversation about how boxes really are magic for kids – something to inspire imagination and something to address sensory needs. A conversation about the ways children teach us when we let them. A meaningful thinking forward conversation in the middle of the noise and the busy and the buzz of buddy reading in my room of many books and towering boxes.

There is probably not enough time. I have so much to do. I am not entirely sure how I am going to get it all done. But, I am going with it. One box, one breath, one moment at a time. And this is worth celebrating.

Thank you to Ruth Ayres and the #celebratelu community!

Being part of a community that regularly shares gratitude and celebrations truly transforms my weeks.

So . . . I will no longer be writing about the mixed up middle of sitting in between leaving and going somewhere. Somewhere is now a where. A known where. I accepted a new position at a new school for the fall!

New students. New community. New families. New staff. New school. New room. New grade. And me. So kind of a new me I suppose. Because I don’t think it is possible to remain the same with all of that new. And oh, how I welcome this! I welcome all of the new learning, the new opportunities and the new relationships.

Mostly I welcome the chance to feel safe. Safe to be brave. Safe to ask questions. Safe to use my voice.

This new place felt like a fit as soon as I walked up the steps and into the building. It felt like it might let me fly as soon as I stepped out the door.

More details to come – but for now I will share that in September I will be teaching a Grade 4/5 class at a school not even a 15 minute walk from my house.

Prepare, blog readers, there are posts coming . . . Posts about setting up a new classroom, posts about organizing an intermediate classroom library and posts about the new curriculum. Not because I have it all figured out but because I plan to write to process, think, wonder and maybe, figure out something. There will be posts about all I don’t yet know.

I plan to move into and dig around and uproot the wisdom and brilliance of some educators with blogs about their intermediate classrooms. Julie Colando, Jessica Lifshitz, Julianne Harmatz you may feel my presence.

Today I celebrate all of this new. I celebrate how happy I am. I celebrate how light I feel.

Thank you to Ruth Ayres and the #celebratelu community!

Being part of a community that regularly shares gratitude and celebrations truly transforms my weeks.