School Days Timelines: Third Grade

*I’m blogging through my school years: Preschool one & two, kindergarten, first grade and second grade can be found by clicking on each of them.*

Thinking about third grade makes me smile to this day.  To a little kid, it had all the markings of a great school year.  My mom and I used to go Back To School shopping every summer, and I remember laying out my clothes for my first day of third grade weeks in advance.  A new school had been built just around the corner from my house, and we were the first students to attend.  Everything was brand new—the asphalt was so dark and smelled of fresh tar.  The classrooms were lovely and clean, and I remember being so excited.

When my dad took me to meet my teacher, I was suddenly nervous.  I wore my favorite pink sundress and clutched his hand tightly as we walked to my classroom.  As soon as the door opened, my new teacher, Mrs. Airoldi approached me.  She bent down, introduced herself, and asked if she could give me a hug.

“I think that’s the best hug I’ve ever gotten!” she exclaimed.  “I think you’re going to be my hugger this year!”

I smiled, and felt instantly comfortable—and to this day, I like to think that I give good hugs.

One blog post could never sum up the affect that Mrs. Airoldi had on my life that year.  Mrs. A introduced me to Writer’s Workshop—she encouraged me to write, to tell my stories and to publish them.  We read books—both as a class and on our own.  When we answered questions correctly, we got to take a “smartie” which was basically a cherry sour candy that came from a gumball machine.  Even math was fun.  We practiced multiplication using timed tests, and turned practicing our times tables into a game.  EVERYTHING was fun.

Mrs. Airoldi used to write each of us little notes that she’d put into our “mailbox” describing the good things we did.  She was a master at encouraging her students with positive attention, and I loved her for it.  The standards were high in her class—but instead of demanding the best, she made us want to give it to her.  If our class got compliments for our behavior, she noted it.  After several such compliments, she through us a big party to celebrate our good behavior.  Mrs. Airoldi made every child in her class feel special.  We are in touch to this day, emailing, sharing Christmas cards and keeping in touch.  As a teacher, she remains my biggest inspiration and influence.  I am forever grateful that she was my teacher.

One BIG thing from my third grade year was my first boyfriend, Terry.  I wrote him secret love notes and put them in his desk.  I had NO IDEA he knew it was me—until our mom’s talked at church, and she shared a few of the notes with her.  Yes, they were innocuous little tokens of love, but ohmygoodness, having him KNOW and show HIS MOM, and having her SHOW MY MOM?  I was mortified.  Thankfully, my affections were returned, and on Valentine’s Day, I received a giant chocolate present, with three separate pieces of chocolate reading I LOVE U.  I was touched.  Terry and I started “going out” and didn’t break up ’til 4th grade.  “Going out” included hanging out at lunch and recess and me occasionally going over to his house to play Lego’s.  Terry was also oddly obsessed with falcons and used to raise birds.  That basically scared the crap out of me—I hate birds.

In third grade, we performed a musical called “Goin’ Buggy” with lots of cute songs about, well…bugs.  I was cast as Lana The Ladybug, who had a solo song.  I was ecstatic, but sadly, my star performance was thwarted by salmonella, which I contracted late in the school year.  It was…awful.  I threw up at school, threw up at home every day for about a week, had a super high fever and was sicker than I’d ever been.  Even worse, salmonella is a bacteria that lies dormant in your system; if it grows back, you can relapse.  Basically, I was the friend who’d throw up at your house.  Not cute.

Salmonella and embarrassing boy moments aside, third grade is one of my best, most memorable years.