Walk for a Cure

Every month, the school has a theme they focus on. This month is caring and compassion. We held our own Diabetes Walk for a Cure today. All week, the students went around looking for people to donate to the diabetes fundraiser. We taped all the shoes representing donations on our door. Rachael and I are both diabetic, as well as 7 of our students in the school. We raised 2,000 dollars total. Second grade raised 1,114 dollars between the two classes. Amazing! Rachael and I are showing off our shoes, and our paper pancreas. They don't work any better than the ones we have...or don't have for that matter.

We had all the students in 1-3 grade walking for an hour. Total, we had 156 kids walking the field. Upon completion of each lap, the students were given a sticker to keep up the enthusiasm. We made necklaces out of the extra shoes that flapped in the wind the whole time we were walking. Most of the kids were wearing their paper pancreas taped to their shirts. Every now and then I'd see one fall from a shirt and I'd say "Hey, you dropped your pancreas!" What an odd thing to yell.

Here we are posing in front of the chart showing how much money was raised. It was pretty incredible to hear we raised that much money. I was pleasantly surprised.

Here is my class after the walk. We ate lunch outside, enjoyed sticky popsicles and cleaned up before returning back to class. Seeing the teaching moment, I took my shot after lunch in front of my students so they could see how it was part of life, every minute of every day. Some thought that was pretty cool, others weren't impressed. What a day, and it's only half way over!

A side note, I told Ashley once I would never be the teacher who would wear puff paint on my shirt or where shirts with pencils and apples lining the neckline. I was wearing an odd assortment of stickers on my shoulder showing how many laps I'd gone and a paper pancreas taped to my shirt. The things you do to teach a child...