December 15- More School Days- Part 1

-1^st Grade- Mrs. M smacked the back of my hand with her ruler, The Magic Teacher, because of my sloppy penmanship which did improve after this. She got in trouble for using that after one girl lied, saying that this was the cause of her bleeding knuckles. She actually had deliberately scraped them against the pavement of the playground.

  

   Mom told me that our school wanted to keep my brother back a year – first grade, I think. She and Mrs. M fought against this and made sure that it didn’t happen.

-2^nd Grade- Miss M was one of my favorite teachers. She gave mom a couple of nice gifts- an angel ornament and a small jar of dried flowers. Our class gave her a watch for her birthday. Mom wrapped it in a small box then put this in several others, like it was one of those Russian nesting dolls.

First Holy Communion- 1977

Grandma next door gave me a 14K gold cross pendant necklace and I got a Timex watch from Grandma at the farm which I still have both of. I also have my dress which had been made out of Mom’s wedding gown by Aunt Ann. She also used that material to make 2 pillows- a star and a heart. Those are next to my stereo speakers now.

   

   I have the little purse with my Rosary beads and a few other religious items in it. One is either a small Bible or Prayer book. I opened this up for the first time in about 25 years like 6 months ago. I found a note from my best friend Kelly that I didn’t even know that I had in there. I put that in my personal scrapbook.

-3^rd Grade- International Day-We had all sorts of foods from the various countries of our families’ ancestors. I’m pretty sure that Mom made stuffed cabbage. She made me a nice outfit, a yellow skirt with flowers, white blouse, sash with Poland written with Tri-Chem paint on it and a sort of crown made with fake yellow flowers.

   

   The sacrament of Penance was this school year too. I doubt that I had that many sins to confess to back then; I was a pretty good girl. Unlike now- too many mean thoughts and lots of cursing.

- 4^th Grade- the Camping Trip- I remember canoeing, hiking to that store, doing charcoal drawings and square dancing (I think – or was that a scout thing?). Mom and Dad were there for a day. A few of the boys peeked into the girl’s cabin one night.

-5^th Grade- Sister FM was a major Red Sox fan and even had a pennant hanging up in her classroom. A girl got me a nice roller skate necklace that I still have as a Secret Santa gift.

-6^th Grade- Miss JM had an “Apple Day” during which we made stuff like shrunken heads out of that fruit. I painted an apple onto one of my handkerchiefs which I still have. I can’t remember if we made

applesauce too, maybe that was just a 4^th grade thing. Miss B. gave each of us an ice skating ornament that she crocheted as a Christmas gift.

-7^th Grade- I cheated on a test. This was the only time that I’ve ever really done so during my school days. I was having such trouble learning the metric system and converting temperatures. I think that someone saw me cheating but luckily they didn’t tattle on me.

First grade-1975

First Holy Communion 1977

International Day-3rd grade

Camp Hoover- 4th grade

6th grade Apple Day

6th Grade - 1980 - 1981

The photo at the very bottom is of my 6th grade class. The one above that is 5th grade. For class photos we usually got to dress up. I'm not sure why they made us wear our uniforms that year. I went to St. John the Apostle school for 9 years. I have some good memories of that place. It was much better than the Catholic high school that I went to. I was thinking about 6th grade as I was watching the very last launch of the space shuttle today because that's when I saw the first one. Our history teacher Miss Mead had it on in her classroom. The top photo is of the hankie that I painted an apple on during Apple Day in her class. I forget what other crafts that we did but I'm pretty sure that we made shrunken heads out of apples too. Our class trip was to Sandy Hook for that grade. I'll be doing a post on that in the future.