First Day of School ... Remembered

Tatum was asked to write a short paragraph about her favorite part of her first day of third grade. It went as follows (her spelling, grammar and puncutation were left unchecked):

"Seeng my friends and seeng the greates teacher in the world!! Anoter is getting to work on math and sience. Plus the plaing on the play ground with my friends!! :) and seing my 1st grade and 2nd grade teachers. and getting back on the bus and paing fund games in miss.skidmores class."

I remember 3rd grade. It was down a set of red stairs in the basement of the school building, right next to the principal's office and across the hallway from the boiler room. Mrs. Farnam was my teacher and she liked to hug her students. She posted poems for us to memorize and recite before the entire class. We used stick pins to attach our papers in the upper left hand corner rather than staples. We learned cursive, but could not write with ink pens. Our windows looked out onto the playground and we longed to go outside and play when we saw the legs of other students running by enjoying their recess.