Tuesday, January 31st

I'm going to start off by saying that center rotation was absolutely not the highlight of my day yesterday. We were practicing counting out 100 objects and talking about how we could split it up in different ways (2 groups of 50, 4 groups of 25, 5 groups of 20), and while I'm sure it was good exposure for them and they had fun...it was not the most enjoyable for me. Trying to get 6 kindergarteners at once to avidly keep track of 100 things when a good portion of them can't count passed thirty was a little on the challenging side and not all together thrilling. But I suppose it was a good illustration of how sometimes, as a teacher, you have to do things you don't like doing because it's something the students need to know or need to be aware of. All I have to say to that right now is blah blah blah. :P

The more intriguing part of my day came from some discussions with one of the little munchkins named Lizzeth. She's always stuck out to me as a bigger personality in the classroom, not as in loud and attention-drawing, but as in eager and willing to learn and improve. She is an ELD student, so four times a week she spends time in Room 4, with all the other ELD children to work on their English language skills.

Recently, she's been inquiring a lot about why she has to go to Room 4. She absolutely does not like it - Mrs. Brasler confided in me that Lizzeth has said she doesn't like missing the things in Room 3 while she is gone. She has even told Mrs. Brasler that she wants to come in during morning recess before school starts to do the activities she missed the day before while she was in Room 4.

So she sat next to me as I filed papers in Friday Folders yesterday morning, creating a cat by cutting and tearing that she had missed on Monday. Other students were in the room at the computers taking AR Reading Comprehension tests. I noticed she was watching them and not paying much attention to her cat. I asked her what she was looking at and she looked back at me and said, "I want to take AR tests too."

My heart broke a little. Let me set this up. Typically, AR tests are a right afforded to the higher readers in the class, but other students may ask to do them as well. The way it works is, Mrs. Brasler puts a selected AR book in their Friday Folder that they take home and have their parents read to them (or read with them). Lizzeth's family doesn't speak English, and her speaking is a bit broken, which is why she is in the ELD program. Unfortunately, because the school system and the AR test program is centered around the English language, something like this is more of a challenge for her.

Thinking this through in my head as I looked back at her she said, "Miss Downing, I want to read." I smiled and looked at her and said, "You're learning! And you're getting better every day." She kept cutting her cat and I had a lightbulb moment. I said to her, "Maybe we can ask Mrs. Brasler if I can read you books in the morning and you can take an AR test on them. Does that sound like a good idea?" The smile that I got after that let me know that I had said the right thing. If a child wants to learn, you should never ever tell them that they can't.

With that being said, I've been thinking about changing my focus student. Originally, I was going to be working with Andrea, who had suffered from a crippling shyness at the beginning of the year, and still needs help with her communicating skills, but she has made huge leaps and bounds all on her own. And while I can help aid that along, there isn't much else I really do for her academically; it's mostly social. So while I will continue to engage her in conversations and help her learn to communicate her thoughts and ideas, I think I want to make Lizzeth my focus student. I recognize her desire to learn; and I know that she could easily fall into the group that loses that desire because she is limited by her native language.

So...to be continued.