Tuesday, February 28th

This morning's prep work included my gluing these lions onto background papers and cutting up a bunch of teenie pieces of yarn that the kids were going to glue on for the lion's mane Thursday during centers. We're getting into things that I remember doing with last year's students, so I'm more familiar with the activities and starting to recall what things worked/didn't work with the class last year.

I got to read with my focus students during morning routine; watching a child learn to read is seriously one of the most wild things. I mean, I don't remember learning to read, I just know that at one point I couldn't, and now I can. So to actually watch the progress of a student who barely knows the alphabet at the beginning of the school year to a student that can read full sentences...wow. It's so exciting to listen to them sound out each letter and then smush them all together to form a word. They do their little animal symbols for each letter, and then when they say the word they do one big CLAP that symbolizes all the letters coming together into a word.

I didn't get to do anything really fun at centers today - I was monitoring the finishing of the "Shape Books" where they are creating objects out of different shapes. It was just stressful. But I think this was the last day of it, fingers crossed.

The room is all decorated for Dr. Seuss Day! They've spent all week doing related activities, but the actual Dr. Seuss Day is tomorrow (Friday, March 2nd). I didn't go to Room Three today because I wanted to be there tomorrow to read a Dr. Seuss book to them and help them with their crafts (we'll be making Thing 1 and Thing 2 out of handprints). It's also their Special Lessons day - they go to the computer lab and the science lab...so I'll get to go and observe some different activities that I'm not usually a part of; looking forward to it!

Missing

The sad news is....

I left my camera in Room 3.

This is bad for two reasons:
1) No pictures for my blog until next week.
2) Mrs. Brasler has a sub today so I can't even email her to put it in her desk until I get there Tuesday.

I know exactly where it is, on top of the cubbies right by the door because I put it there after the "Purple, Purple Everywhere!" picture (a bunch of girls were wearing purple and playing with purple hula hoops and purple hand balls and they were just too proud of themselves for me not to take a picture).

Fingers crossed that it is still there on Tuesday and that no one's little grubby hands will have picked it up between yesterday and then. That camera has been good to me and has lasted a long time...and I'm pretty reliant on it for my Cooperative Education class. And I mean...c'mon...it's pink. Losing a gem like that would just be unimaginable...ok, no not really, I could care less about the color. But the big picture is I NEED MY CAMERA.

Cross your fingers for me that it's still there!

Oh no you didn't...

We made George Washington three-corner hats today and worked on a shapes book at centers today. The kids were extra excited about me today, I don't know what makes one day different from the next. But when I left today, and Mrs. Brasler said it was time to say goodbye to me, they all went, "Awwww...." and said some goodbyes and some I love you's. Melt my heart.

Walking Addison back from the nurses office in her wheel chair she said to me, "You know what the teacher said about you?" I said, "I do not, what did she say?" She said, "The teacher says you're doing a really good job." Melt my heart again.

However, just to prove that not everything about kindergarten is touchy-feely. The current controversy is that a parent of one of our students has made a racial comment to the district about the number of Hispanics in our classroom. I was absolutely shocked and almost immediately sick to my stomach. It makes me sick that people can treat others as less than human and less deserving because of their ethnicity or the color of their skin. Sheltering a child from the diversity of this world will do nothing to help them grow and learn and it hurts me that this attitude is so easily passed from parent to student and that is why racism and discrimination is still so prevalent. It's just so hard for me to understand how people can be that way, or think that way.

Our hispanic students are just as deserving of these opportunities and just as worthy of love and affection and effort as any Caucasian student; or any other student for that matter. They are all entitled to equal opportunities and equal representation in a classroom. I am SO proud of our ELD students because even if they are not up to par with the other kindergarteners, the strides they have made and the eagerness they have shown surpasses that of some of their more advanced peers. It just makes me so angry that people feel that they have the right to treat others that are different from them as unequal or undeserving.

ANGER.

President's Day Chaos

Nothing special about today, other than there was no school yesterday for President's Day so I got to experience what would typically be the Monday Crazies. I'm preparing for Dr. Seuss Day by tracing and cutting out hats that they are going to wear, and every time a kid walked by the door they had to come in and ask me what I was doing; they all received the same answer: "You only get to know if you know what day March 2nd is." Of course, none of them knew that that is Dr. Seuss Day.

Since today was like Monday, we started with the letter of the week - D: Deedee Deer. They did the weekly worksheet where the practice tracing and writing the letter D and then draw pictures of things they know start with the letter D (they get to make attempts at labeling their drawings, but Mrs. Brasler usually ends up helping out on that one).

Centers were kind of a hot mess today. Computers weren't working, Jack had a meltdown because he couldn't trace shapes at the shape book center, Room 4 ELD students had to work on the carpet because Room 4 was occupied by the Hearing & Sight Test lady, Austin's ADHD was at a new high, and my center revolved around completing a potpourri of worksheets on presidents from last Friday along with an additional few worksheets for those had been exceptionally on task and finished everything. Le sigh.

But I did get a lot of hugs, and those are always mood lifters. And there was measurable Reading Comprehension progress with some of our lower-readers in the class which was super exciting to see. All together a pretty typical day in Room 3.

Thursday, February 16th

Blustery day makes for wild kids - today seemed to be the day of injuries, aches, and pains (and headaches for Mrs. Brasler and myself). It seemed a little more exhausting than usual, but I did notice how my lack of enthusiasm can easily rub off on them, so I changed my attitude pretty quick this morning.

I practiced reading with some of the kids this morning - a book titled "Recess Mess" that is a first grade reading level. Austin and Sophia each got a chance to read it with me, and then had to answer some comprehension questions about it. It's moments like those that I really get to reflect on how far they have come since I met them in August. Looking at it from that perspective really reminds me how rewarding this job is.

I was walking around the library with them and I was remembering fondly the time spent in the library each week when I was in elementary school. Books just fascinate me and I have such great memories of getting to choose a book each week to take home and read, and then be able to bring it back the next week and pick out a new one. I remember what it was like to get wrapped up in a book series and not want to check out anything other than those books for months at a time, or finding a good picture book that you really enjoyed but not being able to check it out two weeks in a row (so then you make sure to be the first one to grab it the week after). I saw a bunch of books in their library that I read when I was in elementary school and it made me smile thinking of how universal something like reading can be.

At the reading center today we tried something new - an increased focus on the letter of the week. This week's letter is O, so the students were given a selection of books they have already read to go through and read once more. But this time, after reading each page, they were to create a tally chart of how many upper- and lower-case o's they found. So this activity focused on not only reading, but letter recognition and math skills and counting as well. We've been working on tallying in math lessons, so it was nice to be able to cross reference it in another subject. We discussed how we had a lot of o's because it is a vowel and words use a lot of vowels, but we didn't have a lot of O's because there aren't a whole lot of words that we use that start with the letter o. I think we only found 2 O's in any of the books used in the whole lesson, but some kids got upwards of 45 o's all from one book. I think it was important that we used books the kids had already read, because it would have been too much to ask of them if they were given a new book they had never seen with a particular task to complete. They would be too excited to look at the new book and it would be a distraction from the real task. Also, using books they have already read on their own or in groups made it easier for them to read them by themselves a second time around.

After recess today I had to lead the majority of the class in a game of "Rhyming Bingo" while Mrs. Brasler did an assessment with the ELD students. Let's just say...that could have gone better. It showed that they all did have respect for me and that I was able to manage them, but everyone was a little confused in playing the game, and clean up time was when everything really fell apart. I think everyone was just a little too feisty with each other today. I'll stick to blaming the wind...

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day from Room 3! We were all decorated and ready to celebrate today. Very wound up and we hadn't even started the consumption of sugar yet...oh dear. I brought Winnie the Pooh Valentines and sorted them before the kids got in the room; but they were having a really hard time not coming in to see the growing pile of Valentines yet to be sorted into their bags.

Earlier this week, they made zebra bags to carry all the Valentine's Day goodies they received from their friends - so cute! I even got one of my own.

All of these goodies (below) had to be placed in the bags above. What a big job this was! They had to do it as one of their center rotations, and it was a pretty challenging task for them - especially for the children who had written names on all of their cards. So. much. stuff. Everyone was so excited when they brought in their bags and saw how this pile was growing.

At first recess, I set all of the bags out on the calendar rug with aisles for easy deposition of Valentines. By the end of the center rotations - bags were overflowing!

The rest of the centers were special and Valentine-themed as well. At one center they were making "love-bugs" to take home that afternoon....

The math center was counting and graphing candy hearts - tempting not to eat them before counting.

And here's my center. We were making mosaic hearts with glue and tissue paper to be taken home to each student's family as a Valentine. We struggled with the concept of "the less glue the better" today, but it's okay because I think they will still come out great. It was a pretty easy center to lead, I just had to make sure the kids were understanding the concepts of overlapping their tissue paper to make sure there were no empty spots.

I got my own bag too (he lost an ear)! And it was full of little treats that the Room 3 students brought to me for Valentine's Day. I am so spoiled! Who needs boys when you've got a class full of 28 kindergarteners who bring you chocolate and roses and tell you you're beautiful? :)

Happy Birthday to Me (cha-cha-cha)!!!

Last Thursday was my birthday and I started it out perfectly with all 27 smiling faces in Room 3! They sang me Happy Birthday at the start of the morning routine, making me wear a crown and practically begging me to let them sing the version with "cha-cha-chas" in between each verse. After library time they got to celebrate by eating Animal Crackers during quiet snacks/recess.

Today was reading day - I read a "silly" book titled Kiss Me, I'm Perfect to get in the mood for Valentine's Day. It was about a girl who had no clean laundry so she had to wear this embarrassing shirt that her grandma got her that said "Kiss Me I'm Perfect" on it. On her way to school a bunch of animals kept kissing her, and she ultimately changes her mind about the shirt, so she calls her grandma and has her buy one for everyone in her school. It was cute and the kids got some good giggles during it. My favorite activity after we read a book is to let them go back and pick out the page that was their favorite part of the story and tell me why. I can't pick out my favorite first though, otherwise they all copy me. Even when I tell them at the end, a lot of of them say, "Oh actually that one is my favorite."

When ever they rotated to a new center, they would all take a moment to say happy birthday to me on their own and it was just cute and so innocently considerate. I drove home that morning just overcome with happiness about how lucky I am to be in this field and to have this as my future career.

Interesting new obstacle that has been added to the classroom environment - Addison fell off a wall at home and broke her ankle. She's not allowed to put any weight on it and she's too young for crutches...so she's in a wheel chair for the next month.  When I'm there, I'm the one that wheels her around, and she can push herself short distances, but it's been really challenging for Mrs. Brasler when I'm not around and they need to get around campus, or maneuvering her around the classroom (which is not really wheel chair accessible). So to be continued on that one...