Touching the octopus and other acts of bravery February 24, 2012

Yesterday was another hard day.  Our one child is in a tailspin, presumably because things are very bad at home, and brings to our peaceful little classroom a tornado of terror, rage, and stress.  The three adults are barely coping, and it feels terrible.

But.  It does help to look for good things that are happening, in spite of it all.  And yesterday’s Good Thing was when Crow touched the octopus.

Last fall when we studied animals, the afternoon teacher brought in some really cool plastic animals, each about 7 inches long.  There was an octopus and a lobster in the collection, and Crow freaked out.

“I’m scared of the octopus!  I’m scared!” he would say over and over.  He loves blocks, but couldn’t play there when those two animals were out.  So we hid them away, and the children just played with the alligator and polar bear and the rest of the animals.  And that was that for quite a while.

Our water table plug has a leak, so we can no longer have water in it.  Recently, the afternoon teacher filled it with cotton balls and a tub of little sea animals (yes, it’s a weird combo, but the kids love it).  Crow soon discovered that there was a tiny (1 1/2 inch) octopus in with all the fish and turtles and sharks.

“I’m scared of the octopus!  I’m scared!”  He couldn’t play in the water table, even though he wanted to, and sometimes if he was in the house corner and looked over, one of the mischievous boys would hold it up just to see his reaction.

Yesterday, he kept saying he wanted to play at the water table.

“Honey, I don’t think that’s such a good idea.  The octopus is there.”  But he kept insisting, so I changed my tune.  “You want to go to the water table?  Okay.  The octopus is there, but that’s okay, because you are NOT afraid of the octopus.”

He nodded.  “Not scared of the octopus.”

Crow went to the water table, and played.  The octopus was hidden in the cotton balls, and the other kids didn’t look for it, out of kindness.  Every once in a while Crow would get frightened and back away, but with some soothing, would go back.  The octopus showed up, and he backed away, but the kids helped him to return.  Then a while later, I heard the kids calling me.

“Mrs. X.!  Crow touched the octopus!”  And there he was, with the octopus sitting on the table next to the water table, proudly touching it carefully with his index finger.

I ran and got my cell phone to take a picture for eternity.  Then at story time, we talked about it, and the whole class applauded Crow.

Later, our troubled student got on the bus to go home, without a tantrum or running away, as happened the other days this week.  That was brave, too.

Valentine’s Day party in preschool February 17, 2012

We made the heart handprints, and they turned out wonderfully.  We started making them on Monday, but even the ones we did Tuesday dried quickly enough to be able to write down the children’s quotes for their mothers, and send them home that day.  I used cardstock for the paper, which made the handprints look nicer, I think.  I had a plate of pink paint, and one of red, and used a wide paintbrush to paint the children’s hands.  One hand was pink, then I held the hand to make a print with it (I figured letting the kids do it alone would result in lots of smudging), and then I painted the other hand red and did the same thing.  For the quotes, I wrote little hearts between the sentences instead of using periods.

During the party, one table was set up with laminated cards for sorting candy hearts by color.  After the kids sorted the hearts, they got to eat them.  Yum!

At one table we used heart stamps that I bought from Oriental Trading to dip into white paint for stamping.  When the red strips were dry, we used them to make hats for everyone.

At another center, we used cut-up straws as beads, and hole-punched paper hearts twice to string necklaces.

a difficult Valentine’s day February 15, 2012

One of my friends came to school yesterday, limping heavily.  She explained, “I was bad, so Daddy punched me in the leg.”

My assistant teacher, who was the one who greeted our friend off the bus, said later that she nearly threw up, right then and there.  Who hits a preschooler?

We took her to the nurse, where she was examined and given ice packs and treated with love and care, and then I found the social worker to tell her what was going on.  Meanwhile, kids were arriving, I had a mom in the room, and two of my volunteers hadn’t shown up but we had a big party to get ready for.

The social worker called Child Protection, but they declined to do anything that day.  (They will investigate, and will come to school today to talk to the child.)  We had to send her home on the bus at the end of the morning.

She said, “I will go to my room and shut the door and lock it so Daddy can’t come in and punch me.”

I’ve been sick with worry and anger ever since.

hands February 13, 2012

Today we went to the auditorium with the whole school for an assembly about Black History Month.  The featured speaker was wonderful, but his words went over the heads of my small ones.  Nonetheless, they were very patient and good, and they enjoyed the singing and African drumming at the end.

I sat next to Crow.  He had on an exercise belt because the squeezy feeling makes him feel good and calms him, and a pair of headphones on his ears to help him cope with the noise.  I looked at him and thought how sweet he is, and reached over and held hands with him for a minute.

He turned and looked at me thoughtfully.  Then he reached for my hand and started touching my fingers.  He touched each knuckle, and traced the lines on my palm.  He moved each finger apart, and put them together.  He noticed my charm bracelet, and touched each charm gently.  Then he slowly spun the bracelet around my wrist, over and over.  Then he touched my hands again.  Every once in a while he turned and regarded me seriously, but said not a word.  He patted my arm a few times.  He patted my knee, and and my leg.  Then he played with my fingers some more.

He did this for about twenty minutes straight.  He was very calm, and seemed to be lost in exploring the world of my hand.  It was affectionate, certainly, but mostly it seemed to be very soothing for him.  I was charmed, and found it quite soothing myself.

Sometimes being a preschool teacher seems like such a privilege.

a valentine’s day craft we are definitely going to try February 10, 2012

I originally found this on Pinterest, from this blog.  Isn’t that sweet?  We will start Monday, if we have time.  I suppose it has to be done in three steps — the pink heart handprint, then when that dries, the red heart handprint, and then when that dries, the children’s words of love around the edges of the heart.

Here are more versions that I found on google images:

i know why i am so tired February 10, 2012

It hit me at breakfast this morning.  My classroom is a well-oiled machine.  It runs smoothly, calmly, and happily.  That is my normal.  But in the last few weeks, with Crow struggling and Little One totally falling apart, my classroom is not running smoothly.  Other children are stressed by Crow and Little One’s actions, and it is affecting their behavior.  And the three grownups, used to things running smoothly, are exhausted with trying to put out fires everywhere.

Today was another very hard day.  I spoke to the Princess about it, and she is going to try to help.  For one thing, we will send the social worker to Little One’s home to talk to her parents — their phones are disconnected and we cannot reach them.

Right before dinner tonight I felt a little funny, like a migraine was on its way.  I took a pill, but only a third of the way through my meal it hit me that I no longer felt like I had the energy or balance to continue to sit upright.  I spent the evening in bed.  It is where I still am, typing this.

But I will go to work tomorrow.  I have to.

it is hard to be an angry, stressed-out preschooler February 9, 2012

Little One is struggling, and we are struggling right along with her.  For about two weeks now, she has gone way backward in terms of her behavior.  She comes in sad, or manically happy, which soon veers into tears or yelling.  She desperately wants the other girls to like her, but almost seems determined to screw things up in one social situation after another.  She doesn’t do it on purpose, of course, it just seems that way.

I realized at breakfast that I know now why we three (my assistant and my Americorps member and me) have been sooo tired lately.  It has been 2 or 3 weeks since Little One and Crow have started spiraling out of control.  What is normally a really smoothly-running classroom, with all transitions and routines accomplished with ease, is now a place with little brush fires popping up all over the place.

Yesterday at cleanup time, the kids who were done headed over to the meeting area to sit down for story time.  The adults weren’t over there yet, but were still helping various groups clean up their centers.  Suddenly a little girl I’ll call Blue Jay started to sob, loudly.  It turns out the when walking over, Blue Jay accidentally bumped into another girl.  Little One took it upon herself to yell in Blue Jay’s face to scold her.  Had Little One not intervened in something that was not her business, Blue Jay probably would have followed our classroom script:  ”I’m sorry, it was an accident.  Are you okay?”

Anyway, instead of starting a story, I had a sobbing child in my arms, and Little One angry about being in trouble, again, and stomping away, refusing to rejoin the class.  (Although she did say “Sorry” to Blue Jay, because Blue Jay is one of the girls Little One adores and wants to be friends with.)

At another cleanup time recently, the kids in the block corner were being very slow, as usual.  Kids who wanted to sit down in the meeting area couldn’t, because it still had blocks strewn around.  They are supposed to wait on the side until there is room to sit down.  Instead of sitting down in her spot, where there were no more blocks, Little One waded into the crowd to start cleaning up blocks.

“No,” I told her.  ”You weren’t in blocks, you’re not supposed to put the blocks away.  Go sit in your spot.”  I admit I didn’t say it in the calmest, most patient voice.  My patience is frayed these days.

Little One refused to stop, so I had to say it again, even more firmly this time.

She stomped over to her spot and sat down, and with tears running down her face, said, “I’m mad at you!  You’re mad at me!”

(Just to explain, in my room the rule at clean up is you clean up your own center, and when that center is all clean, you come sit down.  You don’t go to other centers and clean up; I find that is a delaying tactic and I want all kids to come sit as soon as possible.  The Clean Up King or Queen of the week gets to help everyone, and that is considered a very coveted and honored job.)

Meanwhile, Crow is hitting kids, almost every day.  Never for any reason.  He is confused and seems to be making no progress at all.  It is sad and frustrating.