I love this class October 28, 2009

We walked to the library today for preschool storytime.  When I had the kids on the carpet in our room to remind them about walking safely, holding hands, crossing the street, and all that, Cherry raised her hand.

“We can listen to the cars say ‘RRR!’” she said.  (We learned the /r/ sound this week, with a story about getting in a race car, turning the key in the ignition, and hearing the engine go “RRRR”!  The hand motion for R is turning a key.)

“You’re right, ” I said.  I’d never had a child make that connection before.  “We can listen for cars going ‘RRR’.  We can also look for the letter R and the other letters we know on signs.”

So we started walking and pretty soon they were seeing S, M, A, R, and T everywhere.  (Yeah, somehow the letters I’ve taught them so far spell out SMART.  That was totally unplanned, but wonderfully appropriate.)  I have never had a class like this one.  They really listen to what I teach them, and then they talk about it while playing, or walking, or drawing.

We got to the library in plenty of time, and my class was beautifully behaved, as usual.  The story theme was monsters.

I crossed my legs (the grownups were in chairs) and Pumpkin noticed my foot near him.  He turned and gave me a beatific smile.

He held my foot lovingly for the rest of storytime.

And when we got back to school, I gave them a long recess and everyone pretended to be a monster.

pumpkin, my pumpkin October 27, 2009

The special ed teacher who comes to my class once a week to work with two of my other babies pulled me aside after class the other day.

“You know, I was watching Pumpkin today and he seems like he’s doing much better.  He’s even in line right now, with the other kids.”

She’s right.  He has been learning.  He has learned school routines, and he knows where he’s supposed to be at any given time, and even what he is supposed to be doing.  He still interrupts me, but he is more likely to be able to answer questions, or to be on-topic in a conversation.

When we did our letter sounds today, he looked at me when I showed the M card, rubbed his tummy, grinned, and said, “MMMMM!”

an interruption October 19, 2009

scene:  morning meeting in preschool

Mrs. X. has just introduced the letter T, and in doing the calendar, is pointing out that Tuesday begins with T, and October has a t in the middle of it.  The children are sitting cross-legged and listening quietly.

Pumpkin (suddenly going into a crab walk):  OW!  My butt hurts!  My butt hurts!  My butt hurts!

As suddenly as he started, he stops, and sits back down and looks at his teacher.

Mrs. X., somewhat unnerved, goes back to talking about the letter T.

pumpkin and the bus October 13, 2009

So this morning two big boys (7th graders, I’m guessing) came to my room with a teary-eyed Pumpkin in tow.  I hugged Pumpkin while the two boys told me that as they were getting off the bus, a kid pushed Pumpkin over in his rush to get in the building.  They were absolutely shocked, and wanted to keep discussing it with me.  So cute.  So I found out their names, thanked them profusely, and checked to make sure Pumpkin was okay.  He was, just a slightly scraped hand.  Once he was settled I found the behavior lady to tell her about it.  She wrote down the names and said she’d find them during the day to compliment them.

Then five minutes later she was back.

“Do you have this student?” she asked, showing me a bus conduct report.

“Yes.  That’s Pumpkin!  He got in trouble on the bus?!”

Apparently he got on the bus this morning and refused to sit down.  The driver asked him to repeatedly, but Pumpkin absolutely wouldn’t do it.  So the driver had to call a safety officer to come to the bus to get Pumpkin to sit down so they could drive to school!  It’s amazing they weren’t late.

The behavior lady tried to talk to him.

“Honey, when you’re on the bus, you have to sit down.”  So he promptly sat down on the chair I keep in the hall.

I tried talking to him later, and I actually had some luck.  He was able to talk about it, and he explained, “I didn’t have any place to sit.”

!!

So I told him that if that happens again, he should explain that to the driver, and the driver would help him find a seat.

I don’t like being caboose October 6, 2009

My students line up in ABC order, so the line is very predictable.  So that we won’t always have the same kid at the front, and the kid whose name starts with Q or W or Z won’t always be at the back, I have a line leader and a “caboose.”

This week’s caboose is a very sweet, very obedient little girl we’ll call Plum.  On our way to Music today, she had a hard time herding the boy in front of her to stay in the line.  We’ll call him Zucchini.  Miss Slinger wasn’t at work yet, so there was no adult at the end of the line to see what was going on.  When we got to Music, Zucchini and Plum ran around the corner from the stairs to catch up.  Plum said, very sadly, “he wouldn’t stay in line!”

“I’m sorry to hear that, Plum,” I said, absent-mindedly.

“I don’t like being caboose,” she said, as they walked past me into the music room.

On my way back to the first floor, I bumped into another teacher, who knows Zucchini.  She started laughing.

“Did you see what Zucchini did?” she asked.  “Instead of following you up the stairs to the 3rd floor, he just headed down the hall here on the 2nd floor, like he knew what he was doing.  There was nobody in front of him, but he just marched down the hall.  And that little girl behind him stood here by the stairs and called after him, ‘no, no, no!’ and started to cry!”

Poor Plum.  Zucchini had no idea what he was doing, and she always knows exactly what to do.

Pumpkin’s mom October 2, 2009

This was the conference I was most concerned about, and that I thought about the most.  I rehearsed in my head over and over what I would say to her.  As it turned out, she was very open to what I had to say, and she even said, “I feel relieved that I’m not imagining it, that’s it’s not just me.”

So we’re going to move ahead with the first intervention for speech, with the speech therapist’s help, and we’ll see how that goes.  After two interventions that don’t work, we refer him for assessment.

He was at the conference today; while Mom and I talked, he played with legos, blocks, and whiteboards.  He has such a sweet face.  He kept interrupting us to show off his work.  I really hope we can help him this year.

pumpkin’s communication issues September 25, 2009

So I saw Pumpkin’s early childhood screening, and it was very interesting.  To the question, “which is bigger, a house or a ball?” he answered, “ball.”  (He does that fairly frequently — he repeats the last thing you said if he doesn’t otherwise know what to say.)  To the question, “what’s this?” (pointing to chin), he answered, “armpit.”

Today I started his portfolio assessment (I’ve got parent conferences next week), and found that he does, after all, know most of his colors.  He also knows three whole capital letters, and recognized a few shapes and one or two numbers.  But when I asked, “what is your first name?” he answered, “four.”

It occurs to me that not only does this child really not understand the concept of listening, he doesn’t understand the whole concept of questioning.  You know, someone asks a question, and you answer it, and the answer makes some sort of logical sense.  His response to “when is your birthday?” was “people give me presents,” so at least he was on topic, and he knows that when I say something, he’s supposed to say something back.  But he doesn’t know that a question requires an answer, and he doesn’t know when he doesn’t know the answer.  I tried to prompt him — “if you don’t know, that’s okay, just say ‘I don’t know’” — but that got me nowhere.

In blocks today he was very excited to check out the cardboard brick blocks for the first time.  He required several interventions from me, because he was so excited he was kicking blocks across the floor, and knocking down other people’s buildings.  I explained to him that “blocks are for building,” and that in the block corner there is no kicking, and no knocking down other people’s creations without their permission.  I told him that if he did one of those things again, he’d have to leave the block corner.

So a few minutes later he kicked some blocks and I said, “okay, that’s it, you need to leave now.”

The next minute I looked and he was nowhere in the room.

“Miss Slinger, have you seen Pumpkin?” I asked.

“No,” she said, looking around with concern.

I had an idea, and went out to the hall, where I found a very sad Pumpkin waiting by his cubby, with his backpack on.

He didn’t think he had to leave blocks, he thought he had to leave school!

Poor baby.  But this morning I grabbed our speech pathologist and asked her to hang out with my little Pumpkin and tell me what she thinks.

food September 21, 2009

So I’ve decided to name my new class (for the purposes of this blog) after foods.  Last year it was characters from children’s books, but I’m running out of ideas for those, so food it is.

First up — Pumpkin.  He is an ADORABLE little boy who in many ways seems like he is still three years old.  Or maybe even two.  He is all impulse, and interrupts me constantly.  I don’t think he has any idea what I mean when I say to him, “please don’t interrupt me.”  Sometimes, like today, he interrupts me to say, quite urgently, “I love you, teacher.  I love you!”

What can he do?  Well, he has learned quite well how to walk in a line.  Miss Slinger says he sometimes gets silly down at his end of the line, but mostly he can do it.  He knows how to line up in ABC order, mostly, and he knows where he is supposed to sit in the meeting area.  He can sit on his bottom and fold his legs, and he participates in everything we do.  It isn’t like he’s under the sand table when he is supposed to be doing a project, or sitting down for morning meeting.

What can’t he do?  He seems genuinely puzzled by the whole concept of listening.  (I don’t think he knows what that word means, either.)  He has a hard time answering questions.  It’s like I’m speaking in a foreign language sometimes.  He has a hard time having a conversation.  He has a hard time remembering what he is supposed to be doing if I give him instructions.

Today at the start of morning meeting he came up to me and said with surprise, “There’s still soap on my hands!”

“Go back to the bathroom and dry off your hands.  Then come back and sit down.”

When he came out of the bathroom, his pants were around his ankles.  (I guess he forgot why he was in the bathroom, and decided to go potty, again.)  “Teacher, I can’t remember how to put my pants back on!”  Miss Slinger helped him, and I sure hope he washed his hands (and dried them) after he went potty…..

He can’t count, either.  He doesn’t know most colors.

I wonder if he is going to end up being assessed for special needs, or if he’s just a late bloomer.

Anyway, I think he’s going to be my favorite little troublemaker this year.

“was there blood?!” March 9, 2009

Today I sat with Ruby at the writing center. After she was done coloring some bears, I asked her if she’d like to tell me a bear story, and that I would write it down, and later, read it to the class.  She agreed with enthusiasm.  Here is her story, as well as I can remember it:

“The bears were walking.  Then they saw a store.  There were people in it.  The bears ate all the people.  And the kids were all safe.  Then the bears saw a strange house.  There were robbers in it.  The bears went in and got caught.  But then they got away and they ate all the robbers.  The end.”

This story had an electrifying effect on my class, when I read it to them at storytime.

Owen said, his eyes gleaming, “Was there blood?!”

“No,” I said firmly, “there was no mention of blood.”

I changed the subject.  “Tomorrow I’ll be at the writing center if you’d like me to write down your bear story.”

“Mine is going to be scary!” said Owen.

“Mine is going to be really scary!” said Swimmy.

I think I will be surrounded by boys and scary bear stories tomorrow.  I can’t wait.

Sixteen boys and four girls! August 25, 2008

Yes, that is my class count.  I checked out the list today on my first official day of work and started laughing when I figured that out.  Sixteen boys.   Yikes.  Um, did I mention, my class has SIXTEEN BOYS?!

I have to hope that if some students don’t show up — which happens every year — that they will come from the boy list, and not the girls.  I need all four girls.

(I’ve had a similar experience in the past, although not quite as drastic; check out my boys, boys, boys post from May.)