snapshots of the next day November 5, 2009

This morning I put on my lovely new red coat and went out to meet the buses as they arrived.  When bus 3 came, I caught Cherry and Chutney as they got off and had them wait with me.  When all the kids were gone, the driver got off, and I told her that I was their teacher, and that we were there to apologize to her for their behavior last week.

“Cherry, please repeat this after me.  I’m sorry I stood up on the bus.”

Cherry hung her head.  “I’m sorry I stood up on the bus.”

“I’m sorry I wouldn’t listen to you.”

“I’m sorry I wouldn’t listen to you.”

“I’m sorry I used bad words.”

“I’m sorry I used bad words.”

“It will never happen again.”

“It will never happen again, ” Cherry promised.

I went through the same routine with Chutney,  minus the part about the bad words.  The driver at this point was looking really surprised and also pleased.  I don’t think she ever meets her bus riders’ teachers.

I found out her name (let’s call her Maria), introduced her formally to the girls, and explained that it is her job to keep them safe.  It is their job to be respectful to her, and to listen to her, so that she can keep them safe.  I said that their behavior last week was unacceptable, and if it ever happened again, Maria would let me know and I would give them a consequence in the classroom.

I held their hands and we went back to class, talking excitedly about our third reading of Knuffle Bunny.  I am hopeful that we will not have a repeat of that behavior.  They really are smart and wonderful girls.

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At centers time Cherry chose the reading corner.  She read and re-read Knuffle Bunny out loud; she has memorized the whole damn thing.  I think I need to call her mom and compliment her — she’s the mom who told me that when she found out she was pregnant, she started buying children’s books, and now Cherry has FOUR HUNDRED books at home.  You can tell this is a well-read child.

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Plum was absent, so I guess she really was still sick yesterday.  Zucchini had a wonderful time in blocks today, and no pee accidents.  He kept building towers and showing me — “Look, cylinders!  And this is a cylinder, too!”  My new student wore a coat to school today.  The room was clean, but when Zucchini opened the block shelf it was a disaster (I, in my usual anal-retentive way, have a specific place for each block to go).  I suppose I will have to visit Miss Mellow’s class again to explain how to clean up the blocks, as I forgot to mention that yesterday.

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We finished the day with our third reading of Knuffle Bunny, where the children reconstruct the story and tell it to me, and then we got to watch the video, using my video data projector.  It was wonderful, and a great way to end the morning.

glad I’m not a first year teacher November 4, 2009

On Monday Miss Slinger called before work to say that she was not feeling well, and wouldn’t be in.  I said that was fine, and was on my way to work before I remembered that my Monday help (a special ed teacher and a Spanish speaking aide) had both emailed last week to switch to Tuesdays.  I was at work before I remembered that someone from the local university was going to be in to do a formal observation of me and my classroom (it’s part of a study I agreed to participate in).  And then five minutes later I found out that we had a mandatory staff meeting.

The staff meeting was sad — a disabled boy from an older grade died suddenly over the weekend.  I didn’t know him, but many teachers did, and the mood of the staff was somber.  When we were done discussing the impact of this loss on the staff and students, I had to go to a meeting with a teacher I would be observing the next day.  So I got back to class with only about five minutes to get ready, and there was my observer.

For some reason, this did not stress me out.  I’m usually a stress monster, but I was just amused.   And I kept a smile on my face all morning.

I smiled as the kids came in, signed in, and got to work on their journals.  The woman from the university looked surprised, but I’ve set up some really great routines in my class, and my students know exactly what to do.

I smiled as they worked in their centers, and as I rotated from center to center to talk to them about their work.  “Oh, the house corner is on fire again?  You guys know what to do.  Call 911 so the firefighters can come put it out….”

And mostly I smiled because I am no longer a first year teacher, and I have years of rich experience to draw on.  My classroom is a humming place because my years of struggle and trying to figure out what I was doing are behind me.

Sometimes it’s nice not to be young anymore!

Lesson plans, again October 21, 2009

Today in our leadership team meeting we discussed lesson plans again, and looked at the samples I copied — a lesson plan I wrote before we had the big discussion about what makes a good lesson plan, and one from after, with lots of detail, that references the standards.

We didn’t get much further, although it does appear that there are actually three kinds of lesson plans we’re talking about — and that teachers probably need all three.  One is a schedule — what you will teach, when you will teach it, and in what order.  The second is a detailed plan for each lesson that lists standards, objectives, your plan for differentiation, the questions you will ask, etc.  The third is a curriculum plan for the whole year that shows what standards the kids need to learn and when you will teach each one over the course of a year.

We ran out of time, but it will be interesting to see where we end up going with this.  Apparently some people at our school don’t even write lesson plans, and at a bare minimum, we need to make clear the expectation that everyone writes a daily lesson plan.

the little indignities of preschool October 12, 2009

Two little girls had pee accidents this morning.  One of them made it to the bathroom, but not quite to the toilet.  The other — Cherry — announced loudly at recess, “Mrs. X., I peed my pants!” from the top of the climber.  We had just enough time for Miss Slinger to take her to the nurse for a change of clothes before we had to put her on the bus to go home.

Pumpkin’s shoe was untied at morning meeting.  This meant he couldn’t stop fussing with it, and despite my warning — “Don’t unlace your shoe again!” — he unlaced it completely.  The lace was too frayed to put back in, so while I continued with calendar and the morning message, Miss Slinger relaced his shoe with a new lace.  (I’ve got a box with fresh underwear, socks, shoelaces, and some donated hats and mittens.  A preschool teacher should always be prepared!)

Miss Slinger, like all non-teacher employees of our district, had to fill out this long form about every aspect of her job and her duties.  She told me it was kind of depressing — when she writes it down it looks like her job is a lot of making copies and cutting things out (not to mention restringing laces and taking pee accidents to the nurse).  My job has all kinds of things like that in it, but it also entails reading, doing research, writing lesson plans, teaching reading, and so on.  Those sorts of things help to balance out the snotty noses and how-to-aim-in-the-toilet lessons and the other less dignified aspects of my job.

There should have been a place on that form for Miss Slinger to write down how often she gives hugs, resolves arguments, teaches art, or helps to maintain a fairly organized classroom.  But if it’s hard for a teacher to feel appreciated and valuable, how much harder it must  be for an assistant teacher.

loud October 5, 2009

Miss Slinger was gone today.  I used to teach kindergarten and was by myself with 25 kids, so you’d think I could handle 17 on my own.

And I can, of course.  But it was hard; I’ve gotten so used to having a wonderful assistant teacher in the room with me.  When I arrived at work with coffee and some berry coffee cake, I spun around the room like mad trying to get everything ready.

Put away the parent conference stuff, check!  Change the calendar to October, check!  (Take a bite of breakfast.)  Get the red scraps ready for our red collage activity, check!  Write the morning message, check!  Read my email, check!  Get everything needed for centers time ready in my basket, check!  (Take a sip of coffee.)  Try again (and fail again) to find Knuffle Bunny, check!  Set out the journals, change the date on the date stamps, set out the sign-in book, fill out the job chart, move the nametags, check check check!  (Take another bite of breakfast.)

And actually everything was fine.  It was just a little bit more intense.  For some reason, the children were incredibly loud today.  Cherry, who is STILL testing me to see what I will do if she doesn’t follow directions, stepped it up a bit.  I had a hard time not getting really really irritated with her.  And did I mention that they were loud?  The other weird thing was that they were more needy than usual.  It was “Mrs. X, can I do this?” and “Mrs. X, can I do that?” and they were tugging on me or saying, “Hey!” all morning long.

I’m still in a good mood, however, and I still do love them.

But I didn’t finish my breakfast until 12:30.

tools of the mind September 27, 2009

An article in this morning’s New York Times magazine has set my brain on fire.  It’s about a curriculum called Tools of the Mind that seeks to teach preschoolers self-control and executive function.  I remember reading this article from NPR on it earlier this year, and am really interested in putting some of these ideas into practice.

One thing in the NYT article that really spoke to me was the importance of play, and how so many kindergartens these days are going to a pure academic focus.  That’s certainly true at my school, and I feel lucky that in pre-K, I can give my students centers time (free play) every day.  But — from what I read in the article, I could be doing a better job.  I’m going to give the article to Miss Slinger to read, and then have a talk with her to see what the two of us can do together in our classroom.  For one thing, it might be a good idea to do some modeling and scaffolding of pretend play, to help the children learn how to do it, or to have richer experiences when they are in the house corner.

Anyone else know anything about Tools of the Mind and teaching executive function to preschoolers that they can share with me?

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.

getting ready for the first day of school September 3, 2009

The past two weeks have whizzed by and I have been simply too exhausted to post.  I will try to be better from here on in, especially since I am starting to get into the groove.  (Waking up at 6 am again is quite painful, but I’ve responded by hurling myself out of bed to work out on the treadmill each morning, before I’m awake enough to talk myself out of it, and also by going to bed at 9:30 (!) each night.)

I am not fond of the first day of school.  You might even say I hate it.  I’m accustomed to a class that hums along like a well-oiled machine, and on the first day, things definitely do NOT hum along smoothly.  It occurs to me, each first day when I look at the children’s little faces, that they don’t know anything about my classroom, and it is now my job to teach them EVERYTHING.  Sort of a daunting task, but then I just dig in and get started.

Actually, I get started before the first day of school.  Here are some of the things I do to prepare:

• I write out a class list of first names in alphabetical order.  I will use this constantly in the first week.  My class always lines up in alphabetical order.
• I make nametags for the cubbies, and put them in alphabetical order, so that when we are lined up in the hall, the child whose name starts with A is in front of her cubby, and the child whose name starts with Z is in front of his cubby.
• I make a different set of laminated nametags, and put velcro on the backs (okay, actually, I ask Miss Slinger to do this), to mark the spots on the carpet where I want each child to sit.  (We’ve got limited space for morning meeting, so I assign spots.  It works wonderfully — no one pushes or shoves to sit up front, and they all have their own space.)  I make a map of where each child should go, based on what little I know about them, and post it near my chair in the meeting area.)
• I label hanging files in a basket so that each child has a “take-home file.”  This is where they put their finished work; I do this to avoid children going out to the hall to their backpacks, and problems arising because they are unsupervised.  Of course, the files are in ABC order, and this year, I used my new labeler to make them, so they look even neater than usual.
• I make a class list on a chart I’ve copied from a “first days of school” teacher book, write the names on (in ABC order, of course!), and then make copies.  One copy goes on a clipboard that hangs from a hook near the door.  This is where all dismissal and bus info goes.  On the chart’s top axis I write out options for dismissal that include the after-school program, the preK bus, the special ed buses, or being picked up by a parent.  I use this as we head out each day so that every child goes to the right place.
• I make colored nametags, four of each color.  Then I decide (based on the little info I have) which color group each child goes in, so that the groups will work well together.  On the first day of school the red group gets to go to the art center.  On the second day of school, I open a second center, and green gets to go there, and blue gets to go to art.  On the third day I open a third center, and so on and so forth until all the centers are opened and every group has been to every center.

I hope this is helpful to those of you who are getting ready for YOUR first days of school!

two sets of hands are better than one August 21, 2009

I’m going into the weekend feeling pretty Zen.

This morning Ms. Mellow and I met at school, and kept chatting, and all of a sudden, all the furniture was in the right place, and a lot of baskets and organizers were, too.  We are farther along than I thought we’d be, so I’m ready to officially return to work Monday, and spend lots of time in meetings and staff development.  We’ll have enough time to get the room presentable for the open house on Thursday, which is great.

It has been interesting talking to her as we go along.  We put up the calendar, which led to a conversation about calendar time, and all the options with that.  We put up a pocket chart, and I told her how I use it for a word wall to go with each theme.  We talked about the science center, which definitely needs work, and how I’d be happy to follow her lead there.

It’s a good experience to talk about what you do in the classroom, because it makes you think about WHY you do it.

summer is almost over August 16, 2009

I received my back-to-work letter from the Prince (my blog name for our principal).  Our official back to work day is Monday, August 24, and the open house will be Thursday, August 27.  We have tons of meetings scheduled, plus a full day of staff development, and only two half days open to work on our rooms.  I’m wondering how he thinks we can get our rooms ready with only two half days….Especially since he said we shouldn’t try to get in our rooms this week, as the engineers are still working on getting the furniture back in.  We always are able to work the week before; if this is really true, next week is going to be some sort of stress nightmare.  I can see myself sitting in endless meetings, agonizingly bored and longing to get to work in my room.

Tomorrow I go to a leadership team meeting at school, so I’m going to ask him about this.  I haven’t had a migraine for two weeks and I don’t want to start now.