Meeting the new bunch May 22, 2012

One day last week I sent my class to the local library for story time, along with a sub provided by the Princess, my assistant, my Americorps volunteer, and our special ed teacher.  I stayed behind to meet the kids I will have in the fall, who came with their parents for registration.

While the parents filled out forms and talked to interpreters and/or the principal, “the little kids” (as I called them when I explained to my class why I wasn’t coming to the library) came into the room with me.  I had hoped for seven, but actually got thirteen.  That’s great turnout for our school.

I had them sit down in the meeting area, and guess what book I read?  Of course, it was Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!  I read that every spring at registration, and again on the first day of school.  It’s one of those books that just hooks kids, and gets them to love reading right away.  These little guys loved it, but they were surprisingly quiet about telling the pigeon ‘No!’ to all his crazy requests.

I gave them snack, and then put out toys for them to play with.  The group was adorable, and some of them I am really excited about.  One little guy is the younger brother of a student I had last year.  The older brother pretended for months that he couldn’t speak English, until one day when we overheard him, and he gave us an awesome, twinkly grin when we said we knew he could speak English after all.  The younger brother didn’t go for subterfuge; he was speaking great English to me right away, and was really confident and excited.  He wasn’t nervous at all, because he felt like he already knew me.

Another child won my heart at the end, when we cleaned up and I sent them back to their parents, in the hall.  She looked into my room longingly.  ”It’s beautiful,” she said, pointing through the glass window on our door.  ”Your home, it’s beautiful.”

I won’t be living in my classroom, but I will be delighted to welcome “the little kids” in the fall.

the checklist: what we are supposed to learn May 11, 2012

Yesterday during morning meeting I commented on how well the kids have done with learning the alphabet.  “That was your job this year, and you did it!”

Then a very serious boy raised his hand and said, “did we do all that stuff up there?”

“What stuff, honey?”

He pointed to the list above our bulletin board.  “That stuff.”

I turned, and looked, and said, “well, let’s see.”  I started to read the items on the list.  “Write your name.  Do you know how to do that?”

“Yes!” chorused the class.

“Name body parts?  Name capital letters, and lowercase letters?  Numbers to 10?  Count to 31?  Count to 100?” and so on.  We went through the whole list, and found that we had accomplished all of it.  (Okay, with some exceptions concerning children with special needs.)

A boy who came to my class in September with nothing but enthusiasm and an inability to stop interrupting me called out, “That’s because we are so smart!”

Yes, honey, you are.  You all are so smart.

the flaw in my brilliant plan April 25, 2012

I believe that I am a very good teacher, and that classroom management (behavior, organization, community-building, routines, etc.) is one of my strengths.  And that is largely true.  I start off the year by teaching the children all of our routines, hold them to high expectations for behavior and academics, and then teach them step-by-step how to meet those expectations.

While the beginning of the year is exhausting, by mid-October the class has settled into school and my room has become a well-oiled, high-functioning machine.  My room is calm, happy, loving, and purposeful.  It works great, and it makes me feel great to have gotten there.

However, I have just discovered the flaw in my way of doing things.  I expect that from October to June, things will mostly go according to plan.  I have failed to accomodate for the possibility of getting new kids in the spring who don’t know any of my rules, routines, or expectations, and who are way behind all the kids I’ve been able to teach since September.

So here I am, completely flummoxed and frustrated, because I have new students who don’t know that they are supposed to listen to me when I say their names, who don’t know that hitting is not reasonable behavior, who don’t know that books are precious and it is not okay to write in them, and who don’t even know how to wash their hands.  I am no longer in beginning-of-school mode, and it is overwhelming sometimes to think of all the things I have to reteach.

Yesterday was another bad day.  I was short-tempered, and felt terrible about it.

March is a little late March 26, 2012

….to be getting new students.  One little boy started a few weeks ago, and this is his first experience in school.  He is doing pretty well, actually.  He learned how to walk in a line, how to sit in the meeting area, and how to keep his hands to himself, most of the time.  His academic skills are quite low, as are his communication skills.  I wonder how I am supposed to get him ready for kindergarten in the short time I have left.

Last week we got a new girl, who moved to this country from a refugee camp in another country just 4 weeks ago.  She is very sweet, with a huge smile, but she is confused and working hard to figure out what school is all about.  She has good functional skills — if everyone else does something, she copies them and does it, too — but so far all we’ve heard her say in English is “I need this.”  Another child in class speaks her language, and wonderfully, is mature enough to understand how to translate my questions for her, so that helps.  But how am I supposed to get her ready for kindergarten in the time we have left?

This week I will get a new boy, who is on an IEP.  I will have three special ed students then, instead of the two I am supposed to be limited to.  I know nothing about him, and can only hope his IEP doesn’t have a behavior portion.

This week we have to start doing portfolio assessments for the next round of report cards, and….I wonder if I will be able to get them ALL ready for kindergarten, in the time I have left.

Dear parents September 6, 2011

Dear parents,

Thank you for sending me such a sweet bunch of kids.  They are very smiley and seem to like coming to school.  They giggle when we read silly stories, and they already have favorite books (“The Pigeon!”  “The Chicken!”).  They love recess and Gym class, and they are learning our school routines, day by day.

I do have a homework assignment for you, however.  Could you please teach your children their names?  And could you teach them that when someone says their name, they should look at that person and listen?

Thanks!

Mrs. X.

so that was one of my harder first weeks of school September 3, 2011

I’ve been feeling logy ever since I went home from work yesterday, and grateful that I have a three day weekend.

Don’t get me wrong; this year will be terrific.  The kids are great, and extremely likable, and smart, not to mention very cute.  But a few things are different this year that might get us off to a slower, slightly more difficult start.  I’ve never had so many kids show up the first week before.  That might seem weird to you, unless you work in a large urban district like mine.  Usually I’ll have 3-6 kids whose names are on my list, but never show up.  Their parents sign ‘em up, but then move or change schools without bothering to mention it to us.  This year, I had 19 of my 20, right from the start.  Poor little J., whoever he may be.  I kind of hope he doesn’t show up.

If I had 14 or so, it would be easier to teach the rules and routines, and then we could more easily absorb new kids as they show up.  Ah well, not this year.

I’ve also never had so many non-English speakers in my class.  Only 4 of the 19 speak English as their first language.  That’s a challenge, even though most of them speak or at least understand a little bit of English.  (Some of the kids whose parents told me “he doesn’t speak any English” actually do speak a little, which was a nice surprise.)  Much of what I am saying to them about school and what I want them to do and how we do things here are going zoooooom, right over their heads.

So when E. won’t stop talking and interrupting, or when M. keeps going up the slide (instead of down, which is my rule, to prevent crashes) and both of them end up sitting in the take-a-break chair, they don’t completely understand what they are doing there.  E. got very serious and quiet.  M. sobbed, then got very pouty.  I told them I wasn’t mad, that I want them to listen to me and remember the rules, but I don’t think they understood.

And while my migraines stayed away, I was really struggling in the heat and high humidity.  On Thursday I sweated so much my lanyard was wet, and that was a (gross) first.

I still haven’t gotten enough sleep since work started, and last but not least, I am having trouble figuring out how to take care of my home and family responsibilities while exhausted and trying to find a work-life balance.

Oh yeah, there was one more thing.  Little S., my screamer.  We had a special ed teacher helping us on Thursday and Friday; I don’t know how we will manage on Tuesday, when it’s just us and little Screamy.

(P.S.  Upcoming topics, much more positive:  1. vanquishing migraines, 2. my amazingly clean desk, and 3. Angela Watson’s terrific new book.)

the perfect number of kids is not nineteen September 1, 2011

The afternoon teacher only had 8 kids yesterday, on the first day, in part because her busing was all screwed up.  That was hard, because it was too few kids.

I had 16 yesterday, and 19 today, and it was kind of too much.  One of the three new ones has special needs, and spent most of the morning crying, screaming, hitting teachers, or collapsed on the floor.  (She seemed extremely tired, and kept moaning about being hungry, even though she ate breakfast at school.  Maybe she doesn’t have enough food to eat at home, and maybe she doesn’t get nearly enough sleep?  If so, and we can work with mom to get those issues resolved, maybe her behavior will turn around.)  The other two new ones were fine, but 19 kids all trying to learn school routines, follow rules, listen to directions, and try to freakin’ understand English …..well, they struggled.

We opened up the art center yesterday, and today we had puzzles at the games center, and playdough at the art center, so only 3 groups of four were with me on the floor playing “Doggie Doggie Where’s Your Bone?”  They had gym class, and I think that went pretty well.  They loved round two of Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! and they enjoyed hearing Jez Alborough’s Hugfor the first time.  They tried to draw self-portraits, and they loved going out for recess.  (They didn’t love so much coming in.  It took 10 minutes to round everyone up.)

The high heat and humidity today certainly didn’t help.  I sweated so much my lanyard was wet for the first time I can remember.  I went home and collapsed again.  It will get better.  It will get better, right?

It’s all a blur August 31, 2011

I finished the morning bone tired, hoarse, and barely able to remember what we had done.  I went home to nap and was too tired to sleep.

I do remember that there were beans, and glue.  There was learning how to fold your legs (you wouldn’t think I’d have to teach that, but I do), how to raise your hand, and how to keep your hands in your lap (aka. stop hitting the kid in front of you).  There were name tags.  And more name tags.  And name tags galore.  There was the new girl I only found out about when she arrived.  There was the other new girl, who was on my list but was supposed to be on the afternoon class list, or so I thought.  It turned out in the end that she did belong in my class, but she’d spent the entire morning hanging out with the social worker.

There was one white kid (a first in my class; usually I have three or four).  There were two kids whose first language is English; many more whose first language is Spanish, Somali, or Vietnamese.  There was only one mom I had to encourage to leave.  There was a trip around the school, and there was learning how to walk in line.  There was meeting the principal, and learning how to wait for the bus.

There was recess, and for one little guy, there was a very first time out.  And then…there were tears.

Then it was time to go, and there was wiggling, and learning how to sit, and learning the bus driver’s name.

And then there was a mutual chorus of I love yous.

first day of school August 31, 2011

This year, rather than post (as I always do) “I hate the first day of school,” I am feeling remarkably chill.  I have a new attitude, and a much better grip on my stress.

However, I do feel like I might be forgetting something.  Like, how to teach?  Or maybe something prosaic, like enough activities to fill the morning.

I’m sitting here in my pj’s, posting, when I should be getting ready.  But I am going to believe that this morning will be just fine, and that it will all come back to me.

Here I go.

starting the school year off right September 13, 2010

One word:  ROUTINES.  Seriously, teaching routines is one of the most important things we do at the beginning of the year.  And not just any old routines, but routines you have spent a lot of time thinking about.  Carefully thought-out routines for your classroom are gold.

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you know I have a lot of routines.  Sometimes, at the beginning of the year, some of the parents will look at me funny.  Especially the middle-class parents, if I have any.  The highly structured nature of my classroom is a little….different.  But it works, and all the parents are able to see that within a month.  Here are some examples:

*When the children arrive, I greet them at the door to our room, and then send them in to sign in.  The sign-in notebook is on a table just inside the door, and because not everyone can do it at once, I teach them how to get in a line, and wait their turn.  Yep, getting in line is the first thing they do each day.  Then they go to the “Who’s Not Here?” magnet board and move their nametags up to the “Who’s Here?” board.  After that it’s time to get to work at the tables.  Right now we have various manipulatives and drawing materials available.  By October it will be journal time first thing.  (Why do I do this? So everyone knows exactly what to do when they get to school, no one wanders aimlessly, and nothing gets pulled off the shelves and left in a mess. )

*When it is time to clean up, I turn off the lights and say, “One, two, three, freeze!” and teach the children to put their hands on their shoulders (can’t keep playing/building/drawing if your hands are on your shoulders) and look at me and listen.  I usually give them the two minute warning, and then do it again two minutes later to give clean up instructions.  (Why do I do this? So that everyone knows how much time they have to finish their work.  So everyone listens to my clean up reminders or instructions, and no one just plays and ignores me and then has no idea what to do at clean up time.)

*When we sit in the meeting area, everyone has an assigned spot.  My meeting area is incredibly small, as is my classroom, so we have to sit in three rows, with 5-7 in each row.  In the beginning of the year I have laminated cards from a school supply store (this year they are school buses) with their names on the front, and velcro on the back.  I lay the buses down in a specific order (I’ve got a map I can follow) and the velcro helps them stay put on the carpet.  Each child comes to sit down on the school bus with his/her name on it.  By October the buses will be in the trash and every child will know exactly where to sit.  I change it as needed, so certain kids are right in front of me, and nobody is next to someone who will be a big distraction for them.  (Why do I do this? We waste no time at all coming to sit down, because no one is pushing someone else, or fighting for a particular spot, and no one is all squished up against three other kids.  I’ll ask them to sit down, and they do.  Just like that.)

*When it’s time to line up, we do it in ABC order.  Always.  They start learning how to do this on the first day of school, and by the third week, can do it without assistance from me.  (Why do I do this? I used to have kids fighting every time they got in a line (“he BUDGED me!”), and sometimes I didn’t know if someone wandered off from the line and went missing.  With my ABC line, I always can tell right away if someone isn’t there, which is handy when we line up to go in from the playground.  No one every fights over their spot, because everyone has their own spot.  Our cubbies are in ABC order, so when we come in from the playground, our line stops at the cubbies and everyone is right in front of their own cubbie to make getting backpacks easier and quicker.  ABC lines make it easier for preschoolers to line up, and much faster.  I could go on and on….)

*When we climb stairs to go up to the music room, we stay to the right the whole time.  There are large landings on our stairs, but we don’t go the quick way, we stay by the wall to our right all the way around the landing and back up the next flight.  (Why do I do this?  So that we don’t get in anyone’s way when we are going up and they are going down.  So that everyone stays in line and holds the railing and no one wanders off to possibly fall down our big, wide, tall stairs.)