My new favorite book June 26, 2008

Diary of a preschool teacher, pt. 2 June 6, 2008

It’s Friday night, I’ve got three days of teaching left, and I’m one glass of chardonnay down so far.  In my role as mentor teacher, I did an observation cycle (pre-observation conference, observation, post-observation conference) with a teacher who didn’t want me in her room all year, so it came down to the last minute.  So far in the last week she has ranted & raved, sent me a rude email (upsetting because seriously, I never get those), and complained about me to the principal.  I was DREADING the observation.

Then I go into her room, watch her do the lesson, and guess what?  It was beautiful.  She complained all year, but boy did she learn a lot in the end.  Afterward I told her, “you know what?  You are full of shit.”  She looked surprised, but grinned when I told her how good her lesson was.  So I gave her really good scores and we survived today’s conference relatively unscarred.  I still haven’t told her off, the way I’ve wanted to all week, but maybe I never will. 

I just know that in the fall, if she tries to use me as her punching bag again, I’m not going along with it.  We have a really weird relationship; it’s not a close friendship, but it’s definitely a close something.  She’s the one whose shoulder I cried on when my son was having trouble in school, and I knew I could say “you’re full of shit” and have her understand what I was talking about.

Anyway, on to the diary of a preschool teacher.  This week in preschool:

• One of my students — I am reluctant to say who — mouthed the toilet seats at the end of a rough morning.  It wasn’t a deliberate action, but more the action of someone who was not in control of his/her emotions, behavior, senses, or mental health.
• J. laughed today, for the first time all year.  She is a quiet girl for whom English is not the first language, and when I heard her delightful laughter from the block corner, I was thrilled, but also chagrined that I hadn’t realized I’d never heard it until now.
• We’ve been singing the ABC’s all week.  Then we started singing the ZYX’s, which I learned from Ralph’s World, and the kids love the part where we sing, “Next time let’s all move to Texas.”
• In keeping with my tastes in snarky humor, we read Do Not Open This Book, and Good Boy, Fergus, and Don’t Let the Pigeon Stay Up Late, and my kids understood all the humor and participated in reading with great enthusiasm.  No boring books in my classroom!
• Mysteriously, two or three books each day have ended up on my desk needing repairs.  A few are probably beyond repair.  I can’t figure out what’s happening, as my class LOVES books, and all year we’ve had this happen about once every two or three weeks at most.

On Monday we have our end of the year party, on Tuesday we’re going to take down and put away and clean clean clean, and then on Wednesday we’re going to the library for story time, and then we say goodbye.

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom May 21, 2008

We’ve finished learning the alphabet, and some of my little friends actually know the whole damn thing, so we’ve been celebrating our accomplishments with some spirited readings of Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. On Monday we made a mural, and each child did his or her own little chicka tree, using templates I found here.

Now the children keep going around muttering, “chicka chicka boom boom,” and they are fighting over it in the reading corner.

Miss Nelson is Missing May 21, 2008

Now that we’re in the home stretch, our theme is “Ready for Kindergarten,” and all the books on our shelf are about kindergarten and school.  Z. commented that some of them looked familiar, and I told her that we’d had a bunch of them out at the start of the year.  I was impressed, but not surprised, that she remembered.

Yesterday at storytime I didn’t have enough time to introduce our new “special story” (the repeated interactive read-aloud), so I grabbed Miss Nelson is Missing off the shelf. 

(For those of you who aren’t familiar with the book, Miss Nelson’s class is the worst behaved in school.  They never listen to their poor, sweet teacher.  One day she goes missing, and in her place is the substitute, Miss Viola Swamp.  She has an ugly black dress and is perhaps a real witch.  She is strict and mean and scary, and everyone buckles down.  Finally, when they are exhausted from working so hard, Miss Nelson comes back, and from then on the children all appreciate her, do their work, and behave beautifully.  No one ever knows that there is an ugly black dress in Miss Nelson’s closet….)

I had never read this book to any of my preschool classes, and I wasn’t sure how it would go.  However, with all their practice discussing books this year, they loved it and had a lot to say.  With a little guidance, they even figured out the true identity of Miss Viola Swamp at the end.

When I closed the book, I asked, “Why were the children so happy to see Miss Nelson at the end of the book?”

Z. said, “They missed her.”

I asked, “How do you know they missed her?  Why do you think that?”

Z. replied, “Well, when you are gone, we all miss you.  So I think Miss Nelson’s class missed her the same way.”

Zing!  My heart melted.  It is so nice to be appreciated, especially by four and five year olds.

I totally need this backpack May 13, 2008

It’s available at Yottoy, and I saw mention of it at Mo Willems’s blog.

Illiteracy over at the ice cream factory May 9, 2008

My fellow preschool teacher, Mrs. V., at the fabulously named Don’t put boogers in your neighbor’s cereal, has a funny off-topic post about ice cream bars, and the use and abuse of the English language.  Check it out here.

When the cat’s away, the mice will play May 9, 2008

We had the best time today.

The entire school and almost the entire staff went to a big celebration in a park, and we had the school to ourselves. Three kids were absent today, as was Ali, so it was me, Jan (my para), and 12 preschoolers.

We went on an exploration adventure, starting with the basement. We bumped into the head janitor, who took us into their dark and mysterious lair, and even down to the sub-basement to see the boiler room. The kids were thrilled. Then we went up staircases that we don’t usually use, visited every floor, peeked in windows, did a class visit to a boys’ bathroom, and one to a girls’ bathroom, ran around wild in the upstairs gym, visited the behavior lady (who hasn’t met any of my angels all year), peeked into the teacher’s lounge (the school secretary came by just then and was horrified by the thought I was going to take them inside, so we just peeked), and then ran down the hall by kindergarten.

Me being me, we normally walk in a line, in ABC order (I guess I mentioned that before), with hands on our elbows, and we are always very quiet. These things help us to be safe, and to be respectful of all the other children and adults working in our building.

Today, since no one was around, they got to walk in a clump, talk loudly, lie down on the floor, and swing their arms freely.  (They understood clearly that this was a once-only deal, and that we go back to our normal line on Monday.)  When we got the kindergarten hall, I explained that this would be the only time in their entire lives when they would be allowed to run in the hall, and then had them go one at a time down to the end, where Jan was waiting.  They ran with glee.

Today was, in a word, awesome.

I bet it’s the one thing they remember from this year!

Tastes like chicken May 1, 2008

On a walk to the local library for preschool storytime, we saw a robin.  D., who speaks very little English and has some special needs to boot, pointed, and said, “chicken!”

At first I told him it was a robin, and then decided to simplify, so I taught him the word “bird.”

Then today when the principal got on the intercom to announce the lunch menu, D. pointed at the speaker and said, excitedly, “he say chicken!”

One word down, several thousand to go.