The Little Things, part 3 April 27, 2008

When I taught preschool at a daycare center, during my first official year of teaching, I had a big classroom with a large area where we could sit on the floor for circle time, in an actual circle.

Now, many years later, I am teaching preschool in a public school, in a very small classroom.  Our meeting area is quite small (and doubles as the block corner during centers time), and there is no way to fit the class in that space in a circle.  So I divided the space up into three rows, with room for 5-7 children in each row, and assigned seats.  Seriously.  Every child in my class has a spot on the floor where he/she knows to sit. 

When I visit other classrooms, the teacher gathers the children together for story time or morning meeting or circle time or whatever they might call it, and the kids either sit in a big circle (where some are too far away from the teacher to see the book she’s holding, and some are sitting right next to her looking out across the circle so they too cannot see the book she’s holding) or they sit in a clump (where they fidget and fuss and elbow each other).

My kids, with me the control-freak as their teacher, are in perfect little rows, each with their own space.  It works beautifully, even as I acknowledge how control-freaky I can be, because no one is sitting next to someone they like to chat with or fight with, and those who need to be near me are front and center so I can reach down and pat their knees, and those who need space are on the sides, and Miss L. is in the back corner so Ali can help her out if need be, and she can easily leave to “take a break” if she is getting overwhelmed.

Okay, so I’m ridiculous.  But boy, does it work.

The little things, part 2 April 26, 2008

Perhaps because I really started out teaching in daycare, before I taught kindergarten at that inner-city school, I still obey the rules about licensing and ratios and proper supervision.  I never want to have my students out of my sight, because if something happened to them, it would be my responsibility. 

So — I want to avoid having children go out into the hall to put their papers in their backpacks.  Send a few 4 year olds out in the hall together and pretty soon they are running around and chasing each other.

I bought a file basket, and have one hanging file for each child, of course labeled and arranged in ABC order.  (We do lots of things in ABC order!)  Whenever a child finishes a drawing or makes a book or does a worksheet, they go put it in their “work file”.  A few times a week my assistant moves their work into their backpacks.

No kids unsupervised in the hall, and no papers on the floor of the hall, where they fell from being haphazardly stuffed into a cubby or locker….

The little things April 26, 2008

From the beginning, when I started out teaching in an inner-city kindergarten, if things go wrong, I more or less blame myself.  And I ask myself, “what could I do differently next time, to prevent that from happening again?”

It has led me to do lots of little things that make a huge difference.  For example, I got really tired of hearing children say, “he budged me!” when they were trying to get in line, or walking in line.  So I asked myself, “what’s something I could do so I never have to hear the word ‘budged’ again?” 

It seemed to me that if every child had a place in the line, there wouldn’t be any confusion, so I started doing the line in ABC order (using first names, of course).  Every year I write the children’s names in alphabetical order before the first day of school, and start teaching it to them on the first day of school.  Within a few days I’ve got it memorized, and can rattle it off:  Amy, Ben, Carrie, Chris, Darnell, Eduardo, John, Julie, etc.* all the way to Xavier or Zed or whoever has the last name in the alphabet that year.  Then on the job chart, each week someone else gets a turn to be line leader (and holds open doors for us), and someone gets to be the caboose (and close doors for us).

My preschoolers can do it by the third week of school without help, and from then on, lining up and walking in line is a breeze.

*not their real names, from this or any year.