snapshots of the day November 4, 2009

*Cherry and Chutney got bus write-ups last week that showed up in my mailbox only this morning.  They were defiant to the bus driver and refused to sit down on the bus.  And Cherry called Chutney the B word.

*A staffer whose grandson is in my class told me that he had really paid attention to my lesson yesterday.  I tried to remember what lesson that might have been.  She said, “he knows all the three-dimensional shapes now.  He told me, ‘did you know that the other name for a ball shape is a sphere?’ and also told me about cubes, cylinders, and cones.”  I was tickled.  Someone was listening!

*Plum showed up after two days at home and burst into tears.  “What’s wrong, honey?” “I…want…my…DADDY!” she sobbed.  She sobbed all the way to the local library, so, for the first hour of the morning.  At the library she sat on Miss Slinger’s lap whimpering, and then fell asleep in her arms.  I spent most of story time trying to track down her parents, who finally showed up when we were back at school.

*I got a new student, who moved to my class from the afternoon class.  She knows Miss Slinger, and the room, but not me.  She was dressed in a t-shirt and a thin sweatshirt today, and it was very cold out (in the 30s).  I tried to give her a jacket to wear to the library, but she refused.  I gave her a partner to hold hands with, and she refused.  So she held my hand all the way there.  Miss Mellow told me later that the new girl is very moody, that mom didn’t show up for her parent conference — twice — and that the girl came to school once with a warm jacket, and not again since.

*Because of very poor test scores, the third through fifth grade teams were shaken up, and a few teachers were removed from classroom teaching (they will be doing supplemental teaching instead).  At least one teacher was in tears.  Emotions were running high.  I wish the Prince had done this back in June, but I think he did the right thing, better late than never.  It’s inexcusable when certain teachers’ students don’t make a year’s worth of progress.  Our students are so far behind they really need to make well more than a year’s progress.  Less than a year?  Shameful.

*We read Knuffle Bunny for the second time (I’m back to doing Repeated Interactive Readalouds), and at the end, I asked, “have you ever lost something?”  After we heard about a lost ball and a lost car, I told them about a time when I lost my favorite mittens.  Pumpkin looked very concerned.  He raised his hand.  “Teacher, I can give you my red mittens.  Let me go get them for you.”  And he was about to get up before I stopped him, and assured him that I have since replaced the lost mittens.  He tried again at dismissal time to give me his red mittens.  So sweet.

*Zucchini had so much fun at recess that he forgot to tell me he needed to go pee.  He had a change of clothes in his backpack — but the pants were shorts!  So the poor kid went home in a warm jacket, hat, mittens, boots….and shorts.

*I visited Miss Mellow’s class, with her okay, to talk to them about all the stuff in the room, and how most of it is stuff I paid for.  I talked to them about respecting books, and how to take care of them, and where to put them (the Mo Willems books go in the Mo Willems box, not the ABC box, and the farm books go on the shelf, not in the color box).  I also showed them how to clean up the house corner and where everything goes there.  Later Miss Slinger told me that they did a much better job of clean up after their centers time.

*I spent two hours finishing writing up a post-observation report.  It made me cranky.  I don’t think I want to be a mentor next year.

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?

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!

rites of fall August 18, 2009

I went to the teacher store this morning.  I spent $102, which actually shows restraint on my part.  Usually it’s $140.  Picking out labels for the cubbies for me and Ms. Mellow was really hard; I spent a ridiculous amount of time trying to find nametags that were a) attractive, b) color-coded (I’m green and she’s blue), and c)small enough to fit in the cubbies.

I stopped in at the office this morning and managed to cajole our secretary into giving me my class list; this afternoon I’m going to mail out a letter about school supplies and our ice cream social next Tuesday.

And I went to my physical therapy appointment; so far, so good.  I’ve had no migraines for 2 1/2 weeks!  I think I’m ready to go back to work.

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.

what needs to be done before school starts August 12, 2009

I met with the afternoon teacher — I’ll have to think of a good nickname for her — and she’s great.  Down-to-earth, sensible, articulate, friendly, mellow, self-confident, interested and interesting.  So phew, no more anxiety dreams!

She has lots of teaching experience, but none with preschool, so she had a long list of questions for me.  One thing she requested is a to-do list for getting ready for the first day.

I can think of a few things:

• send out school supply letter
• plan ice cream social for the preschoolers at the park (ask principal about dates, so he can be there too)
• buy/write/put up name tags for the cubbies (morning and afternoon!)
• get furniture in the right place
• organize/set up art shelf, which has always been a mess
• organize/set up desk (also, to be shared by two people!)
• put up new bulletin board paper and trim
• put up job charts
• put away all the stuff I bought over the summer, and the stuff I brought home (but never used!)

What things are going on YOUR to-do list?

GTD takes time August 5, 2009

I’ve been working for two hours on one drawer.  Here’s what it looked like before:

And here’s what it looks like now:

Yes, after two hours I’m only half-done with this drawer.  Here’s what my poor old office looks like currently:

Time to take an exercise break!!

**a few hours later**

I ate lunch instead.  Here is what the final product looks like:

It was so worth the time I spent on it.  Here’s the pile of papers I just bagged up for recycling (all of which came from that one drawer):

getting things done August 5, 2009

So last week when I was on vacation, I read this book.  I’ve been thinking about reading it for more than a year now; I remember hearing about it originally from TeacherNinja.  Anyway, I finally was ready to read it, I loved it, and I think it could end up changing my life.

When I tell people I read Getting Things Done, and that I am happily cleaning out my office, they generally express surprise that I need help from an organizing book.  But I do — I’m very organized in lots of ways, but I have these pockets of disastrous disorganization in my life (at home and school) that cause me no end of stress.  In particular, my desks at home and school are just places to dump stuff.  They end up making me tense every time I look at them.  So I’ve been avoiding my lovely rolltop desk at home for years now.  Whenever I’ve “worked” on cleaning it up, I just take care of some of the piles, but I don’t do anything about the cause of the piles.

Also this week I started physical therapy — on the recommendation of the neurologist I am now seeing for help with my migraines — and the physical therapist talked about managing my stress as one way of getting my neck and shoulders to relax.  I wonder if having all my “stuff” organized and under control will end up having an effect on my migraines?

I’m not done yet, but when I am, I’ll post pictures.  And — I plan to put the system into place at school, once I go back.  With all the paperwork teachers have to do, lesson planning, stuff to sort, and all the things I need to juggle as a mentor teacher, it will be WONDERFUL to have a way of keeping it all under control.  I’m even color-coding my system — things for school (folders, index cards, etc.) are green, as opposed to manila or white for home.  I have been to Office Max twice, and I’m going back on Sunday when they have their teacher sale.

Anyone else out there using GTD?  Any tips or recommendations for me?

teachers have too much work to do January 23, 2009

This is nothing new to other teachers out there.  But sometimes teachers just have too much to do, and it starts to grind us down.

I had a morning free to do paperwork.  This is a gift, I know, and many school districts don’t provide this kind of time.  So I do feel lucky in that sense.

However.  I came in after doing parent conferences for both my sons, and almost immediately started feeling too exhausted to be at work.  This cold I’ve had for the past week is an evil one; I’m tired and weak and lightheaded much of the time.  So working — and concentrating — was a real effort.

Here are some of the things I have to get done by next Friday:

• finish the report on a formal observation I did
• turn in all my paperwork on the observations I’ve done
• write a lesson plan for the formal observation someone will soon be doing on me
• finish my class assessment portfolios
• write 18 report cards
• fill in all the assessment scores on the district data website (for a second time; I did it this morning and then the system crashed and nothing was saved)
• write my lesson plans for next week, when we begin patterns in math and sea animals as our main content theme
• prepare to do Text Talk lessons each day next week
• visit each 1st grade classroom during reading and then meet with each 1st grade teacher to support them in transitioning fully to a balanced literacy plan for reading
• and more, only my brain is too tired to remember

I got only a small fraction done this morning.  I don’t know how I’m going to manage next week.

organizing books in a preschool classroom November 3, 2008

When I first started teaching, I taught kindergarten in an urban school, to children who did not have books at home.  I was a teacher who did not yet have a book collection, so I went to the library weekly to pick up books for my classroom.  And from time to time, those books would disappear.

I understood why it was happening, as the children had no books of their own and coveted the beloved stories we read together, but it was hurting my bank account, as missing hardcover books averaged $15 at the time.  I started to get tired of paying fines for missing books, and thought about how I could avoid this problem.

My solution was to arrange the books on a flat, open-face bookshelf so that each book fit nicely into its own spot.  Then I made masking tape labels for each book and put them on the shelf in each book’s spot, so that when you removed the book, you’d see the label for its place.  Here’s a picture:

This helped the vanishing books problem cease, as I could tell at a glance what book was missing, and send my assistant out for a quick backpack search to locate it.  But I realized that it was helping the children respect the books and take good care of them, and it was also helping them with reading skills, as they started matching the letters and words in the titles to the letters and words on the tape labels.

I have been doing this ever since.  Each time we switch to a new theme, I get out my books on that theme, and arrange them so they all fit on the shelf like a puzzle.  Then I label the shelf behind each book, so that the children will be able to put them back in the right places when they are done.  Here are a few more pictures:

Last year when my school started moving toward guided reading, I realized that I didn’t have enough books out, so I added genre baskets:

The ones under the blocks are where I have counting books and favorite authors; the ones above the blocks are where I have ABC books, Spanish-language books, and books about colors.