in which I callously try to murder two plants May 2, 2011

It’s spring, so we have been studying plants and our whole windowsill is covered with little cups full of dirt and sprouts of various sorts.  A lot of teachers use their plants for science — I wonder what would happen if?  What would happen if we didn’t water a plant?  What would happen if we keep a plant in the dark?  I never got around to it in the past, but decided to do it this year.

Little did I know my class would react with horror.

“It’s going to die!!!!”

“She’s going to kill the plants!”

“I don’t want the plant to die!”

There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth.  At least one little boy went home and talked about it at dinner.

I forged ahead, but by Friday, it became clear that the plants cannot die.  So we will rescue them once they start to look unhealthy, and bring them back from the brink.

Maybe then I will become the hero, rather than the evil villain.

Mapping the year September 6, 2010

Miss Mellow and I met at a coffee shop on Saturday morning to plan out our year.  We worked for an hour and a half and could have easily gone for another hour.  We were in the “flow” and having a great time discussing curriculum, how to balance all our frameworks and expectations (and all that is expected of us), and what really matters in preschool.

We plotted out the themes for the year, and each one will last for a month, which is different from what I have done in the past, with my 2-3 week themes.  We started fleshing out different things to focus on during each week of our themes, and realized that we need to ask guiding questions for each theme.  What is it, really, that we want the kids to know at the end of each month?

I went home exhilarated, and have been working on typing up my list so we can get it all down on paper and then share it with the rest of the preschool teachers in our district.  I’ll post it here, too.

this time, I really mean it August 5, 2010

Okay, so two years ago at this time I promised I would teach more science in my preschool.  And it didn’t really happen.  I went to a science workshop for early childhood teachers this week and thought back to figure out where I went wrong.

• I just haven’t felt comfortable or knowledgeable enough to do it.  It’s not that I don’t like science or find it interesting; I just couldn’t figure out how to add it to my classroom in a thoughtful, thorough way.
• Last year I focused my energies on learning how to do writer’s workshop in preschool.  It was a great, intellectually stimulating challenge, and it turned out, I was good at teaching writing.  My kids all started to write, and a lot of my teaching energy went to writing and reading.
• Actually, a lot of my teaching TIME went to writing and reading.  It’s really hard to fit everything into two and a half hours.  I didn’t have the time or the energy to figure out where science was going to go.
• My classroom is so tiny I couldn’t figure out where to put a science center.  Then I finally figured out a space, and couldn’t figure out what to put there!

But THIS year, I really will do it.  Our workshop, mostly based on the book Exploring Water with Young Children, with some time spent on Exploring Nature with Young Children, was pretty terrific.  (I went home and said to my husband, “so that was not a waste of my time,” which is a huge compliment when it comes to our school district and staff development.)

Miss Mellow was at the workshop, also, and we thought that maybe this year we would do a long exploration of water in the fall, and of nature in the spring.  We have a sand table which we can empty and turn into a water table, and we have ideas about where to go to get funnels, tubes, eye droppers, and turkey basters.

So we’ll see how it goes.  I look forward to launching science exploration this fall — I want my students to have a sense of wonder about the world around them, to have the opportunities to become absorbed in exploring, wondering, testing, and talking about science.

smelly March 8, 2010

We are learning about the Five Senses and I decided that this week, we should focus on one sense each day.  Today was Smell Day.  Last night I put various food items with distinctive scents into little plastic tubs, and today I sat at the science center at centers time and the kids stopped by to check out the smells.

Lemon was popular, as were cinnamon and peanutbutter.  They were confused by sesame oil, and split on onions.  “My mom!” exclaimed one little boy, whose English is limited.  He didn’t like the smell but he was happy to be reminded of something with which his mother cooks.  My vanilla smelled weird — I thought they’d love the smell, but it didn’t smell right.  I wonder if storing it plastic overnight made it smell a little bitter.  The vinegar was universally hated.  The kids made awesome funny faces when they smelled it.

After I had closed up shop, Pumpkin and Zucchini asked if they could check out the smelling tubs (Zucchini has to spend a lot of time in the writing center each day writing people letters for their mailboxes, and Pumpkin loves the Kid K’nex we have in the block corner right now), so I said yes.

They both loved the vinegar.

“Really?!”  I asked.  “Are you sure?  You like it?”

“Yeah!”  they said, grinning.  Two little thumbs up.  “That smells good.”

lesson planning October 17, 2008

This is a road map of some place in Italy; were I to use it, I’d get hopelessly lost, as I don’t speak Italian and know nothing of Italian geography.  Lesson planning sometimes seems like following a road map, with so many roads to follow, and so many choices to make, that one ends up frustrated and confused, lost in Italy, when one really intended to be in India, instead.

So let’s say it’s a typical Saturday, and I am at the skatepark in the parents’ lounge while my child is in skater heaven, and I’ve got my bag of lesson planning materials, as usual.  I take out my lesson plan book, and turn to a new week, and start filling in the times at the top of each column, and what we do when (journal time from 9:30 to 9:45, Gym on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 9:45, etc.).  Then I grab the teacher’s guide for the reading curriculum that the district purchased for the pre-K teachers, and I see what I’m supposed to do each day.

Then I put on the brakes.  According to my reading curriculum, I am supposed to introduce the new theme with a poster and a song.  We read the poster to learn the song lyrics, and then we sing the song, and I have some questions to ask as well.  Then there’s a large picture card with a picture that pertains to the theme, and I am supposed to show that to the class and read the questions on the back to spark a discussion.  There’s also a book that introduces the theme.  When I’m supposed to do this isn’t clear, because when I turn the page I am on week one, day one, which means the first Monday of the theme, so when was I going to fit in all the intro stuff?  On Sunday night?  Here on Monday morning I’m supposed to read a different poster — this one with a poem on it, play a cd with the theme’s song, do some phonemic awareness activities relating to the poem, and then read a big book (not forgetting the scripted questions which are provided for me!). 

This, I suppose, is supposed to happen at our morning meeting.  After that we’ll have centers time, and I will skip the centers time suggestions, as I always do, because they are pathetic.  But wait — turn the page again and there’s MORE.  There’s a brief lesson on our social skills curriculum, with yet another dumb song, and more discussion to conduct.  There’s also a chart — shared writing — that we are supposed to do together.  Oh yeah, and we are to learn the letter of the week, using the song book with the stupid songs about each letter of the alphabet.  So I guess this stuff fits in after centers time, instead of story time?  Or in addition to it?

Wait, we’re not done.  There’s also an end of the day discussion (what did we learn today, boys and girls?) and another shared writing activity using some more chart paper.  Argh.

So let’s say I am my usual self and I confidently read through all this stuff and select only what is most important, write it into my morning meeting plan, and skip all the other pointless junk.  What I’ve selected doesn’t come first, though, because first we have to do calendar time.  I have a way of doing calendar time that works well, that I’ve honed over the years, and as of two years ago, I also have a calendar time curriculum that I’m supposed to use.  So now I have to grab that book, figure out which of the many worthwhile activities in it I’ll have time for (our particular reading curriculum is pretty mediocre, but the calendar curriculum is quite good), write that in, and then put in all the reading stuff (which poster shall I use?  which book, if any, shall I read?  phonemic awareness is really important, I can’t skip that, can I squeeze that in?).  Wait, actually, first we have to learn the new letter of the week, because then I can sing the good morning song substituting the letter of the week for the first letter of each child’s name, which makes them all giggle and is a great way of learning that letter’s sound.  So I write that in.  Then comes calendar time, then reading.

Then I pick up my math curriculum to look at our new theme for math and realize that my morning meeting plan will take at least thirty minutes, and that is the maximum I can expect preschoolers to sit still on the carpet, and I have no time left for all the math I want to do.  Because my math curriculum is pretty great.  Now I flip my handy-dandy mechanical pencil around and do some judicious erasing, and fit in some math.  So now I’m done with morning meeting for Monday, but that leaves not only the morning meetings for Tuesday through Friday, but also centers time each day (what will we offer at art and writing and math that fits with our themes?), and story time each day, and also our group activity time on the days when we don’t go to Gym.

And really, that isn’t all there is to think about.  I have the Core Knowledge preschool curriculum and I love the part about what preschoolers should learn and know at the end of each month, so I try to consider that and figure out where I can fit some of that in.  And for every theme I do I have a bulging file folder full of ideas and activities and art projects and worksheets that I have brought along with me to the skatepark, so I have to go through that and consider what I want to use.  Plus I have a lot of really great curriculum guides for teachers about themes, phonemic awareness, circle time, science (yikes, can’t forget science!), writing, morning message, guided reading, brain games, and so on.  So I have to go through all those and try to figure out what of all that stuff I want to use.

At this point my brain is getting really fried but there’s also our portfolio assessments to think about.  My students still don’t all know their colors, so is there a way to add colors into the current theme?  Some children are having trouble counting to five, so is there an activity I could plan for the math table during centers time to help those children?  Also, one little boy knows every letter and every sound, so is there some beginning reading I could do with him one-on-one at centers time?

And — oh, yeah — there’s the whole question of the standards.  What I really need to do is look at the early childhood standards for my state and make sure that we are covering the standards, and making progress so that by the end of the year, every child knows everything he or she is expected to know.  So now I have to grab my standards and read them again to be sure I’m on the right track.

Sigh.

I don’t mean to say that I can’t do it.  I can — and I do, every week.  But for those of you reading this who are not teachers, it’s one heck of a lot harder than it looks.

gruesome bug action October 8, 2008

This weekend I had my sons look for spiders.  They caught two, which I brought to school Monday morning in a plastic cup.  On my way in the building I found a small beetle, which I added to the cup.  I transferred my new friends to the terrarium, and at centers time four children sat at the science table and watched the bugs.

On Tuesday, I looked in the terrarium, and one spider was toes-up, the other wasn’t moving, and the beetle was nowhere to be found, so I didn’t bring out the terrarium.

Today, we looked in the terrarium and the remaining spider had caught the beetle in its web.  We brought it out and four little boys sat at the science table using what English words they had:  “awesome!” and “destroy!”

I went to the office for a Spanish-speaking interpreter, who came and spent a few minutes with the boys, answering their questions (do spiders have eyes?  is the beetle dead?  what is the spider doing? etc.) and talking about what was going on in the terrarium (look, the beetle has an orange tummy/Godzilla!/wow/is he eating the bug?).  I think it made his day, and I know the four boys were thrilled.

Frankly, I thought it was pretty cool watching the spider wrapping up his victim.  I do feel guilty about that bug, but I suppose spiders do need to eat.

madagascar hissing cockroach September 14, 2008

On our first Science Friday, Miss Nelson brought her pet Madagascar Hissing Cockroach.  Isn’t it awesome that THAT is her pet?!  The kids were thrilled, and frankly, so was I.  I’d like the cockroach to come back, so we can spend more time observing it, but at least on this first visit, we got to check it out — and hear the hissing.  Very cool.

bugs, bugs, bugs August 26, 2008

On my second day of work, with the Open House only two days off, I had to spend the day at trainings.  The morning was frustrating, as it was all about math and there was nothing presented that I didn’t already know.  And sorry, but ALL preschool teachers know how to teach patterns with unifix cubes.

I did have a nice lunch with two fellow teachers, and then the afternoon was much better.  We learned about doing science with preschool (something I’ve admitted I’m not too good at), and got lots of goodies.  I am now the proud owner of a terrarium with three sowbugs (hence, the picture above).  We all got a science curriculum book on teaching young children about nature, which looks really good, plus two terrariums, one of which has grass seed, some greens, and some bugs, a class set of magnifying glasses, two spades for digging in the dirt, a large piece of plastic that magnifies things, and a mister for keeping the terrariums moist.

At my son’s football practice this evening I got started reading the science book, and I’m really excited to teach science and explore nature with my class.

Now, however, I’m absolutely exhausted.  Switching to a new sleep schedule hasn’t gone smoothly, and mostly I stay awake until midnight trying to stop thinking about my classroom.

(image from sydneywebcam.smugmug.com via Google images)

Science Fridays July 24, 2008

I’m reading The Canon, by Natalie Angier, for my book club, and it has got me thinking about the fact that I don’t do much science in my classroom.  I don’t even have a science center, because I’ve never been able to figure out where to squeeze one into my tiny space. 

Last night I sat in my comfy chair next to the balcony door, and looked at the trees out back, and felt the breeze coming in, and fantasized about making room for science in my classroom and in my curriculum.

I think we’re going to start with Science Fridays (taking a hint from NPR).  Now I need to figure out what we’re going to DO.  I think we might start by taking biweekly walks to the lake in our neighborhood to see what we can see, and to observe and document changes (in the lake, trees, plants, and animals) over the seasons.

Any other ideas?  What are some great sources for preschool science curriculum?