My, How Time Flies!

My, my, my....It's October already! (and one month since my last post, but no one is counting, right?)

It's been a bit of a rough start, but we are finally settling in to our routines. Here are some highlights of the past month:

• Today we welcomed our first guest reader for DEAR time. Our principal was gracious enough to come and read to us. He read The Principal from the Black Lagoon, and much to the delight of my class, invited us back to his office for a tour. We talked about the differences between fiction and non-fiction, and what a principal does. They even got to sit in his chair ( a truly historic moment in the life of a kindergartner)!
• We've implemented a new center system. We are still working out the kinks, but both the kids and myself are much happier than with our old method.
• The bond in our district passed, so hopefully we'll be getting a SMART board again! We've had the opportunity to use the one in the classroom across the hall while that class is in the library, which led to my dear little kinders asking why we don't have one. My answer: That's a good question, we should ask (our principal) about that. A bit bratty? Maybe. But I like to think of it as teaching researching and investigation skills. Why ask me, when they can go straight to the primary source?
• We are currently reading the Black Lagoon series. It's a favorite in October, and lends itself to talking about imaginations and the difference between fiction/non fiction.

I am sure there are so many more things I could/should post about. However, it's a school night and I'm tired.

Even when exhausted....I love my job!

P.S. Unfortunately, my Amazon gadget isn't working, so I will try to post links later.

Why I love SMART Boards

Last Monday, our a/c called it quits. Thankfully, we have cool air again  (after replacing the entire unit), however, we spent most of last week displaced.  The only empty room available was in the upper grade hallway on the other side of our school.

Anyone who has ever worked with early childhood kids knows that all it takes is a minor disruption in the routine to throw everything off. Well, this was not a minor disruption. This was the Gigantor of all disruptions. Monday afternoon was atrocious. I am thankful that it was my duty free day, leaving me the flexibility to move us, and then deal with the discipline issues. In the course of an afternoon, we had:

• 5 keep-keep-your-body-to-yourself timeouts
• 4 we-don't-spit-because-it's rude-and-gross talks
• 3 epic pencil wars
• 1 nurse visit as a result of the above pencil war

I knew that if we were going to learn anything that week, I had to do something different.

So I did.

One of the perks of being displaced was our temporary location had a mounted SMART board and projector. After doing a little digging, I found my morning math SMART presentation from last year, and set it up for Tuesday morning.

After picking up my class and making the trek down to our temporary spot, we set up for morning meeting and morning math. They were absolutely captivated. I guess in my almost daily use of the SMART board, I forget the magical effect that it has on kinders. But I am so glad it does!

We start the week back in our room tomorrow. I'm glad to be back "home," but I sure will miss the SMART board, and I'm sure my kids will too. (Hopefully, not for too long!)

I love my job!

WWAR: Puppies, Puppies, Puppies!

I didn't really want to start our WWAR series with this book. Don't misunderstand, it's a delightful little story that follows the life of puppies. It's filled with adorable illustrations, rhyming, and predictable text; an overall great read for early childhood kids. It's just not a book that I find particularly spectacular.

That is until it saved my tail this afternoon.

The air conditioner in our classroom went out this morning, making our classroom an oven. We were given the option of relocating to another room in our building (the staff meeting room) while we waited for the a/c to be fixed. So while my little heroes were at lunch, I hastily rehashed our plan for the afternoon, packed up whatever materials we needed, and schlepped it all down the 1/4 mile long hallway to the other room. The long walk+disrupted routine+a new environment+a frazzled teacher made for very, very high strung kindergartners this afternoon. We struggled through our afternoon lesson. We completed it, but not without 4 timeouts, 3 band-aids, and 2 tantrums.

In an effort to regain focus before shipping them off to activity, we sat down for some DEAR (Drop Everything And Read) time. I had grabbed a stack of books, and on top was Puppies, Puppies, Puppies. To my utter surprise, my little heroes were completely captivated. After a few pages, they were anticipating the predictive text and reading with me (which I usually don't expect until a little later in the year). By the end of the story, both the heroes and myself were calmer and ready to take on the rest of the day.

Who would have thought? I guess I should have known, never judge a book by it's cover!

Even on hot and unpredictable days, I love my job!

A bad case of the Mondays

All in all it was not a terrible day....just a super frustrating one.

I leave my house at the usual time to make it to school 10 minutes early. I get on the highway and it's at a standstill due to an accident. I make it to the next exit a mile up the road and take the back roads, however, I am now 15 minutes behind schedule and 5 minutes late. Not the best way to start a Monday.

I get to school and get all of my belongings to lug inside: teacher bag/purse, lunch, and random box of teacher-y things I found in my spare room. As my hand reaches for the door to enter the building, the door is slammed open (into my foot) and two boys run out of the building. Using every single bit of teacher sweetness in me, I ignore my now throbbing toe, gently remind the boys to not run in (or out of) the building, and redirect them to the gym.

I head down the hall to my classroom where my students are already lining up. I get in, hastily set up morning work (all the while thanking the Good Lord I stayed late Friday to set up), and welcome my kinder heros with a smile.

Unfortunately, I was not the only one with a bad case of the Mondays. Today we had:

3 I-miss-my-mommy crying moments
5 I-will-not-hit-other-people timeouts
3 Non-green-happy-faces on behavior reports
1 completely-unprovoked-super-big-crying-tantrum

Tomorrow can only get better.

Even on super long, frustrating days....I love my job!

What We Are Reading: Intro

One of the new ideas that a group of teachers is implementing this year is posting what they are reading (personally) outside their classroom on the news board. The purpose of this is two fold; 1- two model being a life long reader to our students, and 2- to start conversations about books. Of course, I jumped on the bandwagon as soon as I found out about it, and posted my current read (the Harry Potter Series). It also gave me an idea for a series on this blog...the What We Are Reading series, hereafter referred to as WWAR. I will post and review books that we read during our DEAR time at school; be it a book I read, or one selected by our guest readers. I love hearing about, discussing, and of course reading new books,  so I thought I would give my little piece of the blogosphere a forum to do so. Please feel free to recommend titles as well.

Happy Reading!

Superhero Walking- The first two days of school

Last Thursday, I welcomed 20 new kinders to our school. On Friday, I welcomed 2 more. I am thrilled to have these precious ones in my class this year, but I always forget just how little they are when they first arrive. Everything is so new and exciting, making sitting and listening quite a challenge. Our theme this year is superheros, so we concentrated on learning two things that Kindergarten Heroes need to learn how to do: listening and walking in the halls.

We discussed how Kindergarten Heroes use 5 Star listening skills. Their eyes are watching, ears are listening, mouth is quiet, hands are still, and feet are quiet & still. We practiced what 5 Star listening looks like, feels, like and sounds like. My little heroes did very well for the first time, and I know we will master 5 Star listening very soon.

While 5 Star listening was hard, Superhero walking was an even greater challenge. Just like 5 Star listening,  we discussed and practiced what it looked, feels, and sounds like: Our bodies stand straight and tall; our heads are held high; our hands our on our hips; our feet on brown and white. We practiced, and practiced, and practiced some more. It's quite a task for my little heroes, but I know we will master it as well.

Other than working on those two skills, we read wonderful books like:

  and   and   and   .

We wiggled and danced to:

  and  and   and  .

It was a thrilling, exhausting, amazing two days. And I can't wait to do it again on Monday.

Now, if I can only get rid of this cold.

I love my job!!!

It's that time again...

That's right folks, I have a job for the fall, which means I''m back. And even better, I now have tenure! Whooohooo! I can now breathe a tad bit easier when the end of the year comes.

However, I have moved schools once again, this time back to my "old" school. I am super pumped for this upcoming year, I can tell it will be a great one!

I am also looking forward to growing this blog. I have some great posts planned and some great resources to share.

Well, that's all for now, off to cut some laminate.

I love my job!

An Apology

Dear Readers,

I must apologize for my lack of posting the past few weeks. Truth be told, I'm not sure if I want to continue this blog, seeing as I currently do not have a position for the fall (for the third time). I guess time will tell.

Have a great summer,

Ms.S

10 Days!

After today, it will be 10 days until school lets out. 10 days! There is so much I still want to do with my sprouts; so many more books to read, so many more projects to do, so many more experiences to share. So in this little bit of time that we have left, that's what we will do. We will laugh and play, sing and dance, discover and explore. We will do what we do best. We will learn and love.

I love my job!

Testing

This week, and much of last week, the "big kids" in our school (and around the state) are taking The Test. This usually doesn't effect us much, other than being extra quiet in the hallways. However, this year our classroom is right next door to the SPED room. In fact, we share a door, which is awesome when I need quick coverage. Not so awesome when we have to be quiet to give the "big kids" the opportunity to do their very best.

Being kindergarteners, our natural state is loud. Very Loud. But our loudness is in direct correlation the our excitement about whatever we are learning, be it subtraction number stories or a hot debate over how many legs an octopus has. Boy, are we excitable.

So, it has been a bit of a struggle to control our volume these past few days. The introduction of silent movie voices (mouthing words with no sound at all) into our dramatic collection has been a hit, but only lasts so long. Using our break between lunch and specials (when testing kids are at lunch) to do our music and movement has also been a big help, keeping a sense of normalcy in our room. However, the reminders to use whisper voices are frequent.

Ah well, only three more days!

I love my job, loudness and all!

The long awaited field trip post

I know, it takes two minutes to import pics. But my kinder-fried brain has a hard time remembering to do that sometimes. But, I finally remembered, so here they are!

Our awesome parents that drove to help us chaperone the trip

A pirate ship!

Teachers kickin' it old school!

Shopping for groceries

What a lion!

Getting our hands dirty

Mechanics at work!

under construction

Tuckered out

If you couldn't tell, all of our kinder tots had a blast. After weeks of studying about jobs people do, they had the opportunity to play and experience them first hand. A great big thank you to the lovely people at OERB that made it all possible!

Hair

Over the weekend, I finally had the chance to change my hairstyle. In case you didn't know, one of my many quirks involves me changing my hair pretty often. I love to try on new looks and play around with the image/ persona that they present. However, due to circumstances beyond my control, I haven't changed my hair at all this year. All my kids know me as a teacher with black hair cut in a short, stacked style with sweepy bangs.

Until today.

My kids were shocked to see me new waist length curls with red highlights. In fact, they were speechless. But being kindergarteners that didn't last too long.

"What happened to you?"   and "I thought you were a new teacher!" and "Ms.S, your hair!" soon led into to questions of "How did you do that?" and "Did you dye your hair?"

They could not keep their eyes off of me, or my hair, the entire morning. It was quite comical.

Imagine the even bigger shock to find out that 4 others in our class got new hairstyles too!

Talk about a great hair day!
I LOVE my job!

Update: Sold

The ongoing saga about the sale of my school has reached it's apex.

Tonight , against the wishes of many concerned parents, our BOE voted to approve the bids and finalize the sale of two schools in our district. One of those two schools is my school. It's been a long time coming, a necessary evil in the midst of the current economic situation in our state/country. In the interests of everyone involved, the students especially,   the BOE selected the bids that would give the district the option to lease our schools back for a nominal fee for the next few years, giving us all time to make the transition.

So there you have it. We will be there for a few more years, but eventually, we will close and be consolidated into another school.

However still no word on the job front.

Even in the midst of difficult circumstances...I love my Job

Hard

I'm back, and I have the interwebs again!!!  ((Insert happy dance here))

Truth be told, I've had internet back for a few days now, but it has been all kinds of crazy and I am just now getting back to blogging. Between BOE meetings, professional development, and spring fever, a lot has happened. I'll be covering recent events in later posts, but for now I need to talk about today.

Today was the hardest day I have had in my professional career. Today was the day I almost gave up.

You see, I have the distinct privilege of teaching a little boy we will call...Bill.  This is his second time around in kinder, a fact I still don't quite understand (he's one of my best readers). Little Bill has quite a reputation in our school, one he has built into an identity for himself. His world is constantly filled with angry people, mainly people angry at him. He is known to be loud, disruptive, defiant, and violent...an all around "bad" kid. In fact, on the very first day of school he said to me "I'm gonna try really hard and be good in this class. I know I'm bad, but I'm gonna try."

Did you catch that? He knows HE is bad.

Breaks your hear doesn't it? It broke mine. I vowed I would do everything I could to show him that HE is not bad, however, the choices he makes are.

I'm not going to sugar coat it, Little Bill has been a holy terror some days...ok, most days. In fact, he had two suspensions under his belt for this year. However, I know that we've made progress. He learned to remove himself from potential bad situations, and to come get me instead of resorting to other behaviors (hitting, pushing, yelling, etc.). He sits and participates in our morning group lessons. He actually does his work, and then turns it in. 

Progress.

Until today. 

This morning did not go well for Little Bill. Disruptive choices lead to isolation from the rest of the group. He was angry, and chose to take it out on another student during the lunch/recess transition. 

I was positively livid. The mama bear/ monster teacher in me came out ( usually only happens when one of my tots is threated/hurt by another). I let him know that he was done. For good. Period. End of Story. Amen. 

He was no longer welcome in my class ever again. My principal backed it up with a suspension.He sat in the office the rest of the day, waiting for his ride home. 

During plan, I ran an errand down in the office. Little Bill asked for permission to use the restroom. As I'm walking down the hallway, I hear his voice call out "Hi, Ms. S____". I chose to ignore him and keep walking.

I regretted that 2 nanoseconds afterwards, but he was already gone.

In all the conversations we've had about behavior, I have tried over and over to help him understand that he is worth something, he is not bad, he matters, that I see HIM. And, like I said, we'd made progress.

And I destroyed, or at least damaged, that progress with 2 seconds of silence.

The beautiful thing about kindergarten is that there is plenty of room for mistakes, even for the teacher. We are all learning and growing together...which is really hard sometimes, but always worth it.

Even on hard days... I love my job.

Technical Difficulties

Pardon the interruption...

I am in the process of switching internet providers. I will be blogging again soon!

We're back and busier than ever

We are back from Spring Break and have hit the ground running, in a manner of speaking. We have been assessing for report cards that went out today, as well as prepareing for our field trip to the children's museum tomorrow.

And of course, the tots are in a state of euphoria about this field trip. They absolutely can-not-wait to...ride the bus. That's right, the bus.

Slide down the fireman's pole..boring.

Paint in the artist's studio...yawn.

The bus... screams of joy and delight.

I LOVE my job!

Ready....Break!

Spring Break is here, and I'm pretty sure the teachers were way more excited than the kids to see it. We have had the worst case of Spring Fever I have ever seen. We've had it all this week: excessive talking during lessons,  endless tattling, suspensions, even throwing rocks with intent to injure.

I'm hoping the break will a) cure our Spring Fever and b) "activate" the 2nd major growth period we see in kindergarten. I'll just have to wait and see.

Until then, it's rest and recuperate for this teacher. Woot!

I love my job!

I can READ!

I think the only thing more challenging this year than teaching my tots to read, was convincing them that they were readers. It didn't matter how many times we discussed the different ways of reading (searching for sight words, telling a story with the pictures, sounding out words, etc.), or how much praise was poured upon them for doing the things that good readers do (make pictures inside their heads, use sound clues to figure out a word, etc.), the majority were convinced that they were not readers because they could not read like big brother&sister/mom&dad/grandma&grandpa/Ms.S.

But then there was Seuss.

We celebrated Dr. Seuss' birthday by having an all Seuss day (because of snow days, we didn't have the time to do an all Seuss week, like we usually do). We rhymed, we danced, we created, and most of all we read. And read and read and read. And then read some more. Like every child I've ever encountered in my life, my dear tots fell madly in love with Dr. Seuss books. We read all of my books, and then they would go home and read more Dr.Seuss. A few tots brought in their books the next day to share with the class. We even created and read our own version of Green Eggs and Ham.

The change was subtle, but I could see it throughout the day, and the rest of the week. Through the magic of Dr. Seuss, my not-so-tiny tots have come to seem themselves as readers.

Thank you, Dr. Seuss.

I Love My Job.

I've been kinda busy....Sorry!

I know I haven't posted in a while, but it has been down right hectic around here.

Between catching up from snow days, weekend professional development workshops, and meetings... meetings... MEETINGS, I've gotten a little behind. So I will catch you up:

• Thanks to the switch from a day-based school year to an hours based school year, plus the added time from the beginning of the year, our students do not have to make up any instructional time. However, teacher contracts are still day based, so we do.
• The past five weekends I've had the opportunity to attend Payne reading training, for FREE, thanks to our State DOE. It's been totally awesome (you get all the tools to implement what you learned FREE), and I'd recommend it to any person who teaches on the Elementary level. 
• One of my tiny tots had to have surgery on his leg last week, but has made such an awesome recovery! He was back in school to day, walking (but still taking it easy), and we were all glad to have him back.
• Our BOE had a specially called meeting tonight to vote on selling 3 pieces of surplus property, one of which is where I currently teach. They voted a unanimous yes, and we find out all the details tomorrow.

Now, I don't want to leave you on a downer, so here is a funny story from last week.

I get called out of my lunch by another teacher who is on lunch duty about one of my tiny tots who dumped his milk into his tray. While we had a discussion about his choice and the ramifications of such an action she brings me ANOTHER one of my tots who ATE HER PEACHES. She had set them down to come talk to me, and when she came back to them, there he was, eating her peaches. When asked about it, he knew he didn't make a good choice, but did it anyway. He apologized, and sat down to finish the rest. We couldn't do anything but laugh.

I love my job.

The end is near...C'mon Spring!

I know I haven't posted my 100 day entry ( I promise, it's coming) or any other entry for that matter, but I have good reason...SNOWPOCALYPSE!

That's right, we had a record snowfall for the month of February this past week. It moved in Monday night, and we were out the rest of the week.

Today was our first day back after our "6-day weekend." Class-wise, it was an awesome day. My class fell back into routine; we sang, read, had an unofficial  Groundhog day, and even celebrated a birthday.

However, on the teacher side of things it was a tad hectic. OK, it was down-right crazy and super annoying. We have progress reports to due this week, as well as get ready for parent-teacher conferences next week. With us being out 4 out of 5 days last week, I am way behind in assessments for progress reports. On top of that we have QTA this week. For you lucky individuals who have no idea what I'm talking about I will explain. QTA is Quality Time Analysis. Basically, each teacher/faculty member is given a spreadsheet to record how many minutes a day we do everything. We have to record everything from teaching time to bathroom breaks to discipline, and turn it into the site administrator by the end of the day.

For example, I have to record how many minutes I spend giving whole group instruction in reading, how many minutes it is to transition to the small group or independent assignment in reading, how many minutes the kids spend completing the aforementioned reading assignment, how many minutes I spend one-on-one with kids checking the assignment, etc. Now multiply that by however many subjects/ lessons I teach a day. Multiply that by 5 days -- yup, it's all week long. Annoying right?

Did I mention that Wednesday is supposed to bring SNOWPOCALYPSE II? Yeah. More snow. Woo.

Super frustrating week, but I still love my job!

Smartboard Saturday: 100!

The number 100 is practically magical to most kinders, and it is so fun to see them "discover" the concept of 100. The 100th day of school was this past Thursday (post coming soon), and our Smart Board was a great part of our celebration. Using the interactive objects in the gallery section of the Smart Notebook software, I created a 100 Day presentation (making it was very time consuming, so if you want a copy, let me know). The kids had a blast flipping 100 tiles on the interactive hundred chart, challenging one another to do something for 100 seconds using the timer, and popping 100 balloons. We also watched  on Discovery education which lead to a transition into our 100 day presentations. I'll be posting about our hundred day soon; I am waiting to get the rest of my pictures.

Have a great weekend!

Smart Board Saturday: Dice

I know, I know, it's been eons since the last Smart Board Saturday. But in my defense, I have been sans technology since August. We finally got our Smart Board delivered, installed, and operational last Thursday, and it is fabulous!

This year, our district has switched to the Everyday Math curriculum for pre-k and kindergarten. This curriculm has tons of games, one of which is the Roll and Record. To play, students are given dice and a graph. The dice is rolled and students count and record the number on their graph. My students love playing this game, however, it does lend itself to a center/ small group lesson. So when a variation of the game came up again, I decided to tweak it a bit to make it more whole group friendly. I opened up a blank Smart Notebook document, searched for dice in the gallery, and inserted two on a page. Each student was given a chance to touch and roll the dice, count the total number of dots, and then announce to the class the total. They LOVED it!  So, there you have it, a short, simple activity that provides practice for so many concepts.

Have a great weekend!

Snow Day!

The powers that be have cancelled school for today. I am very appreciative, and I'm sure my kiddos are too. Mayhap, I will actually get around to posting a few entries today. Or maybe I'll just sleep.

Woohoo, I love my job!

Smile

Today was a mellow, low-key kind of day for us. We had two friends absent, and one got went home with a severe earache after specials. The rest of us sneezed, hacked, and coughed our way through the day. Well, except for DC, who was in very good spirits.

DC is one of the most charming little boys I have ever had the privelege of meeting. He almost reminds me of my little brother when he was that age; smaller than most, yet a heart that is bigger than the size of Texas. He finds joy in everything and has the most wickedly funny sense of humor ever contained in a 5-year-old body.

During seatwork today, DC decided to get a little "creative." I hear "oooooo, I'm telling" coming from his table, and look up to find him drawing with a crayon on his chair. I asked him to bring his chair over to me, so that we could discuss his actions and the ramifications of such behavior. Ever so slowly he pushes the chair towards me with his head down. Using our learning tools responsibly is a big deal in our classroom, so he knows he is probably going to get into a bit of trouble.

I look down at the seat of the chair to examine it, and find a blue crayon smiley face staring back at me.

I laughed. I couldn't help it, I just had to chuckle.

He looks up and breaks into his million dollar grin. I hand him a lysol wipe and tell him to clean it up. He spends the next 15 minutes scrubbing the crayon smiley face off of the seat, with the smile on his face intact.

I love my job.

SNOW!

Today was a snow day. Not the kind that gets you out of school, but the kind that makes you wish it was.

We've had snow on the brain for a little while now, not only because of today's precipitation, but because it's January. And, in kindergarten, January means snow. We've read a few books, made a circle map, had a few discussions,etc, etc. But nothing quite compares to the real thing. So, being the rebels that we are, the K team decided to let our kids out and enjoy the light dusting of powder for 5 minutes.

You would have thought Hannah Montana was coming to play. Oh, the screaming and excitement. The snowball fights. The muddy feet. The raised eyebrows from other teachers. It was positively wonderful.

The only thing that could have topped that was making our own snowflakes. Which we did, of course. It took a few tries for some, however once we mastered the cutting of the fold and symmetric principles, we churned out some pretty awesome snowflakes. I think the best part was hearing the kind and encouraging words that spread like wildfire among my kinders.

Man , I love my job!