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!

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!!!

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!

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!

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!

Shopping Spree

Sorry it's taken so long to post, here is a story from the last few weeks before break:

December is here, and for almost every kindergartener that means presents. We've discussed the history and true meaning behind the December holidays, as well as the joys of giving presents (quite a hard concept to grasp when you're five!). To support the idea that giving is often just as good, if not better, than getting, our PTA hosts "Giftland ", a shop where students can buy small trinkets as gifts for family members. To a kindergartner, you may as well be shopping on Madison Ave.

Yesterday, I took the students who had brought money down to Giftland to purchase their presents. Little Dennis had $20 to spend, a veritable fortune in kindergarten terms. With the help of a PTA mom, he looked around, carefully selecting the items he wanted, buying multiples of many things like yoyos and rings and flashlights. At the exhaustion of his $20 budget, he had two plastic bags bursting with dollar store treasures. As the PTA mom helped him tie the bacgs close, he looks up ever so sweetly and says, "Hey, where's my change?" PTA mom,, looks a bit confused and reminds him that he spent all his money, and that if he wants change, he'll have to put something back. "Would you like to put something back?" she inquires. "No," he replies with the space cadet stare, "but I would like some change."

Que the laugh track.

I love my job.

Success!

It's been a rather interesting past few days. All of the kindergarten classes have been in rare form. From puking during snack time, to destroying valuable collector's items, to throwing all out tantrums, I am pretty sure I've seen and heard it all so far this week. It's almost enough to make me want to throw in the towel.

But then they go and surprise me.

Today's goal was finishing up assessments for progress reports. I dreaded testing two particular students, both of which were on the lower end of the academic spectrum. I finally called them back today (individually), and was pleasently surprised. Scatch that, I had my socks blown completely off. Both kids whizzed through the assessment with confidence and near 100% accuracy! I wanted to get up and do a dance; I was so thrilled! Their smiles before going back to their previous activities were priceless. A much needed reminder of why I teach.

Man, I LOVE my job!

Thank you

It's November, so we have been talking about Thanksgiving. While many, well most, of the kindergarten people thought the primary reason for Thanksgiving was eating turkey, I did have a few that were able to help fill in our circle map with more than just food.  This lead to a discussion about being grateful, and the true meaning behind Thanksgiving ::cue cheesy sentimental music:: which is giving thanks.

In that spirit, we have been making Thank you cards. Yesterday, we worked on cards for the wonderful people who funded our project on Donors Choose. They did a fantastic job! Some chose to write full sentences, while others drew pictures of themselves and how getting our new math manipulatives made them feel. It was awesome to see them working on something so hard because it was for someone else.

Today, they went even farther in making cards for Veterans Day. Living in a military community and having a few military kids in our class, my kinder people are very aware and VERY grateful for the service that our armed forces perform. It was so cool to see their excitement to say thank you to a member of the armed services.

I love my job!

Giggles

It might be the cold front pushing through, or perhaps the left overs of a Halloween bounty, but today was a day full of giggles. Everything made us laugh today, be it the sound the letter F makes (it does kinda tickle your lip), measuring objects with linking cubes (did you know that The SuperHero is 47 cubes tall?), or eating snack (it's not everyday you get a corn dog for a snack!). So I went with it. I used our giggle energy, and channeled it into creative, interactive games and activities.The tots LOVED it! Heck, I loved it. It's what I'm called to do. In this current world of meetings, paperwork, assessments, data, etc. it's too easy to get caught up in the secondary tasks. Kindergarten is about learning, loving, and giggles, and today was the kind of day I needed to remind me.

By the way, if you are looking for a giggle inducing book    is a winner every time. After all, underpants are just funny!

Just Dance

I know I've been a bad blogger of late, but with assessments, report cards, breaks, and the impending holidays, I've been a tad stressed busy.

In fact, I started yesterday in quite a funk. A morning allergy attack + a "mandatory" before school meeting = one very grumpy kindergarten teacher. Not wanting to shield the kindergarten people from the fact that adults get grumpy too, I shared my feelings with the group during dear time. Very understanding, they offered suggestions to make me feel better. The major consensus was to dance to a song we had just learned from( #3 the Wheels on The Bus Rap). So we did. And they were right. Sometimes you just need to dance.

Class Obsession: Flies

Like a good teacher, I have read and will read a plethora of books to my kindergarten people in an effort to teach concepts and spark a love of reading and good books. Like good students, my kindergarten people take what they have learned, and apply it to real life. Which is every teachers dream....right?

Right now my entire class is OBSESSED with and the rest of the books in the series, which is pretty awesome in itself. It's about a boy, Buzz, and his pet fly that can say the boy's name, Fly Guy, and the many adventures they have in their community, like going to school or playing in a football game.

However, our classroom is also infested with flies. Our maintenance staff have sprayed for bugs, however, it only makes the flies drunk and bold. They have a tendency to land on the faces of my dear kindergarten people throughout the day. However, instead of swatting them in annoyance, they will shout "HEY LOOK! IT'S FLY GUY!!!" at which point every one will crowd around until I remove the pest/pet and continue our day.

Only in kindergarten...I love it!

Discovery

Today during afternoon seat work, one of my kindergarten people came up to me and said "Ms. S! Look!  Blue and yellow make green!"  He brought me his paper and showed me how he had colored over a yellow spot with his blue crayon, making green. We celebrated his discovery with a high five, and he skipped off happily to his seat.

Now that the essence of kindergarten...discovery and amazement.

I love my job!!!

P.S. I know that I am behind on my Smart Board posts, but I promise they are coming!!!