A Little Of This and A Little Of That

Tomorrow will be the 65th day of school.  The fact that I have not regularly spent time sharing about my tenth year by blogging is just one indication of how busy the year has been.  In August, I would have told you I was ready for anything, nine years under my belt, I had this.  

I should have known better.  Teaching is funny that way.  It is always different even when it is the same. So leave it to year ten to try and one up all the others by starting the year with 26 little ones enrolled in my class.  For some, that probably is not a big deal but for my district that protects small class sizes it was huge.  I did nine days with those 26 little darlings and I think I did it well, however, when I would walk down the hall with the longest line of little bodies, I doubted how I was going to have enough to give what every one of them deserved.  I am living in a world of criticism surrounding my career.  At the end of the day, I am the media, politicians, and others scape goat if anything goes wrong.  Thankfully, a couple days after school started we got permission to add a section of kindergarten.  Our fourth teacher began the Tuesday after Labor Day.  My body and my mind was ready but my heart was not.  I had to share children by letting them go.  While I think everyone handled the transition with grace, when a little one comes up to me during recess duty and asks "why did you give me away?", you just are never ready for those kinds of conversations.  

In the mean time, I am mentoring my new team mate, student teachers, and teaching an online graduate level class for a university.  There have been several moments of pause where I have wondered what in the world I have gotten myself into.  A week out from some of those commitments expiring for the mean time, I think they have been my reminders about how important this job is and what tops the list.  Interns become students too. While there are standards that I want my children to accomplish in our time together at the end of the year, if they leave with nothing else, I want them to know they are loved deeply.  In a conversation with a current intern, I told her that I hope future teachers leave my room knowing the importance of those relationships with children.  With everything on my plate, the meetings, expectations, and lack of enough time, I find myself continually going back to my relationships with children as my ulterior motive for sticking it out as a classroom teacher living in a sea of negativity.

I do not watch the news religiously anymore, other than the weather.  I find myself frustrated at the media for their quickness to sell the negativity of this profession.  If they would only come to room 29 (or another room of their choice), it would not take long to be swept away by all the amazing things that happen, most of which you cannot truly appreciate unless you are in the trenches everyday.  One of my little ones, I will call him Johnny, came with no letter recognition, counting skills and very little background knowledge.  We are almost mid way through the year and he's still behind and it is so easy to get swept away by the stress of that.  However, he knows some letters, can count to 29, and backwards from 10!  I think I caught him off guard when he counted back for me and I looked like I might cry.  If this girl could do cartwheels, I would have.  I believe he knows how far we have to go.  He is very perceptve of what others are doing but even if no one has ever told the child how proud they are of him, I hope he recognizes it in my crazy excitement.  And all that stress, well I hope I carry it for him and for them all.  I hope anyone from the outside looking in never really understands the burden of all that stress.

It has taken me years to embrace outlets for the stress.  Some would say I am over the top and I will absolutely own it.  I am guilty.  Lately, I have thought is it too much?  I have had other teachers comment about it in terms of their children not getting the same experiences or feeling inadequate because they do not do as much.  Here is the thing, I am my daddy's girl in being humble.  My over the top has absolutely nothing to do with anyone else, it is an outlet for stress of sitting through meetings where despite the growth that is not always celebrated the focus is on what next?  Also, my over the top has more to do with my little ones than anyone else's.  If a bow on a bag is therapy and in turn demonstrates love for the littles, well then...  This job is about relationships and I think I am good at it, really good.  My over the top things I do is a part of it but so are the little details like how Susie might need more hugs on Monday because she did not get over the weekend.  I do not want to apologize for my ridiculousness, I want to keep on, keeping on because for some little ones it might be the only amount of ridiculousness they get.  I want kindergarten in my room to feel better than a trip to Disney World.  Disney World with more learning than you could ever imagine.

One of my favorite parts of October, the rotting pumpkin.  Lots of change occur in those weeks where the pumpkin is rotting.  This year, my littles predicted it will rot.  The pumpkin has begun to turn to liquid and sink in. We read Pumpkin Jack after making our predictions and before Winter break, we will read Mousekin's Golden House before revisiting our predictions.

One of my favorite Halloween stories is Big Pumpkin.  I bought this off Teachers Pay Teachers and we worked on the sequence of the story and our one to one correspondence.  My littles are struggling with it this year.  I bought witch fingers at a party store and they practiced with one before taking the book and witch finger home to practice.

Speaking of sequence, it is such a huge skill for comprehension.  At the end of the year, the little ones have to not only read the book independently but retell it, without help and in order.  It takes retelling continually all year long for children to be able to do this.  I love using Unifix cubes early in the year and moving to the retelling rope later in the year.  I like retelling the events of our day to practice this daily.  In my opinion, retelling also is key in understanding beginning, middle, and end.  Oh and I have been using clickers with kindergarteners to rate themselves as a part of my district's Marzano evaluation. We have a long way to go but sometimes you just have to jump right on in.

My kids really love to write.  So much so there have been tears when the writing center fills up during centers or inside recess.  We made a pumpkin for the library character contest and decorated the pumpkin like David.  We wrote letters to David Shannon and are patiently waiting a reply!

I love cooking pumpkin pie with the little ones.  

And embracing my love of football with them during Red Ribbon Week.  

And December!!  December planning and prep has been going on since Halloween was over.  The fun begins tomorrow!

My grandma gave me this Christmas cactus seven years ago.  Every year, I water it religiously, take it home during the summer months, and yet it blooms when it is ready once a year.  It is tedious taking care of it throughout the year without seeing the fruits of your labor.  Teaching is similar.  Therefore, I will keep watering away and waiting patiently for the blossoms.

Slow and Steady

The beginning of the school year is overwhelming (and exhausting).  We have been in school 22 days, Wednesday will be 5 full weeks.  Sometimes, I get really anxious about this time every year.  I know how important it is to build classroom community and how much the details and small stuff matter.  I am a big believer in the First Six Weeks of School.  I endorse it and live it.   However, when my beginning of the year assessment data starts to roll in, the tension and stress often makes me feel behind.  I know that I will take them far, I have done it year after year but in the midst of the task, it can seem daunting.  I tend to see miles and not yards.  However, the yard make it possible to go the distance.

Watermelon Writing

It is hard planning content at the beginning of the year before you know your learners and their specific needs.  One of my favorite parts of kindergarten is building their background knowledge.  I love watermelon!  This summer, as I was eating it I thought about a little one that I had last year that I was not sure if he had ever eaten watermelon.  That is my favorite part of the job - giving children experiences that will hopefully benefit their comprehension and vocabulary.  The first full week of school was spent on watermelon.  We used watermelon to talk about our own experiences and introduce narrative writing.  I always begin the year with introducing the importance of labeling pictures.  Writing can be daunting when children do not know letter formation, letter sound associations or have fine motor skills.  We labeled the parts of a watermelon using interactive writing.  This is where this time of year gets hard.  I inevitably remember where my learners were when they left me and not always where they were when we started.   

I am always processing how I understand things to help me understand how to present lessons and materials to five and six year olds.

My own experiences helped them understand small moments and this will be so etching we revisit as we continue to work on our own narrative writing.

I mentioned how exhausting the first six weeks of school are, but in my classroom they are extremely important.  The little moments and teaching every single routine and expectation is tiresome.  However, it pays itself back multiple times over throughout the year.  I am coaching my players so they know the rules for our game.  I do not get to recruit my team but I get to teach them how to take care of and look after each other.  After school on day 22, I finally hung up their hopes and dreams.  It feels like it should have happened earlier but I want them to be invested in not only their hopes and dreams but their classmates as well.  They will be a reference point during our time together and set the stage for developing our classroom expectations.

I like sports and love football so they are published using my love of sports.  I use sports as I teach routines and procedures in Daily 5 so there is a tie in there.  I also think athletes naturally provide the opportunity to talk about practicing, building stamina, and overcoming hurdles.  It gives active little boys a buy in as well.

Hopes and dreams are a part of responsive classroom.  My district and school also use the Marzano evaluation so I also use the goals to address this expectation. 

Building classroom community is a critical component at the beginning of the year.  Children are egocentric and while they may care about others, it is not natural to care about peers they do not have a relationship with, that must be taught.

In the beginning of the year, I focus on learning names and using names to teach literacy and math.  I refused to be addressed as "teacher" or have a child in my classroom referred to as "that boy" or "that girl".  One of my favorite empathy lessons is using the book Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes to teach perspective and how much our words can hurt someone.  I want children to be able to say I am sorry (and mean it) but I also want them to be able to process that their actions affect others and being sorry is wonderful but sometimes it does not solve all the problems.

I hang the wrinkled heart on our classroom door and reference it throughout our year.  It is a visual reminder for children.

Another important component of building my classroom community is having children understand that our classroom is their school family.  They are going to make each other mad, someone is bound to get frustrated, feelings will get hurt but at the end of the day we are important to each other's success.  

For the last few years, I have made a Hopes and Dreams wreath to hang on our classroom door.  I like to make visual reminders for children but I also like our artwork to be purposeful.  When we make the wreath, I use it as an opportunity to introduce using tempra paint with guided discovery.  We also talk about how our hopes and dreams might change as we learn and grow but how they are continuous like our wreath because they do not end.

These early days are tiresome.  However, the success of the rest of the year depends upon the investment made in the early building of community, establishing relationships, and developing character.  These are the things I try to remember when I feel the weight of where these children have to be in May weighing me down.

Pumpkin Lifecycle

This week, we talked about the pumpkin lifecycle.

One of my favorite lessons that I have done with all my classes is the "melting pumpkin project". On Monday, we made predictions about what they think is going to happen to our class Jack-o-Lantern.  After they made their predictions, I shared the story Pumpkin Circle.  We used our learning target to rate our learning before they illustrated their prediction.  After reading the story, one of my boys commented about the majority of children rating themselves in green even though their predictions were not accurate.  We decided as a class to move the children who rated themselves in the green as yellow.  One of the children said "well we do need a little more work with predictions".

It is interesting to me that they are able to process things in the way they are and verbally express things about their learning.  One of the major hurdles that we are continuing to work on is the fact that they have to always rate themselves in green.  We continue to have many conversations about the importance of being honest because it helps us reflect on our learning and helps me know what they need help with.  

One day this week when we were working on a math skill and I was walking around the room monitoring as they worked at their tables, one of my girls asked me if I was going to have gem rate themselves.  I am trying to find the balance where they understand the purpose and are honest but that is not over done.  However,  one of my parents shared at conferences that they were having a family discussion about how her older brother needed to move to next league of soccer.  She said he was concerned about it because he thought he might not be as good.  His younger sister who is in my class said to him "it's okay if you are yellow because with a little help you can move to green".

Our predictions of what is going to happen to our class jack-o-lantern.  Many of the children predicted that it is going to grow.  One of the reasons I love this lesson is because of the vocabulary and background knowledge.  I also think it is critical that children can see how their thinking changes as we revisit their original predictions as they pumpkins begins to rot.  It is a lesson that I can see how I have grown over the years and how my teaching and instruction has changed to better meet children's needs.  

 

We continue to work on labeling and writing the sounds we hear in words.  This is the outside.  The inside is pictured below.

 

 

I absolutely love Dr. Seuss! This week, we talked about probability in math and I used one of my favorite Seuss books to help children understand the concept.  This is a skill that we will continue to address in transitions and with any free moments so that they have a solid grasp of it.

 

Parent teacher conference week is always stressful.  The long days and the planning that goes into the meetings can all together be time consuming all the while teaching is still occurring.  However, I really enjoy conferences.  One of my favorite parts of being a classroom teacher is building relationships with families.