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.

Big Pumpkin

My first year of teaching was memorable to say the least.  I was split between two different schools and in two different grade levels.  I was part time at each school but it seriously felt like double time.  I credit that first year with learning how to juggle but I probably survived because I didn't know any better.  I distinctly remember October if that year.  I had over worked myself staying late every evening, working more when I got home and turning around and doing it all again the next day.  October came and I was beyond tired.  I questioned if I was capable of my ability to do this job on a daily basis and often felt inadequate.  I had a really amazing support system and one of them introduced me to the story Big Pumpkin by Erica Silverman.  I LOVED the book but my kids loved it even more! The book and cassette tape saved my life (and sanity) that year.  For some reason, to this day I love that book because it reminds me of the hardships that first year brought and the countless lessons I learned along the way that have helped me better my instructional practices to best meet children's needs.

I shared the story with my kids today.  Sadly, the cassette tape died a death over the last couple of years.  After listening to the story, we continued to practice retelling the story with Unifix cubes.  I like using this story because it is very sequential. As we listened, children picked the cube that coordinated for something in the book.  It was interesting because there is a ghost and a mummy as well as a vampire and a bat and typically children want to choose white and black for obvious reasons.  My children picked other colors when necessary and based their decision on details in the book.  It is really interesting to hear their justification of their color choices.

Moving on from the Unifix cubes, we began using our retelling rope that we use at the end of the day to retell important events to also retell the story.  After we retold the story, I had used our rating scale to set the objective for the lesson and one little boy told me, "we need to rate our learning".  So we did!  

When I think of Big Pumpkin, I think of October and the growth during that first year as well as the growth since.  Nine years and ten classes later, it brings back amazing memories.  In the world of teaching, October is a magical month.  Typically, things just start clicking and the countless hours of prep, planning, and assessing seem to pay off.