The Future Is Bright

My class is on the downhill slide towards summer.  Five days to be exact!  My body and head are completely ready!  My heart is always a little bit slower to let go.  I am always reflecting (and at times over analyzing) but at the end of the year this attribute escalates.  I am a sentimental girl so the Senior Days and other activities where people account for things they remember about being in elementary school leave me wondering the things the children I have interacted with will remember. 

I am in the middle of my end of year balloon pop countdown.  I will write more about that in depth later.  Friday was my school's kindergarten promotion.  As I was planning my countdown, I tied Friday's festivities to my school's annual talent show and our recognition.  

I bought shades and glow bracelets from the Dollar Store to give them to take home as an added bonus to help them stay engaged in an already exciting day.  Most of the week outside of teaching (after hours) was devoted to preparing for this event.  This time of year is so hard on my body and personality.  I thrive with structure and routine as do my little ones.  So as modified schedules take over and flexibility is critical to being a team player, my personality has to find ways to adjust so that I can help the little ones adjust.  One of my strategies is packing the days full with fun.  Friday was full! School wide talent show, rehearsal for recognition, and learning!  

I decided that I wanted to read I Can Be Anything! by Jerry Spinelli and revisit our hopes and dreams from the beginning and middle of our year.  After listening to the book, I had them write about what they wanted to be when they grew up.  This was to help them prepare for a photo I was going to take of them holding their chosen occupation on a chalkboard.  The photo is going to be part of their end of year gift.  We are not finished with our writing but here is one example.

 

This little one wrote about wanting to be a Teacher.  "So I can help kids learn".  As I monitored during our writing workshop, I was surprised by how many wanted to be Teachers as well as how many of them chose realistic career opportunities.  Of course, I have some that dream of being a Rock Star or NBA Basketball Player because reality has not yet torn down their dreams.  As I visited with the children as I took pictures about their reason why they would chose the occupation they chose, my heart was overwhelmed.  A great majority of them chose their choice because they want to help others.

I was overwhelmed for a few different reasons...

I am five days away from closing the book on year nine.  It has felt like a milestone all year but even more so now as I approach ten years.  There are lots of valid reasons people do not continue to teach and increasingly so in my state where education is struggling.  Year nine feels like a huge milestone for that reason alone.

This year has been hard.  I am tired of the media and critics outside of education pointing out mistakes and our failures.  I will own my mistakes but I will not own anyone else's especially when it is legislators and state superintendents.  This job is absolutely hard enough without the constant negativity.  I cannot think of any profession that is perfect.  Teachers are held to perfectionism.  The fact is we are human and we are doing the best we can.  I cannot imagine being a first year or new teacher with everything that is being thrown at us.  Nine years in, there were times this year where I felt like a newbie.  I might be one of the clumsiest people you will ever meet but I can juggle (and pretty well in my opinion).  At times, it is hard being positive when you are drowning in negativity.  This year has been one of my hardest (that first year still wins every single time).  However, it has been rewarding.  

Families still trust me with their little ones in a world where that is increasingly hard to do.  I get to build relationships with little ones that last beyond our year together.  Friday was a sweet reminder of that.  When things are tough, that is one of those things I try to remember.  In the midst of setting up for kindergarten recognition, a fourth grader who I had in kindergarten comes up with this sweet note she made in student council.  It just had a simple thank you and some kind words but it was the sweetest reminder about why investing in this job, the little ones, and their families is important.  This is an added perk of being an early childhood teacher in an elementary school that houses Pre-K through Fifth Grade.  Goodbyes are hard but I have five more years of hallway hellos, after school hugs, and random encounters with these children.

My state is currently trying to measure my success (and others) based on test results and roster verifications.  It is scary but not for the reason most people would think.  I am fine with being accountable for my children during our year.  I want them to excel in reading, writing, math, science and social studies but when they come back in the years to come I really do not believe the investment of academics is what I want to be remembered for nor do I think it will be.  There are not any bubbles on standardized testing and roster verifications for the investment of time and building relationships.  I absolutely believe this is where the difference is made.    

There are times this year, year nine, where I have struggled.  One of my biggest struggles has been balancing everything that is expected while being true to everything that is right.  Amid the balancing act of year nine, when we were talking about the future and what we wanted to do, about a third of my class said "Teacher".  For me, it is absolutely a compliment that they would think about choosing this career.  Ultimately, the true compliment lies in that they want to help people.  At the end of the day, I am accountable to my state and district but the most important people I am accountable to, these future decision makers and leaders, hopefully are better (both academically and socially) after our year together.  

 

As I was hugging one of my little ones before she left on Friday at Kindergarten Promotion, she grabbed on a little tighter.  I had to remind her we still have time together.  The media and other sources will tell you everything that is wrong with education.  That hug encompasses everything that is right, although, if you have never been in a classroom or lived through a year of teaching it is almost impossible to understand the meaning held within it.

 

“Beginnings are usually scary, endings are usually sad, but it's what's in the middle that counts." - Steven Rogers

Student Led Conferences

I love Spring in the classroom!  It is when the fruits of labor from Fall and Spring are reaped.  One of the hardest parts of teaching is the realization and reminder about how different these fruits look from year to year and student to student.

We just finished our third nine weeks and student led conferences.  The preparations leading up to these conferences are exhausting.  Student led conferences are a ton of work on the front end.  Year after year, student led conferences are similar.  This year, I had 8 school days to prep my learners because of a couple of unexpected snow days.  Eight days sounds like a lot of time but this is while our regular routine and learning is going on.  In reality, student led conferences are the work of three quarters of work not just eight days of prep.
 

As I planned student led conferences this year, I thought about the personalities of my group.  I made slight changes in accordance.  Each child in my class has a data folder where we are tracking their learning based on school wide expectations and grade level interventions.  I have used premade pages from on teachers pay teachers.  My team selected pages that we thought were important for our students.  Most of their data folder has been the result of my work even though as learners, they can track their growth in terms of standards such as letter knowledge, letter sound fluency, sight word fluency, oral counting, and number recognition.  It would be a complete different blog post to tell you how I want to do this differently next year based on what I have learned this year.

I decided that their data folders would be where we would keep the work they selected to share with their families since I had decided to not have them move around the room a as they shared writing samples, a good fit book, and math game.  My group still struggles with transitions so it was obvious to me to take out components of the student led conferences that would distract their showcase of their work.

In the Fall before parent teacher conferences, we filled out a personal report card.  I read each part of it to them and the circled the one that they thought best fit them.  I did the writing component at the end after they told me what school made think of.  We did the same report card this week.  I read it to children who still needed that while others completed independently.

It is fascinating to see how sometimes their answers are exactly the same, other times how they change, and when children are 100% honest even if it is not pretty.  

 

It was rewarding to see them complete the writing component independently and with ease!

 

It is fun to see their personality come through especially in the writing component.  This personal report card can be found at this blog, What the Teacher Wants.  Their blog has some great resources for parent teacher conferences as well.

 

One of the ways I get children on board with helping to get families at school is writing an invitation using interactive writing.  We listened to A Letter To Amy by Ezra Jack Keats and talked about different purposes for invitations.  Together, we established how we wanted to start our letter after talking about how different children would have different parties visiting that evening.  It took us a day or two to get our invitation written.  The piece of writing may seem simple but it holds so many components of their growth.  

 

I saw something similar to this reflection of their learning on Pinterest.  I adapted it for my class.  We worked on this during our writing time one day this week.  I knew this could be tough for my class because of their lack of independence so as I thought about ways to help them have success, I knew I had to break the directions up into small pieces.  I used my document camera to give one direction at a time.  I told them the expectation was a picture and words that matched.  Here's where something magical happened, they used their resources without me reminding them.  They used words from the paper, words from our word wall, and words from our schedule and around the room without me reminding them.  This may seem like less than a big deal, but 120+ days of this reminder and the are finally doing it is glorious for me.  

 

Here is one of my high readers who struggles with writing due to fine motor.  I loved that he put he still needed to work on writing.  This reflection of learning promoted great discussions for me and the children as well as their families.  I had a great moment with a high child when he told me there was nothing he needed help on.  I remarked that it was not true.  I told him even as an adult there are still things I need help on.  He said, "well not me".  Yet, he sat there not completing any of the reflection because he told me he needed help with his words.  I told him that he should go back and out that he needed help with tricky words in the first box.  He was less than happy being the perfectionist that he is.  However, here is the important part of student led conferences for me, letting children reflect on their learning and growth and continue to set goals as they meet others.  I had 19 different conferences that evening but that is the beauty of the process.  Each child is different, emotionally, academically, socially, in all developmental areas.  It is powerful when teachers and families embrace that because it is then that we can really help each learner grow.  If you are interested in using the template for reflection of my learning, click here.

Does your school conduct student led conferences?  What is your favorite part of student led conferences?

Teaching On A Time Crunch

My district's Fall Break begins tomorrow! I am not quite sure where the beginning of the year went. I blinked and it is gone! This week, we only had kids for two days because of the break and a professional development day. Personally, schedule changes are really hard for me. I know it is important to be flexible but school wide events and alternative schedules would eat my lunch if I let them. One of the things I have found to really help my children and I deal with such changes is to pack the time so full with learning that we do not have time to think twice about it.

One of my school's biggest fundraisers is our annual Jogathon.  Children collect flat pledges or pledges per lap they run. Instead of going to P.E. or Music, each class has a jogging and refreshment time.  For weeks leading up to the Jogathon, guests come to our morning assemblies to promote the event with families and excite the children.  One of the guests is a parent at our school and a patent of a former student.  Each year they come up with different characters. This year, they were pizza dudes.

Currently, my dramatic play center is set up as a pizza parlor and yesterday we made pizza (a Pinterest version) and wrote directions for our steps using transitional words.  We used croissants, turkey pepperoni, and string cheese.  They were yummy!!

Embracing the excitement and incorporating it into math is week.  A kindergarten team mate and I taught a lesson together about estimation. We read the story The Tortoise and the Hare and used our jogging tags to talk about making an educated guess.  After they ran, we recorded how many actual laps they ran.  I was impressed with how close some of them were!

I love picking books as I plan lessons! Leading up to yesterday, we had been listening to Junie B. Jones is Captain Field Day during our quiet time.  I read a chapter a day immediately following lunch and I let children lay down with our lights dimmed.  I still use the book to help them understand character and how to problem solve so I try to incorporate topics with things we are dealing with as a part of our classroom community or what is going on in our world (Jogathon).  We also talked about being a good sport after reading a new book from Scholastic, Howard B. Wigglebottom Learns About Sportmanship. We were able to talk about having goals and what makes someone a good sport all in the same conversation. They impressed me with their background knowledge!

I love the book Go Away Big Green Monster.  I have done this lesson with kindergarten and first graders.  The end product is different every single time.  This year, my learners are struggling to label their pictures so when we worked on writing, we talked through the importance of labels.  In the past, I have done a lot with encouraging descriptive words but I felt we were successful to label the parts of the monster.  We also read the book Where The Wild Things Are.  Using sentence strips I cut triangles out so it looked like a crown.  After reading the story, we made crowns using pattern block cut outs.  I told them they would only get to be crowned King or Queen of the Wold if they had a pattern.  It was a fun, engaging, easy assessment.

We have been working on our letter knowledge!  This is a graph that shows our letter knowledge for our first nine weeks.  I had the template for the graph made as well as post it notes with each child's number for letter knowledge.  We talked through why letter knowledge is important and set a class goal to know all upper and lower case letters by Winter Break!  I gave each child their post it and they wrote their name and drew a picture before we put it on.  The graph makes my heart feel happy because it shows how far we have come in such a short time. Many children knew fewer than 10 letters total at the beginning of the year. We have grown!

What's your biggest success for your class so far this school year?  How do you address goal setting for young learners in your classroom?

International Dot Day

Today, we celebrated International Dot Day!  I first heard about this because of Pinterest but as someone who loves polka dots I wanted to find ways to incorporate it into our learning.  We began last Friday when we revisited using water colors with a dot.  They have been at our easel during centers but I noticed that they weren't being taken care of so we had another guided discovery lesson on the use of them as we water colored our dot.  

I sent a note home to families about our celebration and encouraged children to wear polka dots.  About half of the class did, boys included!  We listened to The Dot by Peter H. Reynolds and then I had set up a scavenger hunt for us to review school procedures in common areas like the cafeteria, office, and library.  Our last clue took us back to the classroom with a canvas painting to work on during centers.

The canvas will serve multiple purposes because my school holds an annual Arts Festival each spring where classroom artwork is bid on by families.  This money is the used to purchase supplies that we have access to school wide.  Our class is getting an early start!  As we painted today, I had already used black paint to make the circles and we talked about primary colors as we painted.  The canvas will be finished as we use secondary colors where circles join.

We also had dots for snacks including cheese, grapes, cheese balls, cherry spurs, and dots.  We listened to The Dot as we ate snack.  We also listened to Ten Black Dots and children were given one colored dot and wrote about the picture they made with the dot.

I sent home a note with gum balls so children could share their adventures throughout the day with their families.  What are some adventures you had with your class today?

Curriculum Night

The last two weeks have been busy!  Every school in my district is required to have a curriculum night.  This provides an opportunities to explain to families about important information about their child's school year.  At my school, we begin in the gym with teacher introductions and then break up in grade levels where families go to classrooms to learn more.  It can be a stressful time of year as you are still establishing relationships with families.  Although you have a "script" prepared, it can be hard to gague what questions families might have as well as what they know about kindergarten.  It varies greatly from year to year!  This year, my grade level has a ton of new to the school families and older siblings where as last year, many of our families had already had a child come through kindergarten.  This changes the information and the format for presenting to families. 

As my team and I thought about this, we wanted to give families ideas about how to have conversations with their children at the end of a long day.  Have you ever asked a 5 or 6 year old about what they did at school at the end of the day?  The responses vary and sometimes include "nothing", "I played", or "I do not remember".  We wanted to encourage families to interact in positive ways.  We collaborated on this as a take home treat to encourage those positive interactions between families and their children.  My awesome teammate typed up the conversation starters and bagged them for perfection. 

 

Building relationships with families is critical to their child experiencing a successful year and school success.  Here's what we came up thanks to pinterest to help us help families understand their important role in their child's success.

 

 

We had a great turnout and parents asked really great questions.  Often times, planning these extra curricular events can be exhausting but once they are over, it is easy to see how critical they are in our success during the school year.  I was thankful that over half of my families can to learn more about kindergarten and how we can support each other during this foundational year of learning! 

 

 

Grandparent's Day

I feel so very fortunate to work at a school that celebrates grandparent's day.  We celebrate it school wide each year.  My grandparents have made such a huge impact in my life.  I also think it is important to celebrate people who make a difference in the lives of children because it really does take a village to raise a child.

My paternal grandparents in 1949. 

We celebrated it last Friday, September 6th.  Grandparents begin their day in their grandchild's classroom(s) and then as a school we go to the gym for our weekly school wide morning assembly.  Due to the fact that children are going to be sitting for an extended amount of time during the assembly, I try to keep the sitting in the classroom limited.  This year we began by showing our grandparents how we start our day with a greeting as a part of our morning meeting.  We had worked on a morning message during the week that the children helped brainstorm what they wanted to write and helped write the message during our writing time using procedures from interactive writing. 

 

We also read many stories throughout the week leading up to the day about grandparents including The Hello Goodbye Window, 41 Uses for a Grandma, and 40 Uses for a Grandpa.  We wrote a class book based on the format the last two books and each child gave a use for a grandparent.  We put our class books that we have made this year out for grandparents to look at.  Children also showed them around the room and read a book from their book box to their guest.  It was a great success!

 

 

Does your school celebrate grandparents?  What are some ways you have celebrated school wide or in your own classroom?