And Field Trip #1 is back on!

halloween

Tomorrow, most teachers across the nation will enjoy sights such as this, as they wrangle their ducklings back in a row:

I, on the other hand, will not be treated to the cutsie costumes. Rather, my students are required to dress in "career" clothing, or their regular uniform. As one parent appropriately said, "I am not putting my five-year-old in a suit. Absolutely not. And I'm definitely not buying two costumes."

All children in non-doctorbankerlawyer suits are supposed to be sent home. It should be an interesting day tomorrow.

10

Today is the last day of my tenth week of teaching, and the end of the first quarter.

Even though there are only 2 days off before quarter 2, it feels like a fresh start. I hope so, because I'm tired.

"Ms. Haley! Ms. Haley!! Look how I remembered to write the small r's!"

"S, remember that writing is quiet time. We don't yell."

With those words halfway out of my mouth, I was already kicking myself. Even as I read them now I hate myself for it. S and I have been working to perfect her name-writing for a whole week. The only thing she has left to learn is to remember to use lowercase r's. Not one of my finer moments.

As I get more used to the everyday flow of teaching, I have developed standard responses for dealing with smaller things. Let's think of it as a coping mechanism that I use to reduce the overwhelming stress of making hundreds of decisions every day. However, these coping mechanisms are not in any way responsive to individual students. They do not encourage or foster learning. I need to remember that teaching is not just about getting through material and actually stop to appreciate the small moments, Lucy Calkins style.

wishlist shortlist

I am so excited to say that very little from my wishlist is still wished for! I basically only need the table and chairs and I will have a dramatic play station!

Thank you, gpas.

I asked for more chairs

You know what I got?

Avoided. All day.

field trip status

Proposal 1: Rejected because we need to give four weeks advance notice. Something that wasn't mentioned until it was rejected.

Proposal 2: Rejected because there is no money. There was never money. Only the empty promise of money from someone who clearly did not verify their information.

Alas.

upcoming unit: non-fiction

wishlist

• child-size table and chairs
• old phone book
• lots and lots of menus
• an apron or two (kicking myself for throwing out my server aprons "when will I ever need those again?")
• serving tray
• optional: fake food, plastic flatware, pretend stove, checkered table cloth, restaurant check pads

I am sitting writing my unit up for non-fiction and my head is swimming with ideas, if only I had unlimited time and money. I am imagining a nook in my classroom (because, who doesn't have extra room?) with a little spot set up that could be a restaurant or a kitchen so that they can explore with making lists, writing dinner orders, reading and creating menus, reading and creating recipes, making shopping lists... the possibilities are endless, as they say.

I wish I had time to write another grant, but this unit starts in a week! How can I make this happen?

The Land of I Can

From the beginning, I knew that I wanted a flashy tracker for my kiddies. I wanted them to be very invested, so I new I needed something visual. A week before school started I came across a video from the unstoppable Ingrid Siss and I knew it was love.

Essentially, over the course of the year we will all work to make The Land of I Can (LoIC) beautiful by adding elements as students master certain benchmarks (a ray on the sun for naming all their shapes, a petal on one of the flowers for counting to 100, etc.). Of the maybe 40 precious hours I had in my classroom before school started, I probably spent 10 of them on this board.

Ever since that moment, I have been patiently waiting for when we could start adding to LoIC. And finally, the day came.

As of Friday, three of my babies can name all of their upper- and lowercase letters, so we added their hard-earned leaves to the tree. I'm hoping to have many more by the end of this week!

mr. agitated moves away

Unfortunately, it is his last day at our school. He mentioned that he was "not coming back to this school ever again" on Monday, but I didn't pay much attention until his mother picked him up on Wednesday and confirmed that they bought a house in the suburbs and are moving this weekend.

Of course, I don't want any of my babies to leave, but he is my comic relief, and since lately humor is not an enormous part of my life I am really going to miss having him around. The funniest children are really the ones who have no idea that they are funny.

I hope his new teacher finds him just as amusing as I do.

its midterm season somewhere

But here, it feels like finals. I have a laundry list of things due next week: unit plans for November, assessments for the end of November, lesson plans for the week after next, and first quarter grades.

Not to mention I'm trying to get my literacy centers up and running in a more rigorous way.

And then we just got an email that we need to revise all of our lessons for next week by Sunday night.

It's 7:48, the kids are about to arrive, and I just want to hang my head for the day.

Some days, one half of me wants to split away from the other and just shout, "WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH YOUR LIFE."

Even on a day when K pulls a chair out for a friend and S tells me he loves to read.

Bruins v. Hawks

Hockey is like kindergarten - if you hit each other, you get a time out.

a hell of a day at school, sir

Fifty kindergartners were left more or less unattended at lunch.

Poor N threw up in the bathroom like it was the most normal thing in the world and then when right back to playing. Literally not a single complaint. It made me wonder how often it happens.

Somebody slapped a teacher.

Oh, and a student brought a box-cutter to school.

It's Friday.

field trips

Taking a field trip is something I would love to do with my kids - their behavior is excellent and I know they could handle it.

First, I was told that we could only take free field trips. Then, I was asked why on earth kindergarten didn't have any field trips planned. I pointed out that free field trips appropriate for kinder might be challenging to find. Money was found. Life goes on. But today was the kicker.

"We would love to take them to LegoLand! They have such a great program for field trips."

"Can you explain how that relates to the reading curriculum?"

... hmm, ok.

wisdom from kindergarten cop

Kindergarten is kind of like the ocean -- you should never turn your back on it.

2011

Is the year of the thefts for me, apparently. Someone came into the building last week and took two teacher's wallets and two laptops.

I walked back upstairs after dismissal and noticed my (work) laptop wasn't where I usually leave it. We quickly inventoried our personal belongings and realized we all missing something on the second floor.

They literally went room to room while we were outside with the kids.

I am so thankful that my wallet wasn't taken (in what would be the second time this year), but I am really upset about the data and information that was on my laptop. I lost all of the assessments that I have done over the past couple of weeks, and trust me, testing children's understanding of the alphabet is no small task.

Alas, I now have a paper binder with all my assessment info. Apparently doing a thesis taught me nothing about saving copies of my files.

one world

I am the decisive element in the classroom. It is my personal approach that creates the climate. It is my daily mood that makes the weather. As a teacher, I possess tremendous power to make a child's life miserable or joyous... In all situations it is my response that decides whether a crisis will be escalated or de-escalated, and a child humanized or de-humanized. 

Found here at Teaching Tolerance. You can sign up for their free twice-yearly magazine if you are an educator, and they also put out a weekly newsletter. They also offer some great classroom activities.

yoko's chair

Apparently Yoko chatted with an elementary school teacher right here in IL and it resulted in all kinds of project-play and collaboration. Students made a video and Yoko sent a thank-you. In the end, the teacher made a spot in the class for students to go, return to peacefulness, and think about solutions.

Next year, my "cool-down corner" is going to be Yoko's Chair. And I will learn to play the guitar.

I wish it could be like this all the time

All day B kept smiling at me and saying that she had a secret to tell me. She wouldn't tell me in front of anyone else, so finally at lunch I went up and whisper-asked what she wanted to tell me. After a little nudging she finally agreed to tell me, and said, "Ms. Haley, you are the best teacher in the whole wide world."

Granted, she's one of my best-behaved and on that day (as my mail carrier) she got to "deliver" two different items of mail to every person. She was having a good day.

...If you think I'm just being modest, I can think of at least 2-3 children who would have different kinds of things to say about me.

teacher bag is here!

And already full of stuff.

maybe its because I just read the kissing hand?

During dismissal, one of my girls gave me a great big hug... and then went in for a kiss.

I awkwardly stood up as she tip-toed trying to reach my lips. I don't think her mother noticed, thank goodness.

power

Can a classroom exist without a power dynamic? Is hierarchy an inherent norm of the learning environment? What do you think?

teacher bag

Obsessively checking LL Bean for the tracking info on my teacher bag. Carrying and ruining reusable bags on a weekly basis is demoralizing. This is my life.