Boooooo!

A festive good time was had by all! Note that 3-year old zombies tend to be messy when eating brains: she's got it all over her face!

watch it here... if you dare
got some candy too!

Report Cards

I'm preparing report cards. The news overall is not good. These children on average don't know what a letter or number is, let alone which ones you're pointing to or what sounds they make, etc. I had little ones saying everything but a number when identifying numerals 1-15. I have some kids who recognize not a single letter or its sound. This is after ten weeks of daily, and often twice daily or more, drilling. We chant the ABC song. We recite it again with phonics added and an "alphafriend" to help remember. We practice phoneme segmentation with picture cards. We make silly sounding "starts with" noises all day long. I am seeing growth, but a lot of kids are still getting a "needs improvement" on their first report cards. And I mean everything pretty much needs improvement. We've got our work cut out for us. And speaking of "cut out", right when these kids need it the most, a quarter of our sparse paraprofessional hour is cut in favor of the special ed room. I said I was fine with that, since the school is under some AYP scrutiny and SPED is especially hurting. It's in the school's best interest for those kids to get that support. But it's certainly not in my students' best interest! I have no idea how to proceed with one of our four reading rotations sans adult. The kids can't do it independently! I don't want to raise a stink, but I'm going to have to ask the administration for help.

On the other hand, my kindergarteners rocked starfall.com yesterday! I spent their entire morning recess booting up and logging on to all the machines in the computer lab. They were all over it, finding apps I hadn't ever noticed, helping each other, totally loving it! We have an open sign-up policy for the computer lab, and I noticed that the whole month is me and the 5th and 6th grade teachers. My little buggers are going to be rocking it by June.

Which is looking more and more will be my class in June. After all, I am a substitute teacher who's preparing report cards. Next week is parent-teacher conferences. I really want to stay put here. Beside the fact that I need the work, it would be awfully hard on the kids to suddenly have a new teacher. Especially the ones with abandonment, attachment, or change issues. Which is a lot of them. Foster care is rampant in my class, and a consistent adult at school shouldn't be too much to ask. Out of my hands though.

Dare I Say It?

I think the kiddos are getting the hang of this whole school thing. Today went wonderfully. Granted, it followed on the heels of a Terrible Tuesday in which a Bus Evacuation Drill, chock full of Important and Useful information that the five year olds neither could nor should understand, took up the best part of my reading time and threw me and the schedule off for most of the day. I mean, really, do we want the kinders operating the special yellow emergency brake button? Should they use the CB to call anyone, and if so would they remember to a) say specifically "bus 86 to base" and b) take the finger off the button when they're not talking so they can hear this mysterious "base", whatever that is? No. The answer we're looking for is no they should not. No problem, though, because they didn't understand anything other than that I wouldn't let them sit anywhere they wanted and it Had To Be Three To A Seat.

Digress much? Now that I've got that out of my system, on to the Good Day that was today. No, when I teach writing conventions we won't put Random Capitals throughout an otherwise charming bit of writing.

Today the kids came in in the morning, put their homework folders in the correct color-coded boxes (no one forgot and left it in a backpack!) went to their tables, and immediately began writing in their journals. Which I'd cleverly set out with pencils before they came in. This without me reminding them what to do next, or describing what quiet writing looks like! I was such a proud mama duck!

I've taken to thinking of myself a bit as a mama duck because the little ducklings have imprinted on me as Teacher (which, at the kindergarten level includes a little bit of Mama too). (Just a little though. I have daughters of my own thank you very much.)

The day continued thusly, with a general theme of cooperation and good will. My squirreliest little trouble maker even made, and kept, a promise to be good all day. He was rewarded with a coveted Red Ticket, even though I maintain that learning is its own reward, we don't always get goodies for just taking care of our responsibilities, natural consequences, blah blah etc. Red tickets work though, and in truth he didn't even kick anyone all day, let along give me his sulky "you've wounded me by insisting that I sit on the rug right now for a story" stance. Not loving that stance, by the way, but deciding to catch more flies with sugar or whatever. Poor guy probably gets shamed enough at home, so maybe if I accentuate the positive, what there is of it, we'll see more good behavior. At least the fella can excel academically if he wants, unlike most of his peers at this point!

On the cuteness scale, though, they all excel.

Kindergarten Rocks!

On paper, it's still not my own classroom. But I'm the only adult who's been there since before day 1 and to the kids I'm certainly the teacher. I'm beginning to approach it as if I'll be there all year, knowing full well this might not be the case. I have a big pile of a reading unit to prepare for Monday and the ongoing busy festivity that is Math, and I'm loving it! Sure, most of my students eat the occasional booger, and most can't tell the difference between the letter A and, well, anything. But they're getting better already! One little guy started off the year writing his name in "cursive". This strongly resembled a looooong line of zigzags to me, but what do I know. Now it's 3 or 4 squiggly but recognizable letters (the correct ones, even!) followed by some zigzags for good measure. The one who only cried for about the first five days now is all hunky-dory and making friends. Next step: paying attention in class! The mute one who wants to hide his little face when I ask him to say the abc's or count for me... still does that, but at least he says goodbye to me at the end of the day now!

I'm becoming organized. I know where (most) things are in the room. One little kiss-up politely raised his hand at the end of the day on Friday (the most tired and ornery time of the week typically) and announced that I'm the best teacher ever. Best. Ever. Granted, I'm the only teacher the little guy has had so far, but I'm willing to trust his judgement. Just like when my sweet 3 year old tells me I'm a beautiful mommy, well, it just must be true! I guess in her alternate reality dark circles under the eyes, weird hair, and a well padded tummy DO equal beautiful.

Honestly I don't believe these little guys when they say such hooey, but I am sure they mean it, which means I'm in the right profession (slash lifestyle if you count my own offspring in that). I still wonder from time to time how it would be with the older kids, wonder if I might one day land a position with big ones who can sort of sit still and, if they're texting in class, at least it means they can read and pretty much write! For now, though, I have in fact tapped into my inner Kindergarten Goddess, and she takes the kids for a walk outside to sit under a tree next to the school and sing alphabet songs. And she rocks.