We are a Well Oiled Kindergarten Machine

So we start every morning in my kindergarten class with a routine of letter and number practice (with the kids all sitting on the rug, of course).

Disclaimer: Actually, we really begin the day by taking a trip through the cafeteria, grabbing take-out "food", trouping back to the extreme opposite side of the school (including climbing a staircase with food in hands-- no way to use handrails there!), setting down food, unpacking backpacks, stowing backpacks on backs of chairs, hanging up jackets (on hangers...ugh. Takes forever.), eating breakfast, wiping up spilled milk, opening those maddening little foil topped juice containers, pouring out unfinished drinks in the sink, stacking the paper "boats" all this glory came in, putting wrappers and unfinished food in the alotted trash bucket, setting the bucket in the hallway for easy pickup, and finally settling down on the rug for some learnin'. And I take attendance and occasionally wolf down a granola bar during this period.

Then the day begins for real. We have a calendar routine which is part of our math curriculum and which is pretty comprehensive. It includes, in addition to the expected purely calendar aspects, pattern recognition, counting and numeral recognition, some science, some art, and so on. Quite cool actually. Then we go into a fairly rote but useful alphabet and phonemic awareness routine. We focus on a different letter each week and review it and the rest of the letters, along with our growing word wall of high frequency words. After this we take a bathroom break and get ready for an hour of literacy center rotations.

Most of these exercises are designed for whole-group choral response. We've been doing this since the first week of school, with its current, revised and improved format since about a month in to the school year. Of course, I haven't always had full participation, or heard everyone in unison. But yesterday, the Kindergarten Goddes was smiling upon us. Everyone assembled at the appointed time, enthusiastically offered answers and predictions at the calendar, moved around the area (mostly) smoothly, and recited the admittedly rote material Perfectly and In Unison. Without me reciting along with them! I was so proud of the little monkeys scholars! And best of all, one of our building specialists (the speech & language pathologist) was there to observe it! I think we're getting somewhere with all this learnin' business.

Next up: progress reports. Then, start using the new digital projector. Which of course doesn't have its outlet wired yet, meaning I'll have to rig up an extension cord. But if I can get 28 kids to perform that well on their ABCs and so on, I can string a cord across the ceiling and down a wall of windows to get it plugged in. (We're back to 28. 3 days after Poor Little Ward of the State moved away, a new student arrived. He brings with him what appear to be good foundational skills, especially considering he doesn't speak English!)

Losing Sleep

My little guy who's been moved around with one of his siblings was moved again yesterday. They called the classroom from the office telling me to send him down there after school. Later I found out that he and a sister were picked up there by DHS workers and taken to a new foster home outside of town. This time he won't stay at our school. I kept waking up last night thinking about him and his siblings; two of them are still with foster parent #1, while he and the one other sister have moved to #s 2 and now #3 just since the school year started. I don't know why they couldn't stay at #2, or why the siblings have been separated. We were holding steady for a while there, since they still all attended our school and could see each other a bit. I had all his sisters dropping into my classroom during the day, when their classes were at recess or just when their teachers OK'ed it. They'd sit with my little guy and work on his projects with him. He just glowed whenever they got together. Now I don't know what will happen to these kids. If I'd known they were sending him away, I'd have at least given him a hug on the way out. They must be so scared, and angry and lonely. It just makes me want to cry. In my delerium at 3 am I pondered the possibility of becoming a foster parent so I could just magically step in and make everything better for these kids. But now's not the time for that, and of course I  couldn't be his teacher and mom. I guess what it boils down to is that all I can do at this point is care, and that does very little.

Sometimes hugs aren't enough

A few days ago I was monkeying around with this blog and I added the phrase "Phonics, counting, singing, and hugs in a Title I school" to the sidebar. I had hugs on the list because little people are all the time running up with waist-height hugs. It's sweet, and it's a perk of teaching primary grades. Yesterday I really had to put my hugging skills to the test, though. My little guy who was just moved to a second foster home broke down at the end of the day. It's been a couple of weeks since the move, and he's mostly been just a slightly bouncier version of his normal 5 year old self, but as we were preparing to leave school for the day I noticed him sitting with his chin on his desk, all red in the face. I sort of told the class to talk amongst themselves (they're quite good at that) and called him over. Before I knew it, he was curled up in my lap, sobbing that he missed his sisters (one was moved with him, two stayed behind). All I could do was hold him and whisper to him that it will be OK, that lots of people are on his side and making sure he's taken good care of, and so on. I hugged him like I hug my own daughters when they're sad: a real, solid, I'm not letting go kind of hug. Granted, my kids get upset about things like a skinned knee or a squabble over a toy or frustration over learning subtraction. This little guy has the world on his itty bitty shoulders. The irony is, all his sisters are in our school. It's just hard to pull them out of class to get them together. I'll track down their teachers today and see if we can do something. In the meantime, I'm a good hugger. And I've gotten good (thanks in large part to my husband's influence) at being consistent and reasonably strict with rules. I hope that can help the little guy, as well as the many many others in my class who are in stressful situations. We're a Title I school, and with high poverty tends to come a high level of stress for a lot of people. Sometimes it's heartbreaking, but I'm grateful for the chance to be a spark of positivity (and source of necessary skills and knowledge!) for so many kids.

In other news, I think for Thanksgiving I'll just do a kindergarten version of a Gratitude Tree that my mentor teacher did last year with 6th graders. I'll make some sort of tree image to go on the wall and the kids will give me quotes about things they're grateful for that I'll put on leaves. There. That's done!