beyond crazy

Wow. Last week was C-R-A-Z-Y. 

Most three day weeks are a little crazy. They start out well for me because I have a long weekend. I enjoyed some nice runs and a short hike with my mister. I knocked out a lot of work that had been piling up, and I relaxed some. It was nice.

On Tuesday, I was able to get 14 out of 18 parents through the parent teacher conference process. In the meantime, Mrs. S and I managed to tear all of the pages out of student workbooks and get them organized by week for the remainder of the school year. I hate tearing and sorting the pages, so this was amazing. I usually do it all by myself, now I don't need to worry about it again until next year. Oh yeah. Awesome.

Then the kinders came back on Wednesday. We started out exceptionally well. Then an announcement was made, "Attention teachers and staff. We might have an assembly at 9:00. We'll let you know." Then the health assistant came into the classroom, "The nurse is at our school today, she needs to do a hand washing presentation with the students." When 9:00 rolled around we were called to the auditorium. For a laser light show. It is science, sure, but on a short week? Apparently our old principal scheduled it before she left and didn't tell anyone. So, we lost an hour of instruction on an already short week. Then we were called to the nurse's office for the hand washing presentation. Needless to say, kindergarten cancelled our morning recess so that we could get a little bit of learning in. The rest of the day went pretty well, thankfully.

We squeezed a whole lot of learning into Thursday to make up for lost time, and in order to be ready for Friday assessments. The kiddos did a great job, they loved our story of the week, they picked up on the basics of base ten relatively well, and we had computer lab. My students love computer lab. It was a success. Unfortunately, I also had to come up with sub plans for Friday because this lucky teacher was called for jury duty. 

What an end to the week. Not only was I called, I was selected. So while my kinders were working away on their assessments, I was listening to a new attorney defend what was possibly his first case. It was somewhat interesting, but the lawyers unfortunately used what us jurors came to call turtle talk. They spoke more slowly than I do with my kinders. Now, that's saying something. All in all, we spent 12 hours in the courtroom. At 8:15 we decided that the defense had presented enough information to make us reasonably doubt the guilt of his client and wham-o, said lawyer won what was possibly his first trial. (I will say that a positive result of the experience was that I was able to crochet during every break we were given and finished half of a case to organize my crochet hooks!)

The court was nice enough to bring us dinner while we were in deliberations. At that point we were all okay with a burger and fries. However, a couple of hours later either the stomach flu that has been going around school caught up with me or the burger just didn't sit right. Either way, I spent the night on the bathroom floor. Super awesome end to a super awesome week.

Now we have arrived at Monday. Sweet, sweet Monday. A day of new beginnings and fresh starts. Some kiddos did end up in the office, but I'm positive that this week can't be any crazier than last. Here's hoping!

survival

It's what Valentine's Day is all about. Survival of the fittest. Otherwise, the kinders will eat you alive. They came in this morning flying high, ready to pass out their Thanksgiving cards (for some reason, they know it is Valentine's Day, but they think they are making Thanksgiving cards, I'm at a loss). They then ate sugar filled waffles for breakfast. And I had to calm them down enough to get our Friday assessments in before allowing them to slip into party mode. Lets me say, assessments on Valentine's Day are not the best idea on earth, the results were dismal. Oh well, sometimes we just need to roll with the punches. We'll keep going over the material during interventions until they get it down pat.

While Valentine's Day may not be my favorite, I am very thankful that my parents are listening to my request for healthy treats this year. Last year each student went home with a plate with a dozen of assorted cupcakes and cookies. This year, the treats that were provided were chips and crackers (better than cookies and cupcakes), homemade jello, bananas, and mandarin oranges. Success!

Or, so I thought. When the kiddos started handing out their valentines, packed away in their bags were cookies. Then a mother brought in cupcakes and bags of candy. And she didn't leave.

Since this mother didn't leave the classroom, she was able to see her child acting out and receiving warnings of being sent to the principal's office instead of being able to participate in party activities. She reminded her child several times to follow the rules. Then the kinder received a final notice and we walked to the office together.

The principal asked mom to come to the office, the student was sent home for the day, which meant no party. Mom came into the classroom and yelled at me, saying that I was unfair to her child. We walked into the hall, and after she started swearing at me and saying she wanted her child pulled from my class, we went to the principal's office so that there was a mediator (and a witness) for the ensuing conversation (thank goodness for assistants).

In the end, the principal and I got mom calmed down, let her vent about her relationship with the student's father, and have a promise to have her reconsider wanting to take her child out of my classroom. On Tuesday, at parent teacher conferences, we will see what she has to say.

Whoever decided that holiday parties were a good idea was not a teacher. Thank goodness this was the last major party of the year.

can i read

Earlier this year I was told that when my students are completing a task, they need to walk away with something. I followed the advice that was given to me by a veteran teacher, for a while, and found that this is not always the case.

When I received this advice, it was following an observation of my language arts class. For an hour, during this class, my students rotate through centers, spending fifteen minutes at each center. One center is independent reading. The observing teacher informed me that my students should not be reading just because, that they needed to walk away from the center with a finished product. I tried having them write in journals for a while about what they read; I tried having them do partner reading; in the end, I realized what their finished product truly is.

They love to read. 

My students will come up to me whenever they finish an assignment and ask, "Can I go to the library?" or, "Can I go to books?" or, "Can I read?" They may not be walking away from their fifteen minutes with a paper in hand, but they are walking away with a love of reading. They are gaining confidence in their skills and they get so excited when they can complete a smooth read of a book. 

Our classroom library (rather, a third of it!)

For me, the finished product is that I am helping to develop a new generation of readers. 

the things they say

Today, during our morning meeting, I asked my students to share what their favorite food is. I had a lot of the usual answers, "I like ice cream," and "I like pizza." At one point, when asking a student to elaborate on their answer, the conversation looked like this.

Me: "What is your favorite food?"

Student: "My favorite food is pizza."

Me: "What kind of pizza do you like the most?"

Student: "I like mushroom pizza. I eat it and grow big like Mario. Then Sonic says, 'Wow! You're big!"

It was pretty fantastic, if I do say so myself.

explosion

Not to worry, there haven't been any literal explosions. But, figuratively, my life has exploded. This semester is taking over my life with the addition of 20 hours of service work added to my graduate course load. Additionally, the school district has decided that all of the teachers should take an online course in assessment. I'll mention only briefly that I took a three hour graduate course in assessment this summer. So yes, it is easy (as my principal said it should be if I have just taken a class), but it takes up that little bit of free time that was nonexistent to begin with.

While life has taken a turn for crazier, I will say that I enjoyed my first afternoon/evening of volunteering at the Boys and Girls Club on Friday. I was immediately roped into painting nails and I was able to talk to a lot of fourth and fifth grade girls about what they like to do. Surprisingly (or not), it's not that different from what my kindergarteners like to do - with the exception of liking boys. As much as I'm dreading the loss of a little bit of me time, I am looking forward to getting to know this different group of students. Life will resume again in a couple of months - but until then, blogs may come at a very limited rate.

plans

Sometimes plans don't go as you would like. Some things take longer than you would expect. Sometimes there are delayed starts due to weather. Sometimes students just aren't getting the point. The whole day, as a teacher, is about adjusting your plans to meet the students' needs. And still, we make plans, over and over again, hoping that one day everything will click and we'll be able to teach everything that we actually need to.

Next week I am administering tests to determine the levels of English Language Learners in the kindergarten grade level. Thanks to the awesome budgeting of my district, a sub is not funded for the time that I am out testing, which leaves my assistant on her own for a couple of days. Granted, she has her teaching degree, but our regular schedule involves us both teaching at different points during the day through centers and small group activities. With this in mind, I have had to completely revamp several of my days next week to account for her being on her own.

In this planning, I get a little more freedom than usual. I have been able to create worksheets and have fun with my plans. The unfortunate thing about sub planning is that you don't actually get to do all of the fun things that you are leaving behind for someone else. So, as frustrating as creating sub plans can be, I relish the opportunity to be a little more creative, even if I am not the one to benefit from all of the work that goes into it.

On top of my being out for testing next week, I have other fun things to accommodate for in my planning. On Thursday the Albuquerque Zoo is coming in to do a presentation of "Zoo to You." Through this our students will be able to meet some of the cool animals at the zoo. We also have that beloved day, Valentine's Day, on Friday. Yay for hyped up kiddos. At least it falls on a Friday this year so I don't need to deal with the sugar coma following their sweet indulgences on the holiday.

Here's a peek at one of my fun creations for next week - sight word graphing!

february

It is hard to believe that February is already here. January sure did fly, it makes me a little nervous about how quickly the rest of the school year will go. Especially since we have one half day and two days off this month. I'm not sure how I'm going to go about squeezing all of the necessary learning in, but I'll find a way.

Our February bulletin board: We love to read!

Yesterday my kiddos created "book valentines." They each chose a book that they could read and wrote the sentence, "I can read ______!" Then they drew a little picture about the story. Now we have a beautiful bulletin board to show of their awesome reading skills.