OK, I’ve never had THIS happen.

I’ve got one little boy who is bilingual, and by that I mean nobody can understand him in either language…..   He came up to me mid way through the morning this morning and mumbled something about the bathroom.  I said, “Sure, you can use the bathroom.”  He goes in, is in there for a bit and comes back out and drags me into the bathroom with him.  I’m in a difficult position.  I’m trying to keep the door open, so there’s no problems and I’m trying to understand what he’s trying to tell me.  I couldn’t understand him (I seldom can).  I’m trying to keep the other kids out of his business…..  I flush the toilet (someone previous hadn’t)  Nope, that wasn’t it.  I lifted the seat for him.  Nope that wasn’t it.  I finally figured out what I thought the problem was.  I sent him down to the nurse with another boy.  I then called the nurse and told her that I thought he wanted a potty seat for the toilet and I didn’t have one.

A while later she brings  him back and said, “Yes, that’s EXACTLY what he wants, and I don’t have one either.”  She said she called the dad, who said he would call the mom.  In the mean time, she took him into the bathroom and tried to get him to use the regular seat.  No go. 

Finally, mom showed up, took him into the bathroom, and about 10 minutes later, everybody was happy.  Hopefully there will be some training at home…..

This group of kids are SO young.  I’ve had several that are just marginally potty trained.  I never had this problem when I didn’t have bathrooms in my room………  Well, if I had this or similar problems, I didn’t know about them, BECAUSE I didn’t have bathrooms in my room…..

 

“I’m going to the nurse….”

I went into the lunchroom to pick up my class at the end of lunch and one of my little girls informed me that she was on her way to the nurse.  She then showed me this little tiny spot of blood on one of her fingers.  I said, “No, you are NOT going to the nurse.  Teachers SEND you to the nurse, you do not just go on your own.”  She spent the next 15 minutes bawling.

When we got back to the room and everyone was situated, I called her over, gave her an antiseptic wipe, and then put a bandaid on it.  A few minutes later I was walking by near her seat and I heard her say to the bandaid on her finger.  ” I looove you little bandaid…….”

sheeesh.

Three other kids came up with miniscule little imaginary injuries and wanted bandaids……..

I used to get the fancy printed ones for class.  They would go out and hurt themselves for one of those……

I feel guilty that I don’t feel guilty……….

I had 29 students, now I have 28.  And I’m not sad.  One of my lowest of the low boys moved out of zone and had to transfer schools.  Apparently my principal has a NO ZONE VARIANCE policy.  Mom wanted to keep him in my class, but they moved clear across town, and for four days she either hasn’t been able to get him or his sister here, or has been late picking them up…….every day.  That wasn’t going to fly IF the principal had given them a variance.  Mom wanted to keep him here because we are a Title One school and as such, have full day kindergarten.  Their new school apparently isn’t Title, so kinder is only half day.   The boy NEEDS full day kindergarten, and more,  much, much, more,  but I don’t need the disturbance he created in my class.

I was reaching the end of my rope with him.  He couldn’t keep boundaries,  by that I mean, I gave up trying to get him to stay in his chair or in one spot a long time ago.  I would have been happy if he had stayed in a zone or area.  He wouldn’t or couldn’t stay on task and pretty much did what he wanted in the room.  I would tolerate it as long as it wasn’t a violation of another student’s space or materials.  But it often was.  He wasn’t malicious, he was often even trying to be helpful.  You know, by taking all of my carefully stacked piles of papers and putting them into ONE stack.  Sort of shuffled as he did it……..The only other name heard in my room as much as my name, was his, ALL the other children knew his name.  And you would hear it all day.  If it wasn’t me, it was one of the other kids, even the ones in the other kindergarten classes. 

The sad thing is, I really liked him, he just drove me crazy and although he was making some academic progress, he wasn’t keeping up with the class.  Having 29 kids in the class made it really hard to give him the individualized help he needed.

Parent Conference Progress Update

Friday when I should have sent home  parent-teacher conference confirmations, I remembered AFTER the last child had left.  So Monday mornings conference wasn’t confirmed, and one of my Tuesday morning confirmations didn’t get home on Monday, because the child was absent on Monday. Other than that, it has gone pretty well.  If I don’t count those two, out of 15 scheduled conferences, I had 11 of them.  Not bad.

Tomorrow, there isn’t any school for the students.  I have 11 conferences scheduled during the day tomorrow.  I’ll try to  get the rest of them made up or finished on Thursday or Friday.  So far they are going really well.   It’s been nice to be able to talk to so many of the parents and tell them just how great their children are, and how well they are doing.  Putting together the report cards and the material for the conferences made me realize that my class really was doing better than I had previously thought.  There is this small core of about 5 kids who are really struggling, but the rest of them actually are doing pretty well.

Student Writing in Kindergarten

I was doing my lesson plans tonight and I had to interact with this calendar of writing prompts from my school.  I get so irritated I want to spit every time I look at it.  First off, it’s just too broad of an age spread to combine K-2nd grade.  Note the current prompt for my kids:  

Explain the difference between a solid, liquid, and gas. Give two examples of each.

Never mind that our current science unit is FABRIC…….  My kids can hardly put the sentence together, “I like (insert something here)”   I would have to do a whole unit on solids, liquids and gases just to get to the point where we could put a sentence together.  THEY WANT TWO EXAMPLES OF EACH.  That is so ludicrous that it defies words.  I’ll  just shut up now……..

Writing Prompts

2009 – 2010

K – 2^nd Grade 

9/8/09 – 9/11/09	No Prompt – 4 Day Week
9/21/09 – 9/25/09	My favorite holiday is _______ because…
10/6/09 – 10/9/09	No Prompt – 4 Day Week
10/19/09 – 10/23/09	In a letter to the President, persuade him to change a law of your choice.
11/3/09 – 11/6/09	No Prompt – 4 Day Week
11/16/09 – 11/20/09	Explain the difference between a solid, liquid, and gas. Give two examples of each.
11/30/09 – 12/4/10	Think about what you like to do the most. Write a paper telling what you enjoy doing and at least three reasons why you like this activity so much.
12/14/10 – 12/18/10	Dear Santa Friendly Letter
1/11/10 – 1/14/10	No Prompt – 4 Day Week
1/25/10 – 1/29/10	Light is very important because…
2/8/10 – 2/12/10	Sometimes we give help, and sometimes we get help. Think about a time when you helped someone or when someone helped you. Tell a story about what happened.
2/22/10 – 2/26/10	Write a poem about your favorite food. Use all your 5 senses to describe your favorite food.
3/8/10 – 3/12/10	A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away lived a…
3/22/10 – 3/26/10	If you were given a free two-week dream vacation, where would you go and why?
4/12/10 – 4/16/10	Write about the butterfly life cycle.
4/26/10 – 4/30/10	Write a personal narrative about an event you enjoyed doing with family members or friends. Give details and tell what happened in time order.
5/10/10 – 5/14/10	Write about how plants grow.
5/24/10 – 5/28/10	Write about your favorite animal. Be sure to include descriptive details about your animal.
6/7/10 – 6/11/10	On a deserted island I’ll need…
6/21/10 – 6/25/10	Write a description about your favorite place. Use your five senses to help describe the place for the reader.
7/6/10 – 7/9/10	No Prompt – 4 Day Week
7/19/10 – 7/23/10	Write about what you’re looking forward to next year.

 

I could DO all that…. if I didn’t have an already full curriculum (which this of course isn’t alligned to).  Building the background knowledge for half of these would take most of my day. Many days.

It’s Parent Conference Time!!!!

Yeah, yeah, it’s overrated.  The parents you don’t need to talk to are the ones who always show up.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s great to talk to them, to be able to tell them how wonderful their children are.  And they need to hear it from the teacher once in a while.  They are the ones who will sign their kids up for extra free tutoring, because they can.  Not because their child NEEDS it.  They are involved, they read to their kids, they interact with their kids.  Generally GOOD parents, and GOOD kids.

Then there are the rest of them.  Some of them love their kids, want the best for their kids, but don’t have the skills or the time to do it.  We are a Title One school and as such a lot of our families don’t have a lot of material things and if the parents are working, they are generally working a lot.  Parent/Teacher conferences can help these parents, if they have the time.

The frustrating ones are the ones who probably never should have had kids in the first place.  The kids are street smart, sometimes REALLY street smart, but have no clue about book smart.  No one has ever read a book to these kids, they have no number sense, they have no fine motor skills.  They have been raising themselves since they were toddlers.  They’ve watched movies and video of things that I have NEVER seen, and never will,  These parents don’t show up, don’t return calls, don’t help with homework,  don’t sign their kids up for tutoring  (and their kids NEED tutoring).  They don’t understand what their part is in the whole education of their children.   They often had a less than stellar experience in school themselves.   They have a hazy idea of what their responsibilities are as parents.  And yet they have these kids, and we are supposed to teach them.

By the end of the week, I will have talked to so many parents I won’t remember what I’ve said to who.  Sometimes that happens during the conversation.  “Have we talked about this already?”  Some of them will have been highly enjoyable discussions about great kids.  Some I will come away from dissatisfied,  nothing will be resolved, and nothing will change.  And with some I will have had little to no discussion at all.

I came to teaching later in life. I was about 40.  I’ve been doing it fo 20 years now.  My first 4 years were kindergarten, two half day sessions of about 30 kids each.  We still have about 30 in a class, but now at least it’s a full day class and only one class.  So many of these kids I wish I could take home, clean them up, feed them, read to them, take care of them.  I think to myself, they would be so much better off.  But the funny thing is, most of them LOVE their parents, those less than perfect people who brought them into the world and sort of take care of them.  For most, if given the choice, they would stay with who they love.  Would they like those flawed parents to be better?  Sure,  they don’t want to see daddy beat up mommy, but they love them.

How strange is that?  I just have to believe that some of what I can do as a teacher will make a difference.  Read this.  It’s a great post about making a difference as a teacher.

I found my little beaver with the pencils.

One of the other kids said, “Mr. L,  Sammy’s chewing on a pencil!”  I looked and, that pencil looked a lot like the one featured in a previous post.  I said, “Sammy,  why are you chewing on that pencil?”

His reply?  “Mr. L, They are DELICIOUS!”

So once again we had, “The Germ Talk“

The lunch lady has got to feed them more…………

They are just gross though,  for snacks most days, I give them a choice between a 4 oz cup of dry cereal, Gold Fish, or animal crackers.  We do other things on other days but that is one of my basic stand bys.  It’s cheap, and since I’m usually doing it out of my own pocket, that’s the primary factor.   Anyway sometimes kids don’t eat their whole cup full and will toss the rest.  Yesterday one of my favorite little darlings was digging some of it out of the trash and EATING IT.  He’s the same one that has to swab down the entire toilet with Clorox Wipes after using it because he doesn’t seem to get the idea that he needs to lift the seat and his aim isn’t good.  He’s marginally potty trained at best, I could go on, but won’t.

Disgusting!

Classroom Management

I mentioned in a previous post, the system that I am currently using for classroom management.  I really like the “rules” that I use here.  We spend a fair amount of time going over them at the beginning of the year and then revisit them as needed.  They are prominently displayed in the room.  Every year the class has a different flavor to it though and the system has to be tweaked.  This year we have been in school almost 1/3 of the school year and the kids just will NOT stop hitting each other.  I think it’s because, generally my class this year is really immature.  It’s usually not a major argument or fight, just the occasional “HIT”, for whatever reason.  And of course reasons really DON”T matter.  Hitting is unacceptable. 

So far I have handled episodes in house. That is, I have worked out consequences within the room, without referring anyone to the Principal.  But it hasn’t stopped, and if anything has actually escalated lately.  So today, my two most frequent culprits were actually hitting each other as I picked them up from lunch and one of them started to cry.  So I marched them over to the office and wrote them up, with the whole class watching.  One father came right down after the assistant principal called the house and picked his child up. “He will not do THAT again…..” the father said as they left.  I hope I don’t have to refer the parent to Child Protective Services, but I do want the behavior to stop and nothing I was doing in the room seemed to work. 

The assistant principal got real mad at the other one as she brought them back.  He was entering the room with a smile on his face and she thought that was inappropriate.  I had to explain that a) he was probably going to be special ed. and  b)  I don’t think the smile is defiant, I think he is a clueless little Hispanic boy (and by that I just mean that he is very limited in English) who just doesn’t understand and his response is to smile and nod at everything that’s said to him.  She thought about that for a minute and it changed her attitude a lot.

Somebody in my room thinks they swim, build dams, and eats wood………

It’s one of those nice BIG Kindergarten pencils too.  I wanted to just dunk it in the hand sanitizer.

And then there’s this.

Apparently one can get quite involved at circle time.

I neither SAW or FELT this going on…………I have no idea who did it…to me…..