The Influential Teacher

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My Last Post…

I ended my last post with, “Poor child, he thinks he’s going to get to play in my class…..”  As I think about that, I don’t want people to think that my class isn’t fun.  We do have lots of fun and a lot of learning is structured into forms of play.   It’s just not going to be without the framework  and structure of routines and procedures.  That first week is usually a killer for ALL of us.  The teacher is exhausted- every day.  The students are exhausted- everyday.

The first day is like herding cats.

I’ve compared it to trying to keep a basket of puppies in the basket…..

Until you get the routines and procedures established, it can be rough on everyone.  Which makes what they want to do in my class on THE SECOND day of school so frustrating.  The more I think about it, the more I’m starting to dig in my heels.  In our district, they have all of these assessment and testing dates established and set in the master calendar.  Well, SOMEBODY decided that ALL kindergarten would DIBEL Benchmark test within the same two week testing window.  Knowing that year round schools have a track out at all times, they were real generous and overlapped the testing window over the date that track two goes out and track one comes in.  Which would be FINE during all the rest of the year.  But it means that I have to have the testing done during the first week of school.  That’s just going to throw the whole establishing routines and procedures right out the window.  Never mind that the other tracks will have had at least two weeks to get their routines and procedures established prior to starting the testing.

It’s not the testing that bothers me, its the interruption of setting the routines.  How do I get that back?  I mean I’m a professional, I know I can do it, but why on earth would I WANT to do it this way?

People, what’s wrong with this picture?

For the other tracks, school has been in session 3 days.

Since I don’t have much else to do, I’ve been hanging out at my school the last few days. More Monday, less today.  We have 4 kindergarten classes in session right now, and one of them is staffed by a long term substitute.  So I’ve been helping the teachers out, running errands they can’t do with 26 or so kids, finding lost kids.  Just helping in general ways.  Things are settling down now so I have been helping less.  Although by Friday, the kids and the teachers will be pretty worn out and ready for the 3 day weekend.  It’s still a couple of weeks before my kids start, and even then, it won’t be as bad because by then the other classes will be settled into their routines and my class will be the only one that doesn’t know what it’s doing and by then, they can follow the examples of the other classes…..

The room has shaped up real nice, I just need to get the storage spaces organized.  On the evening of “Open House” I threw a bunch of stuff in there to make the room look good for the parents and kids.  Poor kids, one of them came right into the room and started looking around.  He said, “Where’s the toys?”  I said, “I hid them.”  He said, “Where?” as he kept looking……  And I replied with, “Well, if I told you, they wouldn’t be hidden anymore would they…..”  He wasn’t too thrilled with that answer.  Poor child, he thinks he’s going to get to PLAY in my class…….

The three days before school begins.

These three days before school starts are filled with meetings and a mad rush to get the rooms and everything else ready for the first day of school, which for most of the teachers at my school and in the rest of the district, means that school starts on Monday. I have to do the three days of meetings, even though my class doesn’t begin until Sept. 15. The hard thing about teaching at a year round school for most teachers is how little time there is between the end of one year and the beginning of the next. Most of our teachers just ended their contracted year on August 11 and they reported back to work yesterday for the new year. So they didn’t get much of a break. In kindergarten that means shifting your thinking from kids that are basically at First Grade one day to two weeks later facing beginning of the year kindergarteners and all that that entails.

One of the things about teaching in a year round setting is that at any given time part of the school is on break.  And this year, I’m on the rotation that has our very first break the first three weeks of school (I guess SOMEONE has to do it).

My new school is doing many of the things and programs that I was doing at my other school. The one NEW thing that is different is that this school is a Reading First school. I know that it means more people in and out of my room while I teach, and that both I and my teaching will be monitored and supported more than I have been used to in the past. Today was the first day that I got really good information about what that really looks like and what it entails. I think I’m going to like it, it makes sense to me. I’m sure that I will have to make some adjustments, but Reading First gives me support in making those changes in my teaching. And really, best practices are best practices. They don’t change, so I’m thinking I might not have to change as much as I thought I would.

I do know that we are going to be jumping into interventions for the Tier II kids kids sooner than I have in the past. Last year we started our Voyager intervention groups in January. Another thing that will be kind of hard is that the District mandated window for the first Benchmark tests in Dibels just happens to fall on the very first week my kids are in school. THAT’S just going to be wonderful. All other kindergarten kids in the district, in all of the regular 9 month schools, and in all of the year round schools on the other calendar retations other than mine, (80% of the year round students) will have been in school for at least two weeks prior to taking the assessments.

Did you know 4

I’ve seen this in various forms a couple of times over the last year, if it doesn’t play here is another link that seems to be one of the latest, and if you pay attention to some of the dates on some of the pages it’s got to be way out of day by now……..

What I think is funny (if it wasn’t so sad) is that there are people who think that full day kindergarten is bad and that we shouldn’t be so academic in kindergarten.

I’ve got my keys…

So they finally gave me my school and room keys. School for me starts mid-September, three weeks after the rest of the school. So most of the rest of the school is gearing up for the start of school in 10 days. They will tolerate me being around if I don’t get in their way.

Today, I started putting up bulletin boards, I got one of the big alphabets up over the white board and got the calendar up. That makes one board done, and four to go. I also made two trips of stuff from home to the room. They shampooed half the room a few days ago, but when I moved all of the stuff on the other half, it was clear that the other half would need to be shampooed as well. The custodian took a look and he agreed. But it will probably be a few days before they get to it.

I met one of the new kindergarten teachers today for the first time. She’s new to the district, so she’s tied up in meetings, but had some time today to start working on her room. She was a little envious I think of my room, since I have one of the actual rooms made for kindergarten (you know, the ones with their own bathrooms) and she’s just got a regular classroom. I told her that I had taught kindergarten for 7 years in a room just like hers. But truth be told, I’m a little envious of myself. A real kindergarten room……

Anyway, I figure I have about three or four more loads to take to school in order to get all my stuff there. Fun, fun, fun. It’s going to take me three weeks to get ready, I don’t know how the rest of them are going to do it in just a week. And three days of next week are tied up with meetings and trainings.  There’s two actual kindergarten rooms and two regular classrooms with kindergarten for 4 classes total.  I’m going to talk to the teacher in the other kindergarten room before I suggest it, but I thought since we have two large walk in closets each, that we might offer some of the shelf space to the other two kinder teachers since they really don’t have any storage space.  I know I’m OK with it, I just want her to be OK with it too, before we offer.

Trying to get into my new room

The latest word is that I can start to get into the school on the 13th at which time I will get my keys, alarm codes, copier codes, and access to my room.   So the thing is, school doesn’t start real soon for me if I stay on the current schedule. On our year-round schedule my schedule starts on September 15th, the rest of the school will have been in session for three weeks at that point. I have to attend the three days of staff meetings next week, but then I’m off until the 15th of September. That doesn’t stop me from wanting to get into my room and get it set up. The real problem is that custodial and everybody else is focusing on the classrooms that start on August 25th. And they should. On the other hand, there is a slim chance that I could be starting on August 25th. The principal was going to ask the lady that she hired for the 5th rotation if she really cared one way or the other. Since I just came off of that rotation it would be what I am most used to. I told her that I would like that, but I’m not trying to make waves or anything. The thing is, if that were to actually happen, then school would be starting on August 25th and I have a LOT to do to be ready.

How could I forget THIS first day thing?

If you have buses at your school, you need to find out EARLY in the day, not the last minute, exactly which kids ride the bus, and if there is more than one bus, which bus they ride. In our district, parents have to sign their kids up with Transportation in order for them to be able to ride the bus, so in theory, it is possible to get a list of the bus riders. Someone at the school at the end of the day, should have the assignment to take the kindergarten kids to their bus and see that they get on it (at my last school, our buses were on the far side of the school. Someone escorted the kindergarten bus kids for the entire year. ). You can’t do that AND dismiss the rest of them, nor can you expect to be able to send them off to the bus by themselves with any reasonable expectation that they will in fact actually make it to the right bus. If the buses pick up in visual line of sight for the teacher it might be feasible.

And this is not a one day thing. Some parents aren’t comfortable with having their kindergartener ride the bus the first day, or even the first few days. I tell them to let me know IN WRITING, the day that the child will begin riding the bus. Do NOT have the child tell me verbally when they are riding the bus. In fact, with any deviation from the norm they should let me know in writing. If a student tells me for example that today, they are not riding the bus, and it’s too late to check at home on the phone, the child WILL ride the bus.

The First Day of School

I saw this list on another blog:

• What do I do on the first day of school?
• What do I wear?
• Am I going to know what to do with unruly students?
• Will the kids respect me?
• How will I know how to teach a certain concept?
• What will I do if a lesson doesn’t go according to plan?
• What if I can’t answer the student’s questions?

Some of those questions are more problematic for first year teachers than others, but I think veteran teachers still deal with some of it. Harry Wong made a bundle on this whole subject.

And in truth, it’s a pretty good book for first year teachers, and a good resource for the rest of us as well.

I’m going to outline what I want to accomplish on the first day. This won’t be a lesson plan as such, just a list of the basics of what I need to get covered the first day. Now we are talking kindergarten here. For many kids, it will be their first day of school—ever. For some parents it’s difficult. Figure that SOMEONE’s going to cry. If it’s not some of the kids, or the parents, it will probably be you. Just kidding…… Can’t do much about the adults, I mean they’re adults for heavens sake. The kids though, generally if they are crying, will get over it quicker if you can get the parents to leave. For some parents, that’s a problem, they feel validated if they think their child NEEDS them…. At my previous school, parents had to leave the children at the gate, they couldn’t come to the room, at least for the first week or so. One or two crying kids can set off some of the others who otherwise wouldn’t have had a problem. Since the first day is pretty confusing right at first, I usually have something for the kids to do when they first come in. Usually it’s an educational video, or maybe paper and pencil at the tables. I haven’t given them crayons yet. Class typically doesn’t get started right on time the first couple of days. There are just too many interruptions. If you are prepared for them, it’s easier.

The Kids

Since they don’t have a CLUE about your expectations as the teacher, and they don’t know the procedures, if you have THINGS that they can get into, they might not see a reason NOT to do so. Generally they are thinking something along the lines of, “TOYS!!!!!” So initially, classroom layout is critical. In the past I have gone as far as to turn the bookcases to the wall or to cover things up with butcher paper. I will tell them that if they get into ANYTHING before I tell them they can, they will NEVER work (and I use the word work, never play) with those things……. Usually someone will get into SOMETHING, sooner or later, and when they do, I make a BIG deal about collecting that thing and putting it WAY away, out of reach, out of sight, out of mind. After a week or two, when they know the drill, and have the procedures down, things can be uncovered and/or brought back and it won’t be an issue.

Once everyone is in and gathered on the floor and kids have settled down, I start with a storybook, or I might start with one of the class puppets (I LOVE puppets from these guys), then move to the Morning Message. Usually Language Arts is in the morning and our reading program has a lesson for every day that we are in session, every single day. I might not get it in until the afternoon on the first day, but I have to get it in. And honestly? If I don’t get any actual teaching done other than the Trophies lesson, and the stuff outlined below, I’m OK with that. Here’s another teacher’s first day….The first day can be like that. It’s me getting to know the kids, and the kids getting to know me and we need to take the time to get off on the right feet together.

Sometime in the first day I need to do the following:

1. give them their name tags and take their pictures (one of the things I need pictures for is this).

2. Practice walking in line. ( I end up doing this off and on throughout the year. There’s something about 5 year olds, they can’t just WALK anywhere. They skip, they hop, they twirl, they dance, they run, they flap their wings, they TALK. You would think that they just discovered their voices, but it’s just that they discovered each other — to talk to….)

3. Do a tour of the general or common parts of the school, including the front office, the health office, the lunchroom, the library, the art room, the music room, the P.E room, bathrooms, and the playground. I will do this at least twice in the first week.

4. Practice what to do in case of a fire drill. We will do this at least 3 times in the first week. Our fire department is notorious for doing a fire drill within the first 10 days of school.

5. Be prepared to give them a small snack if needed, 6 hours of school is a LONG time for kindergarten at the beginning. As an aside, any time a child falls asleep in my class they are allowed to sleep. Their bodies know what they need.

6. Begin teaching about germs and hygiene, washing hands, using tissues and hand sanitizer. This is serious stuff, they will probably get more colds and other illnesses during kindergarten then they have ever had before in the same amount of time. For most of them this will be the biggest germ pool they have ever been exposed to for an extended time. And if you are a new kindergarten teacher, be prepared to get sick, you need to do extra things to keep your immune system strong for the first year or two.

By the end of the first week, EVERYONE is ready for the weekend. They, and you will be exhausted. Everyone will do better the following week and each week thereafter. One of the hardest things I found to deal with when I first got back into the Kindergarten classroom was time. I was always over or under estimating the amount of time a task might take. If something got done quicker than I planned, I had leftover time, If something took longer than planned, it cut into something else’s time. I kept ending up with these odd little blocks of time, I needed lots of ready at hand fillers to take up the odd 5 minutes here, 10 minutes there.

The New Room

OK, now I’m getting excited. Yesterday I went by my new school and got my room assignment. I went by the room and took some pictures so that I could begin planning the layout. I won’t actually be able to get into it for a few more days yet. What is SO cool about it is that it was actually made as a kindergarten classroom. At my old school, in the 18 years I was there, the kindergarten rooms were never used for kindergarten. In one of the rooms there was a long entrenched preK program. And the other room was used for special ed early childhood programs.

The room has two bathrooms, two storage closets, two sinks, four bulletin boards and two white dry erase boards. I should have three Waterford computers and three classroom networked computers. Our school programs are, for Reading, Trophies by Harcourt, supplemented by Reading First, Voyager Learning (we get handhelds for scoring and administering the Dibels tests), and Waterford; our math program is enVision Math by Scott Foresman-Addison Wesley (new this year).