Storytime brings my Super Stars and I together each morning, every day before recess, and right before we leave for home in a way like no other. Storytime is in fact, one of the first "routines" each new group of kindergarten students masters early on each school year. Can you blame them? Engaging literature, intriguing illustrations, and ~the voices~ we use to share stories (okay, the voices *I* use when I read aloud) all catch our students as the world of reading magically opens as they sit at our feet, enthralled.
Needless to say, I was delighted when Bailey arrived in my mailbox:
Written and illustrated by Harry Bliss, Bailey is the story of a brilliant dog who, along with his classmates, is learning to navigate the world of ~school.~
Like most students, Bailey wakes each morning and must wash and brush the sleepies away before riding the bus to school. Unlike most students, Bailey's school fashion includes colorful dog collars.
Bailey participates in all school and class activities, giving his ALL during music, though my students' favorite part of the story was when Bailey danced his wiggles and sillies out. Several students wondered how Bailey would eat his snack and lunch (Would he carry a lunch tray or lunch box? Would he have a dog bowl?) and our teacher aide laughed out loud when she realized why Bailey developed a tummy ache requiring a visit to the school nurse (I'll give you a hint: ..."my dog ate my homework").
During book free-choice time, Bailey was enjoyed again and again, my students poring over each and every page, looking for hidden humor, doggie favorites, and squirrels!
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Would YOU like to win a copy of Bailey?
I'll have THREE winners:
The grand prize winner will receive a copy of Bailey AND a Bailey lunch box:
...while the two runners up will each win a copy of Bailey to add to their own classroom libraries.
To enter this giveaway, please do at least one of the following:
1) Leave a comment ~on this post only~ telling me what grade you teach and what kind of dog (if any) you have! Make sure I have an email address or link so I can notify you if you're the winner!
2) Tweet this giveaway, leaving me a comment ~on this post only~ letting me know the Twitter-verse has been made aware that this great book is available...
I've been back to school for two weeks now, two weeks of half-day sessions where my class of nineteen students has been divided into a morning group of nine students and an afternoon group of ten. We're able to ease most students into new school routines when they're in the smaller groups: how to handle and put away personal belongings, giving papers to the teacher, using the lunch chart, washing hands, and using desk tools safely and at the appropriate times. Students can tour the school, and are introduced to specialists who in turn can share rules and routines that will need to be in place for effective and efficient use of time when we visit Art, Music, Science, Library and P.E. All of our learning centers can be demonstrated and explained, and we can get to know each student a bit better, academically through baseline screening/assessments and socially through one-on-one time. We begin to bond.
Even with the smaller groups, it's a huge undertaking. What most non-kindergarten teachers and parents fail to understand though is that despite this introductory time, once both groups of students are combined and attending kindergarten full day, it's a whole new ball of wax.
Why?
~ Students are four, five, or six years old. Many have had immediate attention from and constant interaction with their parents since birth, and haven't yet developed the skills, patience, or understanding of how time passes to be able to wait for their turn with the teacher. Adults will make an appointment and go on about their lives until it's time to meet. Kindergartners will not.
~ Having to compete with eighteen (or more) other students for the teacher's attention is a pain! How to get noticed and experience that instant gratification of acknowledgement? Push. Yell. Interrupt. Whine. Impatiently raise your hand so 1) you get points for following the rules but 2) get to talk to the teacher first. You know, all those things that work with moms and dads.
~ Speaking of what works at home: I asked a student demonstrating what I suspected was selective hearing exactly how many times he made his mother say his name before he answered her. The young man actually pondered, counted on his fingers, and then told me "three or four." No grin, no sass, and I suspect, no fib. My next question had to be "... and am I your mother?" No sarcasm, no authority, no threat. Just a question. He pondered again. "Uh......nooooooooo," followed by a puzzled expression that washed over his cherubic face.
That's right, you might *think* that parents or pre-school have readied your new students for sharing, taking turns, empathizing, sympathizing, being patient, and complying, but I'm here to tell you: I love kindergarten. I love kindergartners.
I do NOT love the first few weeks of our full day program.
My Stars are frustrated. They doubt me. They lash out at one another. They want my attention and they want it now, even though we're in the middle of a story, or a classmate has had an accident and needs his hand held to walk down to the nurse's office for a change of clothes. But *I* want you NOW teacher.
During the small group transition weeks, patience is easier. One-on-one time happens more often. It's easier to buy into following the rules, humoring the teacher, cutting one another some slack. Kindergarten is fun, and the kids are willing to come day after day. Parents are relieved and reassured.
And then WHAM-O, reality sets in, and we're back to square one. Parents become concerned because their children start saying they don't like kindergarten. Mrs. Sommerville is ~not~ the "bestest and nicest teacher ever," and sharing materials with that little girl that always grabs instead of asking or taking turns isn't fun. Students might compete with siblings at home, but I guarantee there are few who have to juggle eighteen other personalities, temperaments, moods and needs under their roof for seven straight hours when all they really care about are their own.
Sure, some of the kids are spoiled. Some are unexperienced and unexposed. Some are so performance-driven that they appear perfectly ready for school: they wait, use their indoor voices, say please and thank you, know how to use scissors safely, and they don't over-react when *that* kid cuts in line for the third time. After a few days of this perfection however, those sweethearts crack too, and rightfully so.
It's tough. Though it's part of the job, and I know everything, given time, will end up okay, it's draining. Difficult. Stressful.
My students have several locations throughout our room where we chart, graph, and tally information daily. Sometimes they'll write their names or make a mark to answer questions posed on chart paper or our markerboard, and other times they'll clip clothespins to appropriate sections of whatever chart we might be using for survey info. These clips have their names on them.
Thanks to prior hand injuries, it's difficult for me to write legibly when I print small letters on narrow surfaces. Hooray for printers, scissors, wooden clothespins and Mod Podge!
First I print out my students' names twice, making sure the ink has time to dry completely:
Then I clip clothespins to some cardstock to keep them from rolling.
I trim the paper so each name fits on the longer wooden section of the clothespin:
Paint a thin layer of Mod Podge across the clip where the name will be adhered:
Then press the name onto the clip, smoothing out any air bubbles. Be careful not to smear the ink on the paper:
Paint a thin layer (okay, so it looks globby and opaque- never fear, it will dry clear) over the paper and let it dry before flipping the clip over and repeating the process on the back:
These particular clips will be used on our class lunch chart, so that students, visitors and I can indicate whether we're having school lunch or home lunch each day.
Though these are plain (fabulous for name recognition), these clips are easy to "prettify" if you'd like.
Here I've clipped some scrapbook paper:
... and I've topped them off with star buttons, using the wonder adhesive, E-6000:
Once dry, you can add magnets to the back of each clip if you'd like to use these on magnetic surfaces. The Mod Podge dries VERY quickly, but the E-6000 should be allowed to dry overnight.
~ Scroll all the way through Mama's Little Monkey's tutorial for a fun stamping idea for clothes pins... I'm thinking SIGHT WORDS!
~ If you're a crafter, you know holiday gifts must be made early! Here's a fabulous Christmas card display idea using.... yep, you guessed it....craftyified clothespins.
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How do you fill your students' learning areas with print?
Reading Blueberries for Sal each year on Blue Day is a *must* for me.
Today during story time, students quietly raised their hands mid-story and pointed up toward the ceiling:
My morning group (the class is split into a.m. and p.m. groups for the first two weeks of school) maintained a whispery tone as they asked questions about the lizard, perhaps hoping that they wouldn't scare it off by becoming too loud:
Teacher, how did that lizard get up there?
Mrs. Sommerville, how did the lizard get inside the light?
Mrs. Sommerville, does he know we can see him?
After he scampered away, we returned to the story, where kuplink! kuplank! kuplunk! made the Stars smile.
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In the afternoon, I was reading I Love You, Blue Kangaroo, when a shriek erupted from the carpet:
At the beginning of every school year, introductions must be made, names have to be learned, and my students and I begin to build our relationships with one another.
Years ago, my maiden name was a difficult one for parents to pronounce. My students could say my name beautifully, though its origin isn't American English, but Inupiaq Eskimo. It has two "K's." One family thought my name was Ms. Cowlick.
Needless to say, I allowed my Super Star families to call me "Ms. K." whenever the need arose.
Two years ago I taught a young lady who still hadn't acquired her V's, so instead of being greeted as "Mrs. Sommerville," I received a sing-song-y "Good morning Mrs. Sommerbille" as she entered the classroom each day.
You can't deny the cuteness factor when you're a kindergarten teacher!
Today however, might bethe one that goes down in my career as the ~best~ renaming day I've experienced as a teacher.
My morning group of Super Stars had worked through storytime, a center, a discussion about classroom rules, and a coloring page before their grumbling tummies let me know it was time for snack. Students retrieved their pudding cups, crackers, granola bars, bananas, chips, and juice boxes from their backpacks and then sat down at their desks to eat.
Several students asked for help when snipping the tops off of their snack bags. Another boy asked me to help him punch the straw through his juice pouch. When all seemed right as rain, I walked back toward my desk to check the rest of the day's schedule. From behind me, I heard one of my girls:
J: Uh, teacher? Teacher? Mrs.... Mrs... *whispers to table-mate* What is her name again?
K: *using a whisper voice* Mrs. Sommerville. Her name is Mrs. Sommerville.
J: Oh, okay. Mrs. Happy Meal? Mrs. Happy Meal... I need some help opening my snack please!
K: *still using a whisper voice* Uh, no, her name isn't Mrs. Happy Meal, it's Mrs. Som.....mer.....ville.
J: Oh, uh-huh. I need help opening my snack!
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I was ~rolling~!
And then the teacher in me took over: does she need a hearing evaluation sooner rather than later? Was she just doing a food/snack association thing with my name? Or is this the student who will be the main source of the laugh lines I'm bound to continue to develop this year?
Day One, down.
...and I'll take a chicken nugget Happy Meal with apple slices and a Diet Coke with a girl toy, thank you very much!
Each student has eight packets of workpages (like the ones above) covering our math curriculum for school use. We don't teach the themes (and therefore don't use the pages) in order, and we also want to prevent students from accidentally writing on or altering multiple workpages by giving them the packet as a whole. To solve these problems, we pull pages, sort them, and store them in "instructional order" in our file cabinets.
If you've ever pulled pages from workbooks, you know the workout your hands and wrists endure. You've also probably muttered a curse or twelve under your breath as you've accidentally ripped a page so unevenly that it can't be salvaged. If the packets or workbooks aren't terribly thick, you can enlist the help of one of the scariest teacher tools ever created to make your job a bit easier: the paper cutter.
Here's the packet... I've flipped it so that it's positioned with the spine under the safety bar and the blade:
Yes, that blade is *dangerous*. Make sure that your fingers and clothes are clear of the board before you lower the blade arm.
Cut the spine off of the packet, and remember that there are probably sharp staples sticking out of it. That's right, the blade of the paper cutter can hurt you, and the staples hidden in the spine can hurt you too... it's a conspiracy!
Your worksheets can be sorted after you've finished cutting off the spines:
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Pages in thicker workbooks can also be cut away from the spine **if** you section the workbook first, opening it in half (breaking the spine/glue if possible) and cutting it down the middle, then halving each section into quarters and cutting them so that the sections are thinner. If you try to chop a workbook that is too thick, you risk damaging the worksheets, seriously injuring yourself as you force the blade down, and breaking the paper cutter which will then have to be repaired or replaced. Not exactly the best way to start the school year!
