Trick or Treat...

Usually my aide and I paint my Stars' feet with white paint, making Halloween ghosts for classroom decor.  This year, we couldn't resist playing with the silly greeting:





White paint on the heel, yellow on the arch, and orange near the toes turned the Stars' feet into candy corn:



The giggles from the tickles were worth it!



*****

Oh. Yes. I. Did. (~and you can too!)

What's ~not~ to love in this autumn mix?

Whoppers.

Mini pretzels.

Peanut butter M&M candies.

Brach's candy corn and sweet candy pumpkins.

Smokehouse almonds.



Either way, it's just what I needed after the third Monday in a row this week.  If you're experiencing the dreaded phenomena of Multiple-Mondays, make a batch and indulge yourself.  If you're feeing generous, plop a large bowl of it down in the staff lounge too.  I'm certain other Multiple-Mondays sufferers will be glad you did.

:)

Michaele

Ahoy Matey!

Are YOU ready for International Talk Like a Pirate Day?

Check out Walmart's holiday/party section for new Halloween stamps: that's where I found the perfect skull and crossbones ($1) for the Jolly Roger detail on my Super Stars' pirate hats!

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Talk Like a Pirate Day is the perfect celebration for students to explore the letter Aaaaarrrrrrrrr (R), play with language and expand vocabularies (Ahoy Matey!  Shiver me timbers!), expand their dramatic play opportunities past the "house center," and even develop gross motor skills (walking the plank).  My husband is loaning me a wooden ramp from our trailer so that my Stars can balance, giggle, pretend, and giggle some more!  If you don't have a wooden plank available, use colored paper: a sea of blue with a "plank" of brown on top of it.

*****

Check out more pirate activities at:

~ Nancy Nolan's Kindergarten

~ Storytime Katie

~ Supermom

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Don't Be Afraid to...

~ Re-arrange your room: try a learning center in a new spot; if possible, relocate your desk and use its backside as a new surface for anchor charts, magnetic letters and numbers, or an art display.

~ Ask colleagues for a tour of their teaching spaces: you can learn a lot about organization, efficiency, learning centers, technology tools, safety and differentiated instruction by sneaking a peek and asking questions.  Teachers are eager to share if you’ll only ask.

~ Sell, donate or recycle the old, unused, or unnecessary items in your stash: if you’ve been teaching for more than five years, it’s likely you’re beginning the subtle transformation from collector to hoarder.  Sort, assign, donate.  Trust me, you need the room and new teachers need hand-me-downs.

~ Modify worksheets and practice pages to best meet the needs of your students:  at the beginning of the year, it’s difficult for many of my students to sit and write for long periods of time.  It’s even more difficult to keep pages they’ve started and set aside from being mangled, cut, or taken home before they’re finished.  I cut my handwriting pages in half, so instead of having to practice four numbers at a sitting, my Stars only have to practice two (our pages are two-sided). 

~ Map out your curriculum plan/schedule for the year: use a monthly planner or day runner to keep track of your weekly theme, letter of the week, math concept, science vocabulary, and journal topics.  I even keep track of early dismissal days, mid-quarter assessments, grade card dates, field trips, parent/teacher conferences and other special events on my master calendar. 

~ Follow Pinterest boards and blogs: you’ll find great photos, links, ideas, crafts and tips from fellow public and home schooling teachers online.  Why recreate the wheel if you don’t have to?

~ Pick up a new hobby: it’s easy to inspire a love of lifelong learning in your students if you’re a lifelong learner yourself.  If it feels like you’re eating, breathing, walking, talking and sleeping public education, choose a hobby away from the school building.  Read a book for pleasure, attend a concert or play, learn how to crochet, sew or bake.  Take up walking or start a new exercise program.  Learn to speak a new language, and make sure to set aside “you” time weekly to recharge your batteries and smell the roses.

~ Expand your mind: sometimes all it takes is listening to or reading a great thinker to help our own brains kick it up a notch.  Follow interesting people on Twitter, join group pages on Facebook, contribute to a wiki, or, if you’re an occasional insomniac like I am, watch the latest TED Talk videos.

What additional advice do ~you~ have for fellow teachers? 

Students as Political Props

It's election-time and once again our children and students are being used as political props in campaign rhetoric aimed at earning votes.

Ranking schools by test results, "cracking down" on bad teachers, holding parents accountable for providing appropriate schema and a healthy lifestyle for their children prior to the start of kindergarten, and of course, the "opportunity" to ~choose~ a better school if the one down the road "fails" all earn roars of approval and ovations from the crowd at every rally.

If America really cared about children and education, no parent or family would have to "choose" one school over another: EVERY school would would be well-equipped, safe, maintained, and staffed by highly qualified and honestly compensated teachers, specialists and administrators. 

As a seventeen-year teaching veteran, it's annoying when political parties, candidates and pundits argue that parents "should be able to choose" the best school for their children. They insist it's a perk when families have to move in order to transfer their children out of their neighborhood school and take them elsewhere, eventually effectively overcrowding that school, so that in time, it too "fails" to reach "academic excellence." The best schools aren't given extra teachers when overcrowding starts to happen. New hallways, wings or auditoriums aren't added on either. And how about those families whose children are "stuck" in the not-so-hot neighborhood school? 

This idea of "choice" and ranking schools MAINTAINS inequality for children: those who CAN move to a better school DO, and those who CAN'T, and who frankly need it most, are trapped with a possible school closure in their future necessitating a move that many families can't afford. Add to the mix varying funding options for school districts, and we've proven we really don't want education equality at all. Nice solution. 

Overhaul education by giving every school the same resources from free/reduced lunch, speech therapy, OT/PT, a guaranteed quality arts program, a healthy living/physical education department, current technology, healthy meals and outdoor learning spaces.  Fill those schools with highly qualified teachers and staff, provide quality professional development opportunities, and pay education professionals commensurate to the job they do. That's as close as we're going to get to education equality, roughly providing every child with necessary resources from 7:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. each day: what they do with their futures is up to them and their hormones once they reach high school. 

Campaign rhetoric is just talk, and party constituents don't want politicians to walk the walk. Our society isn't ~really~ based on equal opportunity: it's based on how we compare and rank ourselves to other Americans, our children to other children, ourselves to neighbors, to other states, to other cultures. We want the advantages for our children and our family, NOT for others, and believe we are entitled and absolved from accountability to continue this hypocrisy as long as we wear an American flag pin on our lapel.

Shame on us.  What do you think our children will do to their and our tomorrow when they realize how we cheated them today? 

Political speeches, verbal pandering and emotional manipulations give me heartburn at this stage in my life, which is nothing compared to what it does to my Super Stars.

My World

You're a Teacher

(Jerry Mills)