Tending the Eclectic Kinder-Garden

After a year of posting here, here, and here, I’ve been fortunate enough to have made some wonderful new colleagues, friends, and acquaintances through our shared commitment to teaching children.  I’m apparently now showing up on more than a few blogrolls, and have started being contacted by other bloggers, educators, even sales-pitch-people, complimenting my blog and asking me to please visit theirs, share, or contribute.

I am grateful, in awe, blushing a bit, and thrilled to be expanding my network with other parents, teachers, child advocates, and those involved in public education.

I am also very pleased to share links and blogs I’ve been invited to peruse:

~OpenEducation.net has some incredible posts I am looking forward to catching up on, but their offering of videos as Inspiration for a New School Year was just the right pick-me-up that a lot of us need as we return to our classrooms.  “Kindergarchy” is a phrase I’ll enjoy reading up on at their site as well with their latest posting, Parenting Lessons at the Weekly Standard.

~NIEER, the National Institute for Early Education Research is now posting articles individually (rather than in a collection in one issue) that are accessible via their issue archive.

~Author and former teacher (not really, she still teaches and guides teachers through professional development!) Deb Renner Smith made me an instant subscriber to her blog after I read Parents Matter!  First Days of School.

~Kathy at Teach-a-holic (what a great blog name!) has taken me right back to my subbing days, before I was hired to teach full time in my own classroom.  The ins and outs of hiring, irregular paychecks, and the annual TB test can be found in her online blog/journal.

Check ‘em all out!

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I’ve posted over at In Practice again (I know, it’s been a long time!), this time regarding Professional Development for Teachers. Check it out!
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I would love to see district in-service meetings run like TED Talks.  Have you watched “The Future We Will Create: Inside the World of TED?”  Do so, do so do so.  The energy is incredible.  “Books ARE technology.”  “Creativity is as important as literacy.”

My brain is about ready to swoon.

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Tags: In Practice

Multiple times.  Plural.  And while my blog-reading and blog-posting schedule will have to change a bit now that I’m back to work, I couldn’t resist subscribing to the following:

Confections

Raggedy Old Annies

The Shabby Nest

A Fanciful Twist

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Once I finish reading through the latest Artful Blogging, I’m sure I’ll have more blogs to recommend! I’ll also be pruning and updating my blogroll before school starts on Monday.

This afternoon our students get to visit with us in our classrooms for a short time! Yay! I’ll be taking their photos so I can make their center tags this weekend (having them for two days before school starts will also help me learn their names quickly), and getting contact/email/parent teacher conference schedules taken care of with their “special grown ups.” I’ll set out a coloring page for those students who want to take their desks and chairs for a test drive, and will be making quick observations and mental notes like the ones I mentioned here.

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Crayons! Thanks Sesame Street!

Look at this ceiling:

I think it needs a little something…but how to hang decor without creating unnecessary visual noise?

Filament.  Fishing wire.  “Monofilament.”

The clear stuff.

I cut twenty five pieces, all the same length, long enough to be doubled over, knotted at the end (double knot it, this stuff can be slippery):

I gathered twenty five large paperclips and twenty five small…

Hooked the large paperclip onto the tied end:

…and hooked the smaller clip at the opposite (or big-clip-at-the-top, little-clip-at-the-bottom):

Had Dear Daughter place them on the desks above which they would hang (be careful, monofilament tangles and knots very easily so don’t gather up several strands at once!):

I tucked the end with the large paperclip between the dropped ceiling tile frame and the tile itself:

…which left the other end free to hang:

I’ve seen classrooms where teachers have used yarn to make these hanging loops, but the thickness and color of the yarn was pretty distracting, taking away from the artwork or curriculum materials displayed.  Can you see the hooks I’ve hung?

They’re there, trust me!

I found some patterned star and crayon shapes, punched holes in the top, and ran one of the pokey ends of the small paperclip through the holes:

There they are!

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Things to keep in mind if you decide to hang decor from the ceiling:

~ Some districts/schools don’t allow items to dangle down from the ceiling due to the fire safety hazard.

~ Districts that *do* allow ceiling decor STILL have to follow fire safety rules/regulations, which will dictate the height or length of the loop.  Typically the tallest person in the room (which is probably YOU) should be able to walk under the loop, paperclip, AND item dangling on the display safely.  Nothing should touch your hair, your head, and certainly should not be low enough to get caught on clothing, or be within reach of students.

~ I use the ceiling decor loops to display patterns (star, crayon, star, crayon, star, crayon) throughout the year, or any student artwork that is two-sided or three dimensional.  When the leaves turn color and start to fall, we’ll make “Fresh Fall Leaf Mobiles,” and in October, we’ll have jack-o-lanterns, bats, and spiders hanging.  Hand print turkeys, cornucopias, and tissue paper maize art look wonderful in November, and winter holiday artwork gussies up the room in December.

~ Make sure that the weight of the artwork being hung won’t pull the clip from the ceiling, hitting students or falling onto their desks.  This is an art display idea for lightweight items only!

~ I only use the loops over the childrens’ desk area, NOT throughout the room.  When kindergarten students sit at their desks, the ceiling can seem very tall, and very far away.  Lowering some artwork helps to “cozy up” the space.  Students always enjoy “figuring out the pattern” or seeing their own artwork admired by their classmates or room visitors too!

~ Don’t change out the artwork when students are in the classroom, because chances are you’ll have to use a ladder (or *cough cough* a chair/footstool) to safely reach the hooks yourself.

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Several of you have commented on or emailed me about the Apple Basket Tree I have housing our puppets in the classroom.  Check back tomorrow for photos!