Wednesday’s Wordle, and Words and Wonderings from Kindergartners

Yep, that’s what this blog is all about! (Click on the image to be taken to Wordle)

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My tip to new teachers?  Write it down.

“Mrs. Sommerville, how come crayons won’t erase like pencils?”

“Teacher!  You’re older than my dad!  Can you put him in Time Out?”

“I’m confused.  My mommy says to tell her if my daddy got her a nice present.  My daddy says I’m not supposed to tell Mommy he got her a nice present.  I’m gonna get in trouble with one of them!”

“Teacher, you’re pretty.  Except when you start singing.  Then you’re just silly.”

“If I’m a Super Star, does that mean my brother is a Super Star too?”

“Look, when I’m sixteen, THEN I’ll have a girlfriend, but not right now in kindergarten.  Cause my mom said so.”

“I’m so smart, I wish I could give my brain a treat for doing a good job!”

“I know why it’s called ‘an accident:’ ’cause I didn’t do it on *purpose*!”

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~Kelli shares a wonderful tutorial on how to make aprons…

~CasaSugar links to Martha Stewart’s DIY baby blocks (I’d love to make some with a Halloween theme!)…

~Laura at Paint in My Hair shares a wonderful “any fruit” crisp dessert (and check out the peachy photos!)…

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Pre-Deal-or-No-Deal-fame, Howie got me ready to teach kindergarten:

When in Rome…

…one has to *learn* what the Romans do!

After this first week at school, I’ve figured out a few things about myself. Surprising, because I didn’t spend the past year actively asking myself questions about teaching, debating how I’d like to spend my free time, or building face-to-face collegial ties. I also didn’t anticipate how my unique traveling circumstances (I’m now working with my fifth principal in my fourth school district in my third state since 2003) would affect my mood, my tone, and my attitude when I was once again hired to teach with a school staff that for the most part (other than the new hires that joined me this year) has remained the same for a while now.

My first ten years of teaching were spent in the same school, at the same grade, with roughly the same colleagues. The nurse, lead custodian and music teacher’s positions changed (along with a new principal) but the rest of us were a long term team, quirks, beliefs about education and all. Teaching in a small community, any teachers who transferred in were already known to everyone, and those who left visited often. A comfort zone was created by this long term teaching commitment that I have not felt again since leaving Alaska.  Comfort zones are more common for those who stay in one place longer than a year.

Easy to understand since I spent one year teaching in New Mexico, one year in Kansas, and took last year off while we were stationed in Texas. I haven’t been anywhere long enough to settle into a school’s routine, a staff’s easy banter in the lounge, a community’s familiar scenery. On this latest educational stage, many roles are the same (librarian, kindergarten team, cafeteria staff, administration, special education teachers, custodians etc.) along with some new characters (21st Century Classroom teacher, Educational Dome Theater instructor, Compass Lab facilitator), and the goals we all work toward achieving are student focused and are seemingly educationally sound. Contemplating my new environment, I’m reflecting on my own perceptions, not knowing anyone well enough yet to be able to guess with any certainty what, if anything, is running through their minds as they interact with me.

For someone with over a decade’s worth of teaching experience, a person who has taught in very ethnically, religiously, geographically and socio-economically diverse locations, I’ve been asking what must seem like silly questions this past week, to include “What do the alarms sound like at this school?” My principal was kind enough to let us listen to short bursts of the tornado alarms, but several colleagues have looked at me like I’ve lost my mind when I’ve asked for a description of the sounds since, as hearing those alarms and dealing with them is second nature for teachers who have been here longer than a year.  Alaskan schools have fire alarms. No tornado alarms. No earthquake alarms, nada. Just fire bells. In the newer schools, there are probably some computerized alarms with flashing strobes, but that’s it. In the New Mexico school I worked at, there were no tornado alarms. No door alarms. No intruder-on-campus drills (I’m sure that has changed since). In my previous Kansas school, the fire bell and tornado alarm did not sound the same as they do here.  Some of you have sirens, some of you have bells, some of you have “tornado watch” beeps that are different from the “tornado imminent” howls- and at least in this school, you have a new teacher who has not heard them before.  Thank you for your patience, new colleagues. Hopefully you feel you have a new partner that wants to be as prepared as possible, so she’s asking.

One school had designated door holders during alarms, another stressed that no kindergarten student should hold the doors because they might get trampled, or get scared and be left inside, and another school insisted that all students file through the doors pushing the bar and not looking back, trusting that the next student in line would also be facing forward, arms at the ready to push the door open as s/he walked through in a quick but orderly fashion.  Cafeteria routine?  In Alaska, my students ate in the classroom.  In New Mexico, they ate in the cafeteria which was in an annex building right next to ours.  In Kansas School Number One, the gym and cafeteria were the same place.  In Alaska, children had two choices, “home lunch” or “school lunch.”  Same in New Mexico and Kansas School Number One. Here, my students have the following choices: entree one, entree two, peanut butter and jelly sandwich, bagel and yogurt, OR home lunch.  Wow.  And if you’ve taught kindergarten before, you know exactly how that routine goes during the first week of school: “I changed my mind, I want something else,” or “I thought I had lunch but this whole lunch sack is really filled with SNACK,” or “I don’t have to do the lunch chart because I’m not hungry.”  Throw in a few “I brought home lunch but I want pizza now,” or “but I drank the three juices Mom gave me and now I want milk” and you can imagine that every so often, too much of a good thing is NOT a good thing.

Routines for duties, who walks whom back, who escorts students to buses, who picks up kids from the day care, who walks, who takes attendance and lunch count (I have an aide this year), who does copies, what hours can we be in the building over the weekend, and is it the class list on yellow, the red or green paddle flags or the class list on a clipboard we use for emergencies at this school? Does the principal want composite data sheets on students’ beginning-of-the-year screening assessments, copies of e-mail communication that *might* get tricky depending on how parents interpret them, and lesson plans on a weekly spread page or in daily list format?  Do the staff members at this school view kindergarten teachers as teachers or glorified babysitters?  Do we sit wherever we want to during staff meetings or do we sit at tables by grade level?  How clique-ish are the teachers?  I can’t tell you how I *wish* I could do a selective brain dump on the routines and need-to-know info I’ve had to memorize and learn from my previous teaching locations so I can keep this new set straight!  Who uses the hallway potties and when since my classroom shares a single seat girls’ toilet and a single seat boys’ toilet with another entire classroom (talk about bad planning that someone should have caught when looking over the blueprints!), and though handrails are available down ramps we use to get to other parts of the school, why are most teachers encouraging their students NOT to use them while walking?  I know, I know.  I’ll “get it” this year.  Time will give me the info.

Unless Uncle Sam decides to move us AGAIN.

Playing Catch Up!

…with a little bit of this and a little bit of that today~

A very happy birthday to my grandmother, my childrens’ “G.G.” I spoke to her today on the phone, and she mentioned she enjoyed a celebratory cappuccino during lunch. She hasn’t had a jolt of caffeine in years, so her afternoon was probably spent hanging out with this fellow:

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It has been a busy first week of school with students.  A lot of joy, tons of enthusiasm, a bit of drama, much-appreciated reassurances, and a remarkable amount of support from parents, students, new colleagues and administrators.  I knew I would *love* returning to teach in the land of Oz!

Reading the comments many of you have left and the e-mails you’ve sent to me about my classroom decor, teaching philosophy, and your unselfish sharing of ideas, links and resources has been the icing on the cupcake, truly.  I’m looking forward to exploring your sites and updating my blogroll this weekend!  Professional Learning Communities and Collegial Ties certainly can and DO exist worldwide now!

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~Poppytalk Handmade got my attention with School Days, a back-to-school and fashion market.

~ Now that I’m teaching in a school that utilizes Smart Boards in the classroom, the nostalgia of chalkboards has hit me… Poppytalk has been similarly affected!

~Frazzy Dazzles has me wishing we were neighbors, crafting friends, because she captured The Very Hungry Caterpillar perfectly for her daughter’s birthday!

~The family wants me to try Crispy Yogurt Chicken, thanks to The Pioneer Woman Cooks…

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Tomorrow is Purple Day in my classroom! Yes Mom, I’ll be wearing my purple cowboy boots- but the students will be enjoying several stories about Harold and his purple crayon:

Wordless Wednesday (Enjoying the Color Red!)

Houston, We Have Lift-Off!

I’m ready, are you?

(Enjoy it, it’s the cleanest my desk will look all year!)

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A few more plants for the classroom, and I’ll be happy.

~Here’s a list of safe and poisonous plants to review before you purchase greenery for your classroom…  VERY important info since some kindergarten students are still *oral* when school starts, putting lots of non-food-items into their mouths.

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I’m baking Kissing Hands today- head over to Mrs. Fischer’s Kindergarten Theme page for  more ideas on how to use this special story on the first day of school!

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I hope you have a WONDERFUL start to the school year!

I…am…*SO*…Excited!

The first day of school is Monday, and I’ve already met all but two of my students, thanks to a short Open-House-type visit yesterday afternoon!

I’ll wrap up some details for you today, and then unveil the classroom in all its glory tomorrow, okie dokie?

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I made center tags:

Many teachers list their centers on a single chart, somehow rotating names of students to cycle them through activities each day.  Some teachers leave all centers as “free choices” for the  year.  I make center tags that are located at EACH activity, and I myself rotate students’ names/photos (not shown for confidentiality’s sake) that are affixed to each tag with hook-and-loop tape or dots.  This may seem labor intensive, but for the first few weeks of school, I like to move through the classroom, helping and monitoring each student in all of the center locations.  I signal it’s time to clean up and move to the next center with a special clap or by ringing a bell.  Rotating the tags myself gives me the chance to see if the students are cleaning up appropriately, or are just leaving their mess for the next student to deal with as everyone else moves on.  Catching students cleaning up gives me the opportunity to provide positive feedback, and I’m able to redirect mess-makers back to their last center before they become too engrossed in the next activity.  After the first month of school, I can become a center that students will visit, and I can trust the kindergartners working elsewhere to clean up before moving on without too much intervention on my part.

Changing the photos to rotate students through centers assures that I won’t be stuck sitting all morning as well!

Each center lasts anywhere from ten to fifteen minutes, and no, none of my centers are “optional.”  Every student cycles through every center, visiting their favorites, and knowing that, should they encounter an activity they’re not very fond of, it WILL end, and they WILL make it away from there to work elsewhere!

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Here’s a close up of my “Welcome” card (it’s a postcard by Mary Englebreit, available at many teacher stores) and the button my kindergarten colleagues made for each student:

I put a poem about the first day of school in the card for parents to read, and let my students know they can wear their pin for the first week of school, and then transfer it to a lunch bag or backpack.  I’m guessing there are a few parents out there that save the button for their childrens’ scrapbooks or photo albums!

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While new kindergarten students need quiet and calm guidance paired with nurturing on their first day of school, many parents are just as tender-hearted and emotionally fragile as their children.  I give each family a little gift bag that has a cotton ball, some kleenex, and a tea bag before they leave us on the first day.  The cotton ball is to remind parents of their child’s soft spirit, the kleenex is to help them dry their tears, and I encourage parents to go home, heat up some water, make a cup of tea, and relax.

Frankly, it’s the most gentle way I’ve found to…cut the apron strings.

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We’ll be learning about colors for the first two weeks of school, so I’ve prepped some die cuts and art activities in advance:

I’m not sure if we’ll make necklaces out of the die cut shapes or use the shapes for some other activity, but the large white apples with green stems are ready for students to cut or tear red construction paper out to glue onto them on “Red Day.”  On Red Day we’ll wear something red or bring a red item from home to share.  Same thing for Blue Day, Yellow Day, Green Day, etc., and of course we’ll read books like Green Eggs and Ham, Blueberries for Sal, Green Wilma, Who Said Red, Harold’s Purple Crayon, etc.  Dressing in similar colors and making group projects helps to bring us together as a class, giving us ownership of our surroundings, making us feel like we belong, and forging bonds with classmates and teachers.

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Tomorrow I’ll be baking “Kissing Hand” cookies, but will post classroom photos for you to see too!

Show and Share Thursday: It’s Gettin’ There…

With the help of Dear Daughter, the classroom is *almost* finished. We had to do some rearranging of furniture today since I have fewer than twenty students presently (yay!), so I now have a larger table ready for math manipulatives (you can see the students’ desks in the background):

The listening center is set up at the front of the room for now, though the desk will probably house our laptop computers once they’re delivered:

My students’ desks have their nameplates ready for them, along with yellow “Welcome” cards for their first visit tomorrow.  My colleagues made some very cute cards of their own, and made buttons that say “I’m in Kindergarten” for the students to wear the first week of school- I incorporated the extra buttons they made for me into my own cards (I’ll try to remember to photograph the inside of one tomorrow):

By the way, the nameplates are NOT stuck to the desks yet.  I can’t always be certain what name a student will choose to be called, and spelling errors sometimes occur, so parents will have the chance to help me correct the labels and tags tomorrow.  I don’t usually adhere the nameplates to desks until I know my seating arrangement will work- some students will work well together, while others create an unsafe, unfriendly, or just plain rowdy scene when seated next to each other.  Cooperation and appropriate social interactions are key!

In case you were wondering, I do NOT ask parents to write their child’s name on every box of crayons, glue bottle, pencil, or Kleenex box.  Too much time is lost when students start the “Teacher, she took MY pink crayon,” or “Mrs. Sommerville, he touched MY green scissors” routine.  No, no, and NO.  Putting items without labels into group tubs (I purposely empty crayon boxes into a larger tub before distributing colors amongst tables) and modeling how students should share and help is another important experience children should have.  I will routinely ask students questions such as “May I please borrow a red crayon?  I would like to help J. color this apple red.  Thank you for sharing!  I will give the crayon back when I am done.”  It doesn’t take long for the students to adopt the polite tone and vocabulary in our classroom.

Our writing center (full of cards, envelopes, paper, pencils, crayons, and stencils):

One view of our reading center (do you like my apple quilt?), with a display about colors:

Calendar, months, days of the week, and weather at “circle”:

Pretend/Dramatic Play Center (have you noticed the little peeks of tan curtains in each photo?  I sewed those last weekend, and hung them on tension rods to cut down on the visual noise):

My reading table and teacher station (that’s a Happy Birthday display on the wall) that should be clean and presentable tomorrow:

When I’m new to a school, I post a bulletin board display in the hallway about Me, Myself, and I. I post photos of me, my family, and blurbs that my students might find of interest (”I have a cat named Anni.  Anni likes to watch dinosaur shows on television.” or “I like glitter, jewelry, motorcycles, and trucks…”) and always post drawings previous students have given me of…ME!  (I’ll photograph some tomorrow, today’s turned out blurry for some reason).  Since my favorite story is Where the Wild Things Are, I include a poster of a wild rumpus too!

While the display isn’t “all Vegas” or schoolish, its simplicity draws students and their families in to read, share, and look at photos, helping them to get to know me a bit better, quietly, peacefully transitioning them into their time spent with me.

My “welcome” display with students’ names on stars, and quotes about early childhood and developmentally appropriate practice for parents to read and think about:

Should family members come by to visit at a time we’re elsewhere, they can find us after checking our “locater” display:

“Mrs. Sommerville’s Super Stars are at:” and then tags with hook-and-loop dots on the back read “Music,” “Recess,” “the library,” “an assembly,” and “P.E.”  I still need to add a few more as we’ll also visit the dome theater, computer lab, and 21st Century Classroom (Science).

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I’m off to bake cookies!

…and Now for Some Fine Tuning and Tweaking…

In photos my blue bulletin boards really do dominate, don’t they? Take a closer look though and you might be able to see signs of fine tuning in this corner, that corner, and some tweaking of the furniture arrangement (and oh look! The chairs have found their appropriate places too!):

To the rear, our reading “circle,” literacy/story time/calendar area (I know, I still need a chair):

Students’ desks and areas for computers, legos, and all of our math manipulatives (on shelves):

Dramatic Play to the left, puppets in the apple baskets, and painting/clay to the right (yes, I put up Kadinsky, Picasso, and Van Gogh prints):

The view from the rear classroom doors, next to the bathroom area:

I’m still sorting materials and supplies on the art cart:

Hmm, it looks like our kitchen (dramatic play) is in need of repair:

Here’s a closer look at our storytime corner. In addition to our books and listening center, I place three tubs of math manipulatives, and three tubs of literacy/language games in this area so my students can have some additional practice with problem solving, patterning, and phonics whenever we get a free moment. I also use this area to introduce and explain worksheets or model small paper activities that tie into stories we’ve just read before sending students to work at their tables. Having their attention away from the noise of the hallway is a *good thing!*

And finally, a view from the storytime corner looking toward the front of the room. I have our wooden blocks and other large building manipulatives housed in the bookcase that is almost center photograph- the floor area is open enough that students can spread out, building cities, kingdoms, neighborhoods, and on carpet which will hopefully cushion/soften the noise created by the solid wooden blocks!

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I’m going to try to finish up my classroom arrangements and decor this week. I’ll make center tags, hang some more decor from the ceiling over the students’ desks (it’s a wonderful place for patterns and art display), get the table baskets filled with crayons, pencils, glue and scissors, and start putting together journals. I’ll get the curriculum kits reassembled, take a look at the kindergarten standards for Oz, and figure out a template for my lesson plans. Next week all teachers will meet for professional development at our school and throughout other district locations- I’ll keep you posted!

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~ Head over to The Chancellor’s New Clothes for this week’s Carnival of Education (you might find someone familiar linked there!)…

~ No, I haven’t forgotten that you enjoy trying out new recipes as much as I do! Once I see some pretty blueberries in the grocery store, I’m going to try Smitten Kitchen’s Blueberry Crumb Bars and Blueberry Pancakes… I must have BLUE on the brain this week!

~ Ever cooked Eggs in a Basket? I’ve wanted to ever since Moonstruck came out (Olympia Dukakis makes it for breakfast in one scene). Thanks to The Pioneer Woman Cooks for sharing the method!

Classroom *Before*…and Furniture Tips

Here’s a peek at what I’ll be working with as I set up my kindergarten classroom this week… call it a “before” slideshow (yes, I’ll post some “after” shots soon!):

I’ll try to wrap up the sorting and organizing on Monday so that I can start preparing my staple boards for displays (calendar, posters, curriculum materials, etc.) as I won’t be able to situate my furniture until the carpets have been shampooed and are dry.
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If *you’re* ready to arrange your furniture, here are a few things to remember:

~ Kindergarten students use space, lots and lots of it. They will not be sitting in chairs at desks very often, but will lay across the floor assembling puzzles or building with blocks…they will stand at the art easel to paint, they will play dress up in an area designated for dramatic play…they will make a unifix cube “snake” the length of the room either across the floor or across desks, and they’ll interact with one another by walking from center to center (activity areas) to talk with friends, make suggestions, or satisfy their curiosity. A balance between the amount of furniture and the amount of wide open “free” space needs to occur. Too much furniture, and the children can’t move. Too little furniture, and the kids will RUN.

~ There are safety issues that will affect where you place furniture in your room.

~ Kindergarten furniture is short. Make sure you leave enough area around furniture and into centers that you, visiting parents or volunteers, and other teachers or aides can move easily without repeatedly bruising your knees and shins. If you have height-adjustable tables, make sure they aren’t too tall or too short. Using the students’ chairs as a guide should help.

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I hope you’re enjoying the remainder of your summer break!

So You’re Going to Teach Kindergarten, pt. 2

What wonderful cabinetry.  And I know what’s going behind the doors on the upper level: Books. Dear Daughter and I opened fourteen boxes of them, finding even more surprises left by the last crew of packers that prepared our belongings for the trip from Texas to Oz. Despite some bent corners and torn covers, it was good to see my favorite stories again after taking last year off from teaching.

Kindergarten teachers often teach concepts and skills organized into thematic units. “Autumn,” “Animals,” “Counting,” “Colors,” etc. I organize my books by how I USE them throughout the year. In August, books like Miss Bindergarten Gets Ready for Kindergarten, Blueberries for Sal, Timothy’s First Day of School, and Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See, are within easy reach for reading time. So are books about autumn, colors, numbers, and friendships.  My winter holiday books can all be found on the same shelf as my snow themed stories, and fairy tales are grouped together for the spring.

I also group books by author.  Norman Bridwell’s Big Red Dog Clifford keeps company with Marc Brown’s Arthur, and I love featuring Leo Lionni and Patricia Polacco as favorite storytellers too!  It’s my system, books sorted by theme, and also sorted by author, and it works for me.  Come October, I can pull down an entire stack of books featuring Halloween, bats, spiders, growing pumpkins, monsters, fire safety, and silly rhymes, and put them in the hands of my students.  Each November, family stories, Thanksgiving tales, harvest, and Indigenous Peoples pique my kindergartners’ interest.

Do you have sets of books, providing multiple copies so groups of students can read along with you or one another?  Try sorting them into easy-to-grab tubs (mine are on the bottom row of the next set of shelves):

Big Books need to be stored either flat (making it difficult to find exactly the one you’re looking for), in a book display specifically made for oversized stories, or in their curriculum kit box for easy access.

Find a system that works for you and your students- books are treasures!

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Don’t forget to organize your professional library too (mine is full of books and binders):

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