Tending the Eclectic Kinder-Garden

Favorite Costumes:

Mine:
1) Kitty Cat

2) Angel

3) Witch (though I do the twirly dress/feather trimmed hat version, nothing scary for this kindergarten teacher!)

Others:
1) High school friends waaaaayyyyyy back when dressed as the

Ghostbusters

2) My daughter as a bride and my eldest son as a Star Fleet officer

3) A former student dressed as the Big Bad Wolf (he wore a baseball   cap on which his mother had glued fake brown fur and huge googly eyes, wool ears, wool teeth hanging down from the brim, etc.)

Favorite movies:
1) Sleepy Hollow (a la Johnny Depp)
2) Something Wicked This Way Comes
3) Lost Boys (though I enjoy the vampire genre year ’round)

Trick-or-Treat Candy:
1) Peanut M-n-M’s
2) Smarties
3) Old fashioned bubble gum

Family events/traditions:
1) buying pumpkins and carving jack-o-lanterns
2) decorating the house with our favorite figurines and decorations
3) trick-or-treating with the kids

Halloween songs:
1) Five Little Pumpkins
2) Purple People Eater
3) Humming “La dah dee dee dah dee dee, la dah dee dee dee dah abracadabra…”

Halloween recipes:
1) Pumpkin Pie
2) Popcorn Balls/Chex Mix (I’ll make popcorn balls one year, Chex Mix the next…)
3) Spiced Pumpkin Cookies

Crafts:
1) Wreaths
2) Banners
3) Magnets

Tags: meme

The Science Goddess tagged me a month ago (I know, I know!  A month?  Thankfully she knows I’ve been back to school, in a new state, a new district, etc.) for a meme started by Nancy, Teacher in a Strange Land, addressing what educators wish policymakers understood about the public school system.  Another teacher/blogger tagged me too but now I can’t find her comment~ Let me know who you were so I can link back to you, pretty please?

Here’ s my kindergarten perspective on Five Things Policy Makers Should Know About Kindergarten:

1)  While preschool and early childhood programs usually offer wonderful and diverse hands-on play/learning/socialization experiences for children, requiring *testing* for three, four and five year olds to determine whether or not they’re “ready” for kindergarten is ridiculous.  What’s next, IQ tests in utero via a two-way sonogram?  Children get to be children.  They’re not “allowed” to come from diverse backgrounds, they DO come from diverse backgrounds. One-size-fits-all fits no one.  Nothing like having to beat a dead horse.

2) Kindergarten teachers wish you would stop approving and paying architectural firms that offer a one-seat-toilet bathroom for girls and a one-seat-toilet for boys for a classroom of 12+ children…or TWO classrooms of children as their innovative design.  Take teacher feedback seriously, and require that the architect go back and rethink the blueprint, please.  The same goes for storage, cabinetry, and learning spaces.  Ask…the…teachers.

3) Playtime IS learning. Authentic assessment is more relevant, accurate, and applicable than DIBELS scores could ever be.  But authentic assessment doesn’t create cool flow charts and numbers to crunch… I know, I know.  You like number data.  You like number data more than you like children apparently.  Time for a change.

4) Kindergarten is NOT babysitting (though if you’d like to fund kindergarten teachers at the same rate a babysitter makes, I’d be more than happy to take that check).

5) Kindergarten entrance age requirements that vary from state to state don’t tend to help children at all: they merely serve to 1) replace expensive day care costs for parents who are able to get their children in to a kindergarten program in one state for a week or two, then move to another state or district that is required to enroll the student since s/he was already in public school elsewhere, 2) feed the ego of parents who think that trying to teach their one year old to read is the way to make sure s/he is ahead of everyone else and 3) frighten parents with less material wealth than others into believing that they can’t provide developmentally appropriate experiences for their children.  Most children aren’t ready for kindergarten at age four, though their parents ARE.  Some children aren’t ready when they’re a “young five” when the school year starts.  There is nothing wrong with being an “old five” starting kindergarten.

Kindergarten encompasses a certain stage in a child’s development.  It’s a stage to experience, not a race to try to win.

*****

Feel free to grab the meme and address it in your blog- let me know if you do!

Tags: kindergarten, meme

…about *moi,* in case you were wondering:

1) My favorite hobby would have to be crocheting blankets, but I think I’ll be inspired to crochet scarves now that we’re living someplace with much cooler winters!

2) My favorite season is winter, though autumn is a close second, especially since leaving Alaska several years ago.

3)  I’m not into hunting and fishing like other members of my family, but I wander through antique malls whenever I get the chance. I’m on the lookout for a specific salt cellar that will complete my collection. I…WILL…FIND…IT.

4) I prefer vanilla/spicy scents over fruity, any day.

5) I don’t get nervous about shots or getting my blood drawn since having children.  A flu shot comes nowhere near the pain level that childbirth does.

6) I think love manifests itself in many different tones and forms, but none of them are cruel.

7)  I have two favorite Christmas songs: Little Drummer Boy (duet) by Bing Crosby and David Bowie, and Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring (instrumental) by J.S. Bach.

I prefer to drink “foo foo” coffee in the morning, but occasionally will drink tea.

9) I can’t swim, but have made sure my children don’t have a water phobia.

10) I prefer walking to running, and only in cooler temperatures.  Having gallons of sweat rolling off of me while getting sunburned holds no appeal for me whatsoever.

11) My favorite piece of jewelry is my wedding set, though I love my charm bracelet too.

12) I can whistle, but don’t get me started or I’ll never stop.  As a teen, my mother and I tried to re-enact this scene but never made it all the way through because we’d burst out laughing:

13) I neither sing nor hum in the shower.

14) My favorite candies are peanut M-n-M’s and Smarties. Never together though.

15) I’m an Eskimo who loves ice cream…big surprise. Dairy Queen’s Peanut Buster Parfaits (with extra nuts) can just about make my day. So can plain ol’ Tin Roof Sundae. And Rocky Road.

Tags: meme

Meme rules:

1. Pick up the nearest book ( of at least 123 pages).
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people (I’m just inviting my readers- if you take up the meme, post back here so I’ll know and can come take a peek)

I have two books stacked on top of each other, so I’ll give you the meme-required-info from both and you can try to figure out where my brain has been for the last week:

Book number one:

“Suddenly, like a striking snake, she reached out and grabbed my hand in a fierce grip. “

Followed by:

“At once she twisted it behind my back and held me so that I could move neither forward nor backward but only cry out in pain: ‘Anne! Don’t! You’re really hurting!’ ‘Well hear this,’ she hissed in my ear. ‘Hear this Mary. I am playing my own game and I don’t want you interrupting. Nobody will know anything until I am ready to tell them, and then they will know everything too late.”

Book number 2:

“After a neuron fires, a neurotransmitter swims across that synapse to a nearby neuron, and when it finds the lock and binds with it, that new neuron starts to fire.”

Followed by:

“Not all keys fit all locks; there are certain locks (receptors) that are designed to accept only certain neurotransmitters. Generally, neurotransmitters cause the receiving neuron to fire or prevent it from firing. The neurotransmitters are then absorbed through a process called reuptake; without reuptake, the neurotransmitters would continue to stimulate or inhibit the firing of a neuron.”

I signed up for Oprah’s webclass too, so I’ll be buying A New Earth and catching up on my reading each evening before next Monday- or trying to, since I’ll probably be having too much fun spending time with Shannon visiting!

Tags: books, meme

1) Answer the questions below.
2) Take each answer and type it into Photobucket.
3) Take any picture from the first page of results and post. (click on the picture and copy the HTML code)
4) Have fun!

~What age will you be on your next birthday? thirty nine!

~ A place you’d like to travel to/visit? Europe

~ Your favorite place? Home sweet home.

~ Your favorite object? My wedding ring.

~ What is your favorite food to eat? Chinese!

~ Your favorite animal is… a koala bear.

~ What is your favorite color?

~ What is your favorite t.v. show? The Tudors

~ Favorite celebrity male, favorite celebrity female? Harrison Ford, Angelina Jolie

~ What is the name of your pet? Anni

(She’s a cat, not a smiley though)

~ Who is your current love?

(actually, it’s “Chris-the-Lasikally-enhanced-soldier-and-Harley-tech!”

~ What is your nickname? For some, it’s “Mikey.”

~ What’s a bad habit of yours? OVER-cleaning! Ha!

~ What was your first job? I was a teacher aide!

Thanks for the meme, Paulette!

Tags: meme