Here is our week so far...

In the last few days I have been asked some of those very pointed questions about teaching that I need to know the answer to, but that I cannot put into words. One of the questions that I was asked was, "How do I build relationships with children and parents?" I think those relationships are so important. I think I do develop them. But I could not answer the question of how. What I said was this: "we build relationship a lot on the porch after school when they can talk to me about whatever they want to." Some days on the porch the students are boisterous and loud and out of control. I took some pictures today.

This student told me she could do the splits and as soon as she said it, she did it. :)

These students are having a conversation with each other. I can't remember exactly what they were
talking about, but I remember there was a lot of banter. 

Here one of my student's is telling me who will pick her up after school and we started talking
about that and how excited she was.

Back to the question of building relationship with students.... some of it is showing them that I love them, giving a hug, a kind word, noticing new shoes, noticing pretty hair, noticing when students are having a bad day.  Students who feel "safe" in the classroom, feel cared about and the relationship blossoms. Students need to feel safe to make mistakes, safe to fail, safe to be whoever they are, and to take risks to test their knowledge.

I was absent yesterday, so I missed out what students learned about yesterday. The guest teacher had them do a writing assignment about the reading story. This week's story is called Bunny Day. It discusses time and what the bunny family does each day at a certain time. This story is also rich with rhyme. I loved reading this story today. Anyway.... Students and the guest teacher brainstormed things that the bunnies might do and then students wrote their sentences. The expectation is that students use proper grammar: Upper case letters when needed (such as the first word of the sentence), tall letters need to be tall (t, l, k, etc.), descending letters need to descend (y, p, g, etc.), finger spaces between words and sentences should make sense. Well, here are few of my faves. They run the entire spectrum. Some don't make sense, but they are favorites. Some have horrendous writing, but I love them for the progress it shows that students have made.

I love this one! 

I feel like the illustration needs more detail and color, but I think the picture and sentence are great! Keep up the good work!

This paper shows SO MUCH improvement. The letters are still not in the lines where they should be, but
I am so excited for this student because I can read what was written and the letters are well-formed. This is awesome.

"A bunny can lisine (listen) to muzic on a i pad."
I love it!

I love this paper! Had I been there, we would have talked about whether or not this could really happen and if the author (the student) wrote a story that could really happen or a story that was not realistic.

"A bunny can walking!" 

I love the illustration. I love the punctuation. I think that this student could have found a way to make the sentence make sense. But it is a sentence that has good capitalization, good spacing between words, and is very legible. And finally, Ms. Horn was not there to ask those questions... "Read it again, does it make sense? Is there a way to change it? Think about it...."

I can't believe that tomorrow is Wednesday already. It is half-way through our week. Can you believe it? I look forward to a weekend at home this weekend. I should start my planning for next week because I really need a weekend!

Five for Friday a little late....

Five random things from my week. Doodle Bugs is having a linky party, so read it and then link up.

1. Redhead was sick all week. No photos. Sad Momma. This kiddo finally got dressed on Friday in time for a trip to Kansas and visiting her friends from where we used to live.

2. CRAzY weather = cRaZY KIDS.  high in the 70's one day, 40's the next day. We don't go out when it is below 40.  If you live where it is cold, that is ridiculous, but it's still okay with me.

3. Our Maria. See the post here. We wrote thank you notes to our custodian, Maria. I love her. I think it is important that my students understand that a school needs all the important adults to make it run correctly. This is true of any organization, this is real life application. Here is a sample of the letter. This little guy got very frustrated but he did a great job and when he was done he was SO proud of his work. He could not wait to tell Ms. Maria that we had something for her.

4. I am trying really hard to do more of letting kids be kids. This is them coloring the paper that the counselor brought and I have a couple who like to work standing up. VERY HARD for the teacher to let them. Small I know. But its rough for me to balance "classroom management" and allowing them to be kids and do what they need to in order to be comfortable at school. It IS their home away from home after all. 

5. This is my BFF being too busy to take a picture with me. She was on the phone with work at 10:30 at night. Bummer. I love her. Her home is my home away from home. 

Currently, a Linky party

Farley at Oh Boy 4th Grade! is having her Currently linky. So head over, read other posts and link up!

Sitting here in my BFF's dining room and listening to her children and their friends eat waffles that they made themselves and talk about nothing in particular. It is a little bit like heaven. And it makes me jealous and lonely. I miss my house. I miss my daughter having her friends over and my house being the one where they are free and happy and goofy. But it will happen again. 

I am loving being Kansas with my friends. I drove by my home last night. Heart break. But I can't wait to see all of my friends tonight and celebrate and eat ice cream and laugh and joke and maybe be wildly inappropriate. Sitting here in my friend's house feels a lot like I am home. I love it that I have friends who just let me come and hang out. 

Thinking.... about too many things. I had a bad social situation in my classroom yesterday and I can't "fix" it. One of my students stole from another one. The ELL teacher gave a student a little nail polish, a reward for her hard work, and between 2:30 and 3:10 it disappeared. I searched backpacks and pockets to no avail. I am so sad it isn't even funny. It hurts me that my students would do this each other. And I read Farley's tactic, but I don't know that it would work. I don't KNOW who did this, but I suspect one my little non-english speakers. And he wouldn't understand my ploy.  

Always on my mind is the financial mess I am in and the fact that there are more bills than money. I need a miracle people. Big changes are on the horizon. 

Wanting.... those life changes. Less financial woe. More contentment. Deep seeded knowledge that I am doing my best. 

Needing... more french vanilla coffee. And more time the day.

Pet Peeves.... discourteous drivers. Well, those are the words I came up with, but it's more than that. I hate the drive from there to here on this insanely dangerous two lane highway. Hate, hate, hate it. The last three trips we have not seen any fatal accidents. Good news. But the one where we witnessed a truck pull out in front of a semi, not good news. Drivers are so rude. Pulling out without looking, passing on a hill, etc., etc.

Not feeling good enough... it peeves me. It is annoying that I still feel "not good enough" a lot of the time. But it's more annoying when it is because some super-teacher burst my bubble. Seriously... I think I'm doing pretty fine for a first year teacher. And I am willing to make lots of changes. Whatever changes it takes to be the best teacher I can be. But bubble-bursting is a peeve. Don't burst my bubble. I am just as proud of what my students are doing as you are of what your students are doing. 

Currently rules: post, link up, comment on the 2 before you, come back and spread the love and comment on the one after your link. 

Updated post....

I did update the 100 day post! Check it out...
100 Days of School

High/Low Linky

How it works: post your highs and your lows from the month. Here are the "rules" as pounded out on the keyboard by Teacher to the Core. Read it, weep, hop over and link up. Okay, just kidding about weeping. 

  "Tell me all about your Highs and Lows of this month.

Share pictures… spill the beans… let that cat out of the bag!

Let us high five and hug you with the stories you share.

Let the comments you receive be your both

 "Oscar Moment" and your free therapy.

Grab any and all of the graphics you want.

Link up, Link back, and comment out the person directly in front of you

 and come on back to check out the person after you."

My highs... well, I have mostly posted them already in other blogs. I have had some serious ego-stroking this month. The school counselor compliments my class every time she visits, but this month she complimented my students' teacher (that's me)! And told my class how lucky they are to have me and that no other kindergarten class that she knew of (and she visits about 10 classes every 2 weeks) talked as much about feelings, and social settings and how to treat others. Of course, I basked in this glory a little bit, but the truth is, you do whatever is modeled for you and I had such a fantastic coordinating teacher during student teaching who constantly modeled to, for, and with her students how to treat others in social matters. So I do my best to follow her lead and remember to Thank God for putting me in her classroom. Okay, so she complimented me in class and cheered me to my kiddos and I thought about shedding a tear I was so touched. Then I stepped into the hallway to tell her something without little ears, and she told me that she would never have guessed I am a first year teacher and she poured on more kind words and "feel goods." "Little" things like this are what made my month. 

Another high was that my two little non-english speakers are making big strides. I moved them on the last phonics test so they would be closer to me and I could help them.  The results were amazing. They just might be ready for first grade at the end of the year! I don't have words to explain how much of a miracle this is. 

My lows... *sigh* They are the same as the others that I have read so far. I am really discouraged with some of my students behavior lately. Yesterday my students were CrAzY! C-R-A-Z-Y! nuts. crazy. And did I mention... they were crazy? I told them not to bring their crazy selves back to me today. Today was better in waves. Sometimes my students were candidates for sainthood. But then they got loud and rowdy again. There were actually times yesterday and today that I almost teared up. Not happy tears. Tears of exasperation and frustration. And the knowledge that we only have 73 more days of school. I know this because we did the math today. My frustration is that we shouldn't have to stop every activity 2 or 3 or 4 times so I can say, "everyone needs to show me how we sit on the carpet," or "if everyone was sitting like (fill in the blank) then I would know that you are ready to learn" and after so many times of talking to the same student over and over, "which choice are you going to make, sit on the carpet or at your desk, make your choice right now." (Blah, blah, blah, blah-blah, blah-blah...). And yes, there are some concepts that they should be getting but aren't. They should be writing, knowing sight words, reading, and so on. I'm overwhelmed with what I think they need to know before the end of the year. And the burden to teach them and to modify and differentiate, and help all students. Aaaaaaa. Super teacher has left the building. 

Last instruction: if you link up, comment on the high/low you read that you got the link from, comment on the post before you and the one after you. 

Teacher to the Core, a Linky Party

"Our" Maria

Today we concentrated on our handwriting and on being the best citizens that we can be. Before I go on to say how great my class is, I better just confess my shortcomings. I got "my Maria" some lotion for Christmas (side note: as close as I can tell, we have four custodians named Maria in our school).  But I didn't get it ready early, and then Maria was not there for several days before Christmas, so her lotion and my appreciation were still sitting in a cupboard at home. Oh, since I am taking little side trips, let's talk about that appreciation. "My Maria" is the best. She comes in when we go to recess and she cleans my room, vacuums, washes the desktops, and leaves our room smelling much less like dirty socks than it did before she came in. And when my boys are acting up in the bathroom, she helps me, and she tells me about it and she's always polite. So.... I appreciate her, even if I am not the best at showing it. And it's high time I showed her. We talk frequently about it in class, that the students should thank her for cleaning, and we should all thank her for all the things that she does for us. My students are really good at being respectful and appreciative (with the possible exception of this afternoon and I completely blame the sudden shift in the barometric pressure) so they are naturals to say thank you and show appreciation.

Marry the above with the fact that we have not practiced our handwriting as much as we should have. So Ms. Horn decided that for handwriting we would write a letter to Ms. Maria.  As soon as we finished our morning work, we started writing a letter that said: Dear Ms. Maria, Thank you for keeping our room clean. Love, _________. We gave her the letters, told her thank you, and gave her a bag with the lotion in it. She teared up. That gave us the opportunity to go back to our room and talk about filling buckets and being good citizens.

So maybe we didn't accomplish all the things I thought we should have in Kindergarten today, but I feel confident that my students are learning what it means to be a good citizen and to appreciate people who help you, the people around you, people who are part of your "family" whether it is the biological kind or a school kind of family.

100 Days of School...

There were conflicting opinions in our district as to when the 100th day of school actually was. We "went with" the one that was on Friday. My count said that the 100th day would be tomorrow.  However, in light of the fact of the chaos that overtook my room, I am very grateful we celebrated on Friday.

The students were to have their 100th day projects returned by Wednesday. The ones who followed that direction got a who class cheer as well as taking a moment to look at the project and "ooo" and "ah".  All students' projects were celebrated and we looked at all of them. I didn't have a good way to display them however. So they are stuck up randomly all around the room. Here they are.

100 hundred ribbons, 100 google eyses on the number 100, and  100 stickers in glitter glue of the student's name. 

100 pieces of cereal, and 100 stars! 

100 crayons and 100 pom-poms, 100 google eyes on the monster! 

100 signatures/names, and 100 safety pins in the shape of the number 100 on a t-shirt

100 "river rock" type marbles, and 100 aura beads

100 "steering wheels" (pasta) on this boat/ship! 

Aren't they great! Students and parents did a great job making a 100 project and being creative! I am impressed! Way to go my lil Tigers (and your parents).

We began the day with a color sheet of 100 things, working on color word recognition. 

As students worked on their morning color page, I handed out their "100 days smarter" certificates.  I made a loud proclamation for each name as I handed the certificate to them. 

Each student got a photo with the 100 and wearing their 100 day hat! We glued 10 strips of 10 different colors of paper down to make 100 strips on the big strip and then we stapled the large construction paper strip to make a hat. The TpT download I got it from advised to glue all the strips down before assembling the hat. 

We went across the street to the cafeteria and did activities with all of Academy C. There were five different stations: Mrs. Lewis, Ms. Sawatzky, Ms. Reid, Ms. Mennis and I each took a station. And I took a cool picture of 2nd grade but realized I don't have media releases for them, so I don't know who's picture I could post. My station made 100 glasses out of construction paper. This activity was more time consuming than what we actually had time for unfortunately. So students were rushed. But all of them said that they had fun! 

Also in the afternoon we made a snack with 100 pieces in it. Each students took 10 pieces of 10 different snacks to make up a type of snack mix to snack on the rest of the day! Our snack mix consisted of: froot loops, honey nut cheerios, pretzels, M & M's, skittles, fruit snacks, sour patch kids, marshmallows, goldfish, chocolate animal crackers. 

We made a book: My 100th Day Book. It was a lesson for the teacher, that much is for sure. Next year, this will be a writing project that we begin before day 100. It will probably occupy the better part of a week. This will give students more freedom and free writing experience. For this book, because time was of the essence, we voted on we would fill in on each page. This project also assessed the students ability to follow directions (I handed the book out page by page and their instruction was to simply place each new paper on top of the one they had). Some were obviously not in order, some of the pages were not put in correctly (such as.... upside-down).  Some students put the book together correctly, but couldn't stay with the group. All-in-all it was a good lesson and students learned and I learned. 

I can eat 100 cookies. Yeah, that is a good thing to vote for! Right? 

I wish I had 100... the answer we voted on was "puppies." This student didn't follow directions at some point. They probably got their pages out of order. 

Eating 100... cereals... would totally gross me out! What kind of terrible teacher would let her students write this?! A rushed one. I am profoundly sorry. But we were rushed and I was trying so hard to be "democratic" and it is the answer they voted for! I wanted them to vote for frogs, but I couldn't will them into the vote! 

100... frogs... would drive my teacher crazy! Amen. No comment necessary.

I could bring her 100... butterflies... to make her feel better! (This is cute and sweet and I couldn't believe they voted to write the longest choice they had!) Some other choices were chocolate, candies and hugs.

There it is. The page that contains the word it is supposed to! :) "I wish I had 100... puppies." That is what we voted for. 

Oops, this is definitely a blooper! (Plus, butter would never drive me crazy, I love butter.)

In 100 days, I have learned... the months! I loved this page because students put out there some things that we actually have learned! Choices were counting, the months, reading, and more! Woo-hoo! There are things they feel proud about and want to toot their horns about!