Short and Sweet

Earlier this week one of my PM girls told me that if I needed her she would be meditating by the backpack hooks....

When asked to share something that makes him special one AM boy responded "Jesus made me."

And then there was my PM kiddo whose morning consisted of putting on his pants.

Kindergartners are just too funny!

I just ordered two more books from the International Reading Association:

The IRA publishes so many great books and I have quite a stack that I have gotten my hands on this year that are still waiting to be read. I would have rather read them than a lot of other things I have read this year, but 13-14 credits a term is pretty demanding in terms of required reading. Throw in book club book each term that I read so I could visit with friends and eat yummy snacks every Tuesday and I am pretty much tapped out in terms of time to spend enjoying good books that will improve my teaching. I am excited to read these two in addition to several others this summer in between sleeping, enjoying lattes in Europe, and relaxing! Oh, and writing a teeny tiny 30 page paper...no biggie. What's über cool is that these books come with DVD's too! They are part of my 'next year I will truly be the best teacher ever and have the most amazing class/activities/lessons/ideas' fantasy that I have every summer.

Tomorrow is Friday, I don't have class this weekend, I am getting a mani/pedi on Saturday, and it has been sunny for two days in a row! 

Life is good :0)

Literal

I have a few boys in my classes that are just all boy... active, loud, testing the boundaries a lot. Their behavior has been up and down all year and they are now earning daily points as a motivator to be good listeners and follow the directions in class. Their behavior has definitely improved, even though there are still rough days, but I have heard from one of our IA's that lunchtime is a struggle.

So, I started bringing my lunch into the cafeteria and sitting with them while they eat.

Since I have two half day sessions, I get an hour and 10 minutes in between the AM and PM. Usually I can be found chatting with my friend/teammate Britta for at least a small portion (ok, sometimes big portion) of that time, but I also use that time to get stuff done and often don't take the time to actually sit down for lunch. Since I found out that some of my little gems have been acting up during that break time, I decided that maybe it would be nice to just go and sit with them and talk to them while they eat. When I only have 30 minutes, I just can't swing eating with kids all that often. It's tough to do that and go straight back to working without any downtime at all. With over an hour, I have some time to spare and it's worth it to spend some of that with kiddos like these guys. I like to throw in a whole lot of talk about expectations while they eat, but I also like to just use the time to be with them and give them attention.

Today, I sat down next to one little guy who has been having a really tough time lately. Making noises, grabbing at other kids, hitting, running, break dancing on the carpet, you name it. I started to talk to him as he sucked his chocolate milk through the straw. I made some small talk and he was pretty quiet.

I asked him how his day had been so far and he didn't say anything.

I asked him if it was a good day and he continued drinking his milk.

So, I asked him what he did after he woke up this morning.

He replied, "I put my pants on."

I kind of chuckled to myself and said, and what did you do after that?

"I put my shirt on."

Of course he did. I don't even know why I asked!

Sunday Solace

Whew. Class Wednesday, class Thursday, class Friday, and class Saturday. Thank goodness I get a day of rest!

I did my practice presentation in class on Friday night and I thought it went pretty well. It was almost twice the time limit, so I definitely need to cut it down, but it was really helpful to run through the entire Power Point and get a chance to practice what I will say for each slide. Now I have more than a month to work on it until I do my actual defense on June 16th. I need to submit the final draft of my paper on June 2nd, so I still have a good amount of time to work with that as well. I had a hard time judging if my presentation was going well as I was doing it, but I got good feedback from the other people in my class. My advisers seemed pretty positive as well, but they can't really say that much since they are going to be evaluating it during the actual defense.

I haven't done any work since I got home yesterday afternoon because I needed a well deserved break, but I did start organizing my stuff and preparing some winter clothes and other stuff to put in storage. I have just about five weeks left in OR before I go back to Germany for the summer, so I am trying to stay organized so that life doesn't get more stressful as the end of the school year gets closer. My entire car is full of stuff to bring to my classroom and to storage. I am going to put my books in my classroom for the summer since there is ample storage room and I know it will stay dry. The storage unit has not had any issues, but there is always the risk of water damage and I just can't have anything happening to my books! It's always hard to decide what stays and what goes, but I am really trying to go with the less is more mentality since I still have some stuff back in Germany that I left behind in August.

In other news, I got a surprise from my very sweet hubs on Friday....

an iPhone! I feel like a walking advertisement for apple! But hey, when you live in a different country than your husband, it's good to have easy access to staying in touch! I am obsessed with Words with Friends and had a fun time playing a virtual game with Mr. Sneaker! :0)

Later on today, I am going to meet up with some friends from my cohort to get some work done (work never ends!) and I have to grocery shop, do laundry and all that fun stuff. I tried to sleep in, but for some reason my body just doesn't let me do that anymore. By 7:30 I am awake and ready for the day.

Updates

It's amazing that I have created a routine to write daily for one of my classes this term, yet I still am averaging about 1 blog post a week because writing typically means working on one of my many homework assignments or papers.....ok, it's more sad than amazing.... I am so looking forward to being in Germany this summer with so much less on my plate! So, here is the latest:

• Hubs told me today that I am going to get a surprise in the mail soon because he is so proud of all my hard work this year. I heart surprises!

• Hubs also told me that he booked our trip to London and we will be there for my birthday in June! I heart my sweet husband and I can't wait to go to London!

• I applied to teach a professional development class within my district. There were several courses listed that they were looking to find teachers for and one on the list was culturally responsive teaching. I am focusing on culturally responsive instruction for most of my doctoral work and my hope is to teach at the university level some day, so I am really excited at the idea of teaching other teachers in my district on a topic that I am really passionate about. I am not sure what the competition will be like to get the position, but there will be interviews two weeks from now.

•  I met with my advisers last week about my core paper and although I still have some work to do, they said I am making good progress so we went ahead and scheduled my defense date! I am set to defend on June 16th, which is the last day of school for everyone but half day Kinder. This weekend I am doing a practice presentation for my cohort which is a great opportunity to get their feedback since almost everyone in the group has already successfully defended. Then I have two weeks to turn in the final draft of my paper and two more weeks after that to refine my presentation. I am taking 1/2 day off tomorrow to work on my presentation and then I am taking the other 1/2 off the day of the presentation. We get one "floating holiday" per year, so that is what I am using mine for. I wish I could use it for something a bit more fun, but it is what it is.

• My kiddos are doing great and I just love them. We are working on reading a lot of non-fiction books and doing some four square writing this week about sea animals just like Kelly did. Some of the kids are impressing me so much with what they can write! It's amazing. I do have several kiddos that are copying words straight from the book, so I am encouraging them to write additional sentences in their own words to add more details to the facts they have copied. This exercise is a struggle for some, but overall I am really happy with how well they are getting information from the non-fiction books. I was lucky to find some fairly simple non-fiction books that are great for beginning readers, but even the more complex ones are working for them. I feel like I am at the library every other day, but that helps them stay engaged with the books in the classroom library.

•  We are also studying butterflies right now, so we have live caterpillars in the classroom that have been busy turning into the pupa stage this week. The kids are so excited to go over and look at the container each day when they arrive. It is just so great for them to be exposed to this process of change and see it right before their eyes. I love how excited they are and how much they are learning just from looking at/reading the butterfly books that I got from the library. 

•  There are less than 40 days until I am back in Germany with hubs! I am actually arriving on his birthday, which is awesome and I am so excited to feel married again!

• I got a latte every single day last week because it was Teacher Appreciation Week and I thought that I deserved a little self appreciation. I also got flowers, chocolates, a candle, Starbucks gift cards (hence all the lattes), a plant, cookies and several very sweet notes and cards from students and their families. I heart teacher appreciation week!

Don't You Talk 'Bout my Mama!

Since Mother's Day is fast approaching, I had my students use a four square organizer to write 4 things they like about their moms (shout out to Britta for the idea!) and they are going to make a letter tomorrow using the 4 square sheet as a plan for what to write.

During my PM class I was circulating around the room, helping kids and encouraging them with their writing. I came across a student who proudly showed me his work, which was an exact replica of the example I gave about things I like about my mom. There is such a fine line between good and thorough modeling and providing the kids something they can just copy. I usually quickly erase my example when I write something to prevent them from just copying, but this time I happened to have left it on the board. That is aside the point though....

I told this child that I wanted him to write what he likes about his mom.

He kind of gave me that blank stare and didn't write anything. I kept trying to encourage him and told him I would give him some thinking time and I would come back and check.

When I returned a few minutes later, he still had not written anything. I crouched down next to him and again tried to ask him what he likes about his mom or what he does with her.

Blank stare.

So, as I often do if I think that maybe a child has not understood the directions or needs a better explanation, I tried asking this child in Spanish to see if that would help.

Um...

Big mistake.

I said, "por qué tu mamá es especial?" and immediately his eyes filled with tears and he began sobbing.

I was so shocked and I felt so horrible, but I honestly still have no idea what set him off.

He has a mom. She is really supportive. He has never cried in school before. I was lost.

I tried so hard to comfort him and ask him if he was ok and what was wrong. I asked him if what I said upset him and he just continued wailing.

WAILING.

yikes.

I patted his back and told him everything was okay and that I really wanted to help him but that I didn't know what was wrong. Eventually after trying really hard to console him without any luck, I told him that I was going to give him some space and I would check back with him.

Eventually he stopped crying, but only after he had cried long and loud enough that I considered calling one of the ELL teachers to just come and talk to him to see if they could make any headway in figuring out what happened. I seriously have not had criers this year and I was freaked out a little bit. I had forgotten what it was like.

I later went back over after he had stopped crying and asked if he was ok. He nodded and seemed like whatever had caused him to become really upset had passed. I apologized to him and told him that if it was something I said that upset him I was very sorry and I didn't mean to upset him.

For the rest of the day he was fine.

Kids can be such puzzles.

I always try to be sensitive to what is going on in kids' lives and obviously something was up today...maybe he missed his mom? I have no idea, but wow, it was pretty intense there for awhile. One other boy who was sitting nearby covered his ears from the loud crying. Two other boys approached my crying friend and tried to soothe him as well. They were really concerned and so sweet. They kept asking me what happened to him, but all I could say was, I really don't know! A few others kiddos did not want to write about their moms. They could not think of anything to say about their moms. I feel lucky because I have a long list of nice things I could say about my mom.

Lesson learned.

Sometimes you really can't talk about other people's mamas!

Theft

On Friday I discovered one of my students trying to steal a Capri Sun that had been on one of my tables. He was dragging his feet as we were heading out to the buses and as I walked back to the end of the line, he was crouched down putting the juice in his backpack. Given a conversation I had recently had with him about sometimes not eating for an entire day (which I honestly don't know is true or not), I felt like there must have been a reason that he was trying to take it, so I asked him.

I explained the difference between taking something without asking, which is called stealing, and asking someone's permission to have something that you want. Despite my instinct to "teach him a lesson" about the wrongs of stealing, I coached him into asking me for the juice and allowed him to have it once he asked because he said he wanted it to drink at home. I care a lot about this kiddo and I see him having difficulties at school with friends and classroom expectations. If he is hungry, I can help with that...so I gave him the juice. I wanted to show him that I care for him more than anything else because I want him to know that I am a person he can trust and I am a person that wants the best for him.

Today I found out from another student that this same kiddo who tried stealing my juice also took some of the play money that was in the cash register in my kitchen area. He was really interested in playing in that area on Friday and when we cleaned up I did notice that some of the play dollars I had put in the register were gone, but I didn't think it was a big deal and thought maybe they had been hidden somewhere in the kitchen cabinets or something. This was before the juice incident, so I didn't really have reason to believe that this particular child would take something that belonged to the classroom.

Now, I realize that within one day, this kiddo stole on two occasions. I am really saddened because I truly want the best for him, yet I can't help but feel stung by the fact that despite my continued support and encouragement, he would still steal from me. I know that his circumstances at home are far different than the life I have been privileged with and his "stealing" might just be curiosity or more likely survival. I don't understand it because I have never been there...I have never experienced what it might be like to not know when my next meal is coming. To me, giving him the juice or letting him have the play money are small tokens in exchange for the happiness or relief it might provide him. I don't think kids just steal for fun--I think there is a reason and I am not condoning it, yet it makes me realize that he has needs that are not being met.

I don't think punishing this child is the right consequence for his actions, yet I wish I knew how to make him understand the damage he has done to trust I had for him. He is still young, so I don't know the best way to go about addressing this issue with him.

Any advice on teaching kids about the consequence of lost trust as a result of stealing without inflicting more negativity on a child who seems to already have enough difficulties in his life? How do you handle stealing in your classroom?