What I didn't tell you about Venice....

Do you remember this picture of Mr. Sneaker and me from Venice this summer?

Well...when I shared my stories about the trip, I left a little something out.

The day we took this very romantic gondola ride...

We found out that Team Sneaker (and Mrs. Sneaker in particular) will be expanding!

That's right...

Baby on Board

Baby Sneaker will be making a grand debut sometime around spring break.

Phew!

Thanks for all the comments on The Crying Game! I am glad to know that many other teachers react to crying the same way I do....by not giving it a lot of attention. I think we all wish we could be a little more sympathetic but it's that all too common issue of not being able to do it for one kid if you can't do it for all of the kids and the fear that if too much attention is given for crying that the crying will increase.

I actually had one very sweet student start crying because the girl across from her was crying and she felt so bad. I guess she thought I should have been helping the girl who was crying a bit more than I was, but I was really touched by how worried she was for her table mate.

I don't have much time to post today because we are on our way out the door, but stay tuned for a big Sneaker Teacher announcement this week!

Crying Game

Kindergarten teachers are no strangers to crying children, especially at the very beginning of the year, but I have to ask all you other Kinder teachers...what do you do when kids cry?

When kids cry, I get very torn. I feel really bad when some of my kiddos miss mommy or daddy, but with many other children in the room, it's really really tough to give one child all of your attention in order to cheer them up.

Today I had a little girl start crying out of the blue. We were in the middle of math and after I gave directions I went over to her and asked her what was wrong. After a bit of talking I was able to gather that she was really over tired because she was allowed to stay up late last night to watch her new princess movie. She wanted to go home, she wanted her mommy, and she wanted to take a nap.

I don't blame her.

But, at the same time, if she is tired, she is not going to not be tired because I talk to her about.

I feel like I sound like the most heartless teacher, but I don't feel like I should remove my attention from all of the other kids and stop teaching because she didn't get enough sleep.

I let her cry and after a little bit she stopped.

It's so much different if a child is hurt or if a child is crying because of something another child did, but a child who is over tired because of--let's be real--her parents' poor choice...I don't feel like all of my energy and focus should go to consoling her. I truly felt bad that it was affecting her so much, but I also felt like even if I did try to console her, it would not have made a difference.

So, I am curious. What do you do? Are there other Kinder teachers out there who will also let a child cry? Please tell me I am not the only one. Maybe there is a good cheering up strategy that I am overlooking...

In other news, my new rug came today! Woo hoo! I am really excited to start working on transitioning from the morning greeting carpet to the new carpet so that we can get out learning on come Monday!

Starting the week with a bang

Wow-having Back to School Night on a Monday makes me worried that I am going to be tired for the entire rest of the week. When I am with the kiddos, I don't really think about being tired because let's face it--there is no time to actually think about yourself or your own needs when you have 17 or 20 other little people in the room. But once my little gems left for the day, I realized just how exhausted I am and took off early. Since back to school was two additional hours beyond our work day, we were allowed to leave right after school yesterday and return in the evening. I didn't really have much time to leave--well actually I just kept working and working, so aside from my very short dinner run, I worked straight through.

So, I left early today instead.

I tidied up my room, put all the work that was done today into mailboxes and headed for the car. I meant to bring a few things home, but I realized when I was turning onto the freeway that I forgot them. Oh well....tomorrow is another day.

Luckily, my kiddos are doing great so far and I am feeling really good about what they are already able to do. I would like to attribute it to this being my second go round as a Kinder teacher, or to my implementation of the stick system from day one this year, but I truly think I just have a different batch of kids. Last year I had a lot of squirrely boys. This year, the boys seem pretty on task, which is great. I do have 7 ELL students in the AM class, but language needs are so different than behavioral needs. Yes, I have a few kiddos who are not exactly tuning in to my directions as much as I'd like, BUT I have already seen improvement and I am honestly very proud of how accountable I am holding them. They will get it. They just have not been in this type of environment before (so rigorously academic) so they need some time.

I have been really pleased with how well they are responding to my quiet signal this year, especially my PM class. Seriously, so far they are a dream class. 17 kids, really respectful and hard working, and super super cute to boot. I was on cloud 9 today during math because I looked around and every single child was following the directions.

We have been focusing on one number a day and today was 2. We started out with our rainbow number where the kids trace a big two with all the colors of the rainbow in order to practice number formation. This is more of an exercise in stopping, watching, listening, and waiting than actual number writing, but they did really, really well. Then I broke out the stampy markers and demonstrated stamping each one twice to make groups of two. I told the kiddos they could choose 5 stampers, they had to stamp each one twice, they had to circle the group of two, and then write 2 next to it. Lots of directions for Kinders but they totally rocked it out. As I was putting the papers in their cubbies I was looking them over and most of the kids did this without any problems. Of course a few of them got a little stamp happy, but we'll do it again tomorrow with the number three and the following day with number four, so they will have more time to practice.

After the rainbow numbers I set out the math trays that go with our math program. At the beginning of the year, we train the kids to put their number tiles in order from 1-5. We've been practicing this and most kids do it without assistance now. Since our number was two today, I asked the kids to show me two of a variety of things and they were so on point with doing exactly what I asked and waiting patiently while I checked out everyone's work. I loved it! They had little rows with two pennies, two fruit counters, two connecting cubes, and two little letters. Spot on!


I am really excited to see where these groups go this year.

Really excited.

I attempted to start our phonics program today but we are still awaiting our new rugs so I haven't been able to practice transitioning to specific carpet spots. My fingers are SUPER DUPER CROSSED that the rug arrives this week so I can add in that part of our daily routine. It was a little touch and go starting to work on some of the phonics activities (especially when the director of C&I and the principal walked in), but I think I just felt out of my element because I didn't really want to start yet, then felt guilty so decided to just try out a few parts with them.

So far so good and hopefully things continue to get even better as we settle into routines and move into our "real" schedule in the coming weeks.

Words Cannot Explain

Words cannot explain how tired I am, but maybe if I tell you I just had to re-type the word words four times before I got it right that might give you a clue.

We had Back to School Night tonight (ugh on a MONDAY) and so...

I. Am. Completely. Exhausted.

I got to work at 7:15 am and besides 15 minutes of siting at lunch and a 15 minute hurried trip to Whole Foods for some dinner, which I took back and wolfed down in my classroom, I was busy and working until 7:40 pm.

Hello 12-hour workday....

This is the first time in my entire teaching career that I have had to do an actual presentation for back to school night. I really liked getting to share a lot of information with parents, but it was SO hot in my room and I want nothing more than to crawl in bed right now.

I have more to share about what is going on in the classroom, but maybe tomorrow?

Happy Face

I am so glad that it's Saturday. I slept so late today (compared to how early I get up for school) and I am feeling totally content to be home and carefree for the next two days. Having four days in the first week this year really wore me out. Some schools start with only half of their Kinders at a time and then finally have the whole class on day three, but not us. We got 'em all right away and continued to get new students each day of the week (except yesterday). My AM class now has 20 and my PM has 18, but one has yet to show up, so I am thinking he may not actually join us. Those numbers are awesome and I hope they stay that way!

Yesterday one kiddo in my AM started to give me a run for my money, but I talked with the school counselor and we came up with a plan to try and get him on board for making better choices. He was acting a bit defiant, yet he does have some issues that we already know about that are most likely contributing factors, so I am trying to have a lot of patience until we can really figure him out. I know he is going to do great once we do.

My PM class is a dream so far, except the little girl who was terrified of the bus is still having some issues. Yesterday she refused to come into the classroom and was crying so hard that when she finally did come in she was so worked up she threw up. Ugh! I made it through three years of teaching without any vomit and yesterday that streak was definitely broken. Luckily, there was a parent volunteer right across the hall so I asked her watch my kiddos so I could bring this little girl to the office carrying the trash can with us the whole way. I am pretty sure I have mentioned before the extreme extent of my aversion to throw up, so it's never a fun day when somebody gets sick. I have to feel bad for her though because obviously she is pretty traumatized, yet she has been in school before and did pretty well in the classroom up until yesterday. Poor thing. I hope she is better next week. And, fortunately for us, Mrs. Bee's classroom is empty in the PM since she only teaches in the AM, so I just had the class line up and and we went into her room for our first few activities while our room was being cleaned. Mrs. B helped get a story started while I went and grabbed some of our stuff and the rest of the kiddos, although a little concerned about their friend, did a fabulous job just adapting to the situation and going with the flow. There were a lot of exclamations from me like, "look, Mrs. Bee has an alphabet rug just like we do!" and "oh, good, Mrs. Bee has glue and scissors just like we do." After about an hour we returned to our room and finished up the day. Thank goodness for an escape route in the event of puke incidents!

I stayed until 5 yesterday doing my planning for all of next week and getting everything ready. Friday is not the preferable day for that since technically we are aloud to leave when the kids get on the bus, but it felt good to get a lot done so I can start the week feeling organized. The to do lists definitely helped! A few of you commented about some cool planners by Erin Condren. I was wondering if they are only available online? I am guessing so since you can have them customized, but I didn't feel like I could see enough of what the calendars looked like to decide if it would work for me or not. And, they are quite spendy, so I wouldn't want to get it and be disappointed....I need to get my appointments and Mr. Sneaker's travel organized though! We use an online google calendar but I am just not good about using that. I want to have something that I can keep with my lesson planning materials and bring to class and staff meetings.

I am working on getting the photos of my kiddos printed up. I got an email from Snapfish that they are running a deal for 1 cent prints. You just need to use the coupon code PENNY094U and you can get up to 500 prints for only 1 cent each.

Hope everyone has a great weekend. We are having some really hot weather here in Portland (I think it's supposed to be 95 today) so I am staying cool in the AC and enjoying the sunny view from my window.