Dinosaurs & God

I am absolutely loving my class right now and how capable they are at this point in the year. I have 20 kiddos, which is a great number and although there are definitely times when listening skills are far from perfect, overall they are just doing a great job. We have 6 more school days until summer and I am at the point in the year where I have done all the new instruction and I am just enjoying the kiddos now and trying to have fun with them. Don't get me wrong, we are still reading and writing and doing math, but I am disregarding my sense of pressure to stick to the pacing guide in order to loosely follow what I am "supposed" to be doing and to make our activities a bit more engaging. I am using the weekly theme from our reading program and just adding in extra stuff that the kids are excited about like ::gasp:: painting. We have not done a lot of art this year and my kiddos were super excited to paint tropical fish last week.

This week our reading theme is dinosaurs (the weekly themes are insects, fish, then dinosaurs as part of a larger unit on amazing creatures). Today I read the story If The Dinosaurs Came Back followed by Gail Gibbons' Dinosaurs to compare and contrast fantasy versus reality. Gail Gibbons' book has illustrations, but provides information about dinosaurs instead of a completely made up story. I talked about how that book was different than our non-fiction books about butterflies because in those books there were photos about butterflies but there aren't any photos of dinosaurs because there weren't any people or cameras back in the dinosaur days. We talked about how the information about dinosaurs comes from people who study their fossils because no-one was around to observe them. The kids were excited to talk about dinosaurs and there were lots of hands waving in the air to ask questions (some more related to the discussion about dinosaurs than others...) So, in the midst of these stories and my explanation that there were no people around when dinosaurs were living, I had a few students wanting to know if God was around back then and if Adam and Eve were around back then. One, I have to give props to those kiddos for thinking critically about what they know about the world from their religious upbringing. Based on the understanding of creationism, there wouldn't be dinosaurs if God wasn't around to create them....right?

I always feel very conflicted, however, when they ask me questions wanting to confirm God's role in how the world works and how the world came to be. I feel like I've gotten these comments several times in recent weeks.

What is water made of? Did God make it? 

How did the butterfly get here?
It came from an egg. 
But where did the butterfly come from that made the egg? Did God make it? 

Who knew the battle of creationism versus evolution would rear its head in Kindergarten.

It's kind of like when the kids get into a discussion about whether or not Santa is real and some kids weigh in that he is not and that he is pretend. It's very difficult to provide an answer that satisfies everyone and doesn't leave anyone feeling deflated about what they have learned at home. Luckily, as previously noted, the listening skills of Kinders are not super exceptional at all times, so when I feel it is kind of necessary to move in a different direction it's not too difficult to divert their attention to something else. I feel bad though because they are asking great questions. They're just not questions I can really answer.

How many days left until you are on summer break? 

What do you do (if you teach in a public setting) and your students address God?  

Special shout to Kelly (Hi Kelly!) because she may be the only one who still reads my blog considering I NEVER post! 

A little update

This past Wednesday, at long last, I defended my dissertation...

...and I passed!

My official "hooding" ceremony is not until June, but I am officially "Dr. Sneaker."

woo hoo!

I still have final revisions to my paper based on feedback from my committee, but those are due by May 15th, so soon enough I will be DONE DONE DONE!

In other news, Baby Sneaker turned 1 (where did the time go?) and the Sneaker family moved into a new house this weekend.

Defending a dissertation and moving in a span of 3 days...yep, that's how I roll.

Do I really have to go to school in the morning?

fired again

This morning when it was almost time for the kiddos to start coming in, I went around the corner from my classroom to our work area to get a few things ready for next week. When I heard the Kinders being dismissed I headed back to my room and one student had already arrived. 

She looked at me and said, "oh you're here. I thought you got fired."

Definitely started my day with a chuckle! 

How was your day?

We have a training day tomorrow and then student led conferences on Friday. Hooray for quasi-short weeks. Mr. Sneaker has been out of town since Sunday morning so I have been on my own with Baby Sneaker trying to do it all (take care of her, keep the house clean, get my dissertation done, watch the three hour Bachelor finale etc. etc.). This mama is tired and looking forward to the weekend already!

Funny

Sometimes the things that come out of kids' mouths are so funny.

I was re-reading Knuffle Bunny Free today (and I didn't cry this time thankyouverymuch) and there are two pages that fold out to show a long picture sequence of Trixie's dream about the children in China who would enjoy Knuffle Bunny since she left him on the airplane and couldn't retrieve him because the plane she was on was already heading to China. I was attempting to read the words on the extra long foldout pages upside down and when I went to fold them back in, I fumbled the book a bit. I said something like uh oh, I don't want to rip the pages.

One little girl sitting up front said, "yeah you don't want to get fired."

I guess ripping book pages is pretty serious in her mind.

:0)

Knuffle Bunny Love

This week is K week, so naturally I broke out my stash of Knuffle Bunny books. I always hide them away until K week so the kiddos have no familiarity with the stories until we read them together (unless they've read them at home, but I've been lucky so far in being able to be able to introduce my classes to the wonderful world of Knuffle Bunny). 

I've posted about my love for all things Mo Willems in the past, but having just read Knuffle Bunny Free to the class today, I had to share about it.

Knuffle Bunny Free always makes Mrs. Sneaker cry.

Even more so now that I am a mama to this cutie girl. 

She will be 11 months old tomorrow. Where did the time go???

I can handle the story until the part where Trixie decides to give Knuffle Bunny to the crying baby behind her on the plane. Then I start to get a little choked up. But when it gets to the part with the letter from Trixie's dad, I'm just a sap. I felt a bit embarrassed getting all emotional in front of a parent helper and an IA, but there is no escaping it when it comes to Knuffle Bunny. 

What stories make you cry?

After I read the story, I had the kiddos use the StoryKit app on their iPads to record what their favorite part was and why. They also drew a picture of their favorite part using the Sketchio app and imported that into their StoryKit book. We are still working on proficiency in using StoryKit because the kiddos email me their work when they're done, which can be a bit tricky for some of them. But, it is awesome that I can have their work in my email inbox and forward it to their parents, have an audio clip of them telling their favorite part and why they liked it, and have a paperless record of their work. Tomorrow or Friday I am going to use the app called Socrative to have the kiddos vote for their favorite Knuffle Bunny Book. As they cast their votes, a graph is created on my iPad, which I project onto the board so they can see which book is getting the most votes. Once everyone has voted, we discuss the graph and decide which book was our class favorite. 

Over the years I have purchased all three Knuffle Bunny stories and a few pigeon books, but I am feeling the need for a trip to the library so I can introduce the kiddos to all of Mo Willems characters. I need to make a note to remember to introduce Pigeon during P week. 

***

In other news, I officially have a date to defend my dissertation. It was going to be May 15th, but I moved it up to April 24th to ensure that I can graduate in Spring term. All defenses need to take place before May 10th to count for spring graduation. I met with my adviser today and turned in my application for graduation. I am not done with the actual dissertation yet and have about 4 more weeks until I need a final draft, but I'm getting very close to the end and that feels good. I mostly have to work on chapter 5 and then just go back and do some formatting and editing to the rest of the document. I am currently at 173 pages. Yikes! 

I heart technology

Posts on two consecutive days...this is getting a bit crazy.

I just have to write a quick note about technology. I should be blogging about all the amazingness that is 1:1 iPads in Kindergarten, but I just don't have the energy or stamina to keep that up. I know there are other bloggers out there doing just that, so I'm gonna stick to something much more simple.

email

I have an email address for almost every child in my class and that made scheduling my spring conferences a whole lot easier.

I emailed my parent email list with a list of conference times and asked them to reply with their top two choices. We do student led conferences so I usually have 3-4 kids scheduled for each 30 minute time block. Within a few hours I have almost half of my class scheduled. I know I will need to make calls to a few parents (probably 3) but three calls sounds much less time consuming than 21.

I know that not all of the parents will get back to me, but I indicated in my email that I would just schedule the ones who didn't respond, so it is what it is.

It feels really nice to save time and be efficient.

And that is all I have to say for now.  :0)