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.
