the parties

I am very happy that my first go round of classroom parties is over. The morning class went by in a flash and the kids were really good. The party was under control and I felt silly for even worrying about things getting crazy.

The afternoon..different story.

It's funny too, because usually I feel like my PM class has better behavior than the morning group. And, this year my PM class is super small (usually 18, but two were absent today). Yet, for whatever reason, the afternoon party drained me and I was pretty happy to put all my little creatures on the bus and wave goodbye. We did almost the same activities, except the PM class got to make a pumpkin project and the AM class didn't. I realized that trying to do any activity that requires the kiddos to stop and attend to directions during a party makes the activity feel a lot more taxing and stressful. Also, four of the moms who came to help brought siblings, which in my mind makes more work and doesn't necessarily take any of the work off my plate. Luckily, I had extra materials so the 3-4 year old siblings made the pumpkin too. Then there were two toddlers whose moms basically followed them around doing damage control of all the stuff in the classroom they were trying to destroy touch. I love it when parents come to help, but it was clear by the different between the morning and afternoon that when parents bring additional children it just adds to the chaos a bit. I felt like the PM class didn't stop talking the entire time. They weren't bad by any means, but it was just noisy and too much for me.

Anyway, I know both classes had fun and I hope that tomorrow we get back to normal and good listening! I had one little boy who announced upon receiving his snack plate with apples and goldfish that he was allergic to the fish. I told him not to eat them to which he responded by eating every single one. I have spoken with his parents about his allergies and it's not anything that will truly make him sick, but come on buddy...seriously! I am really tempted to forego all snack situations because of how many kids have allergies. I am so afraid of feeding kids food they shouldn't be eating, but I can't keep track of all the different dairy, wheat, gluten, etc. allergies. I ask parents to supply individual snacks for events like today and one mom did, but the other child (who was chowing down on the goldfish) said he didn't have his own snack. ::sigh::

I dressed up as a black cat (lame, but I could not find a single costume at the Halloween store that didn't look seriously skimpy and inappropriate for Kindergarten). I tried to play it off that I was a friend of Pete the Cat rockin' in my school shoes and wore my cool gray high tops with plaid interior. The kids just enjoyed seeing me dressed up, so obviously it doesn't take a whole lot of effort to make them happy. They were so excited for the day regardless of what happened in class.

We had the chance to sign up to get trick or treaters tonight since we are in an apartment building and I opted not to. Mr. Sneaker is leaving for Central America later tonight, so we are hanging out, packing, and trying to get in some relaxing. Next year, when we are back in our house and have a cute baby to dress up maybe Halloween will get some of its pizazz back!

Halloween Monday

So is anyone else not too thrilled that Halloween is on a Monday this year? I am hoping it doesn't set us off on a crazy week full of sugar comas and cranky kiddos.

I am going to attempt to get some instruction in on Monday even though the kids are allowed to come to school dressed in their costumes. But, during the second half of each session we are going to have a Halloween Parade and followed by a party in the classroom. I got parent volunteers to supply a healthy snack and juice, but I am stuck on the activity part. Last year, I had parents who took control of all of the parties and I didn't have to do any planning at all. They bought all the supplies, planned fun activities, and cleaned up before they left.

It was awesome.

This year, I had one mom agree to plan an activity for the AM class but no-one stepped up for the PM class. I don't really want to make it an either you do it all or we won't have a party kind of deal, yet I am tempted. I am not really too into planning it myself and my mind was totally on conferences this week and not at all thinking about Halloween. We are limited to 30 minutes for the classroom party and I'd like to do an art project or something, but I am struggling with ideas and I don't have a lot of time left to plan.

Some ideas I had....
freeze dance with Halloween music (but that doesn't take long)
musical chairs with Halloween music (but then there's always a kid who cries because he/she doesn't win)
an art project (but I have only come across ones that seem too complicated or time consuming)

Any idea for a simple art project or craft that will seem fun and exciting to Kindergartners?

Are you having a Halloween party? What are you planning?

Help!

I have a student who needs a lot of practice with numbers (recognizing and knowing the names). Her parents don't speak English very well, so I want to buy her some kind of game that will allow her to press numbers and hear number words in English since they are not able to help her with her number vocabulary. Any ideas?

My first thought was to look into the Leap Frog games, but after looking them over, I am hesitant to just buy one because they aren't cheap and I really don't know how well they work. I don't want something super complicated...but a laptop type game where she could hear and practice numbers as well as letter and letter sounds would be awesome.

I would love some advice about what's out there. Even a number puzzle with some type of sound output would be great.

Advice please!!!

Made it

I survived my one and only field trip of the year! The kids will go on another one in the spring, but I will be on maternity leave by then, so today was it.

We took a nice little 45-minute long bus ride to a pumpkin patch and spent the morning riding a train, riding a boat, picking out pumpkins, running through a hay maze, and then eating lunch before we headed back to school.

When we go on field trips, I have both of my classes at once, which is always stressful. I have a total of 38 kids, but 5 ended up not coming, so it was me and 33 kiddos. Luckily, we had a lot of parents who came along--27 of 'em.

Yep, you read that right....33 kids and 27 adults.

Good deal.

I don't take a group so that I can kind of go back and forth between classes since they only have one class at a time for the initial talk about the farm and the ride out to the patch. Pretty much each kid had their very own parent to stick with and only a few parents had to take on another child from the class. It was also nice to have a lot of parents because they take their kiddos home with them, so there were only 9 children left on the bus for the ride home.

I always have a fear that someone will get sick on the extremely long bus ride, but we had another successful puke free year. We did have one bee sting, but the little girl was okay and didn't have an allergic reaction. And, her mom was there, so that made me feel much better.

I successfully made it through the event without having to use the porta potty (which is hard for a preggo), but I just made sure not to drink a lot and used the real bathroom back at school.

The kids were all so excited about their pumpkins and it was a fun day.

But, I'm glad it's over.

Next up: Conferences tomorrow, Thursday, and Friday.

Book Art

In my last post, I wrote about a book called Press Here that my kiddos LOVED. On Friday, during choice time, I was working with some children at the bingo stamper art table and we made a little discovery that bingo stampers make dots just like the dots in Press Here. We spontaneously started making our own pages with dots and directions like in the book Press Here. It was nearly the end of choice time when we started, but I have a feeling there is going to be some fighting over the dot stamp table next week. The kiddos were so into the idea of making their own Press Here books and they were coming out so cute.

We just had regular white paper, but I think I may cut some smaller paper and staple pages together to make books that they can fill in. I was doing the writing, but they were dictating what the directions would be and they LOVED it. Choice time is limited to 15 minutes once a week, but boy do I love all the creativity and enthusiasm that is filling the room during that brief time. I wish more of Kindergarten could be like that, which is why I feel that it's so important to squeeze it in once a week.

Great Books

I finally joined the club and read Pete the Cat I Love My White Shoes to my kiddos yesterday. I got the book along with a CD of the author reading it from the Scholastic book club this month and it was well worth that $7.00. First of all, it's kind of fun to listen to a story along with the kids instead of reading it myself because the author's version is most definitely a better telling of the story than my version. Secondly, it was just so fun to see how much the kids LOVED the book and the song and the funky beat. They started to sing along and they insisted that we read it again yesterday and then again today.

We also read a book that my teaching partner let me borrow called Press Here. Have you heard of it?

 If you haven't and you teach Kindergarten run out and find it now! The kids were SO into this book I can't even describe it. It's not really a story...the pages actually contain only pictures of colored dots and instructions like rub the dot gently, tap the dot five times, or press the dot hard, but they were so excited to see what each action made the dots do on the subsequent page. When you tap the dot five times on the next page the one dot turns into five. When you press the yellow dots hard the background on the next page turns black. The text on the page is funny and really engaging and it was seriously as if the author was watching us read it and writing the text based on the kids' reactions. It was so fun. I have a feeling that I definitely need to add that book to my own collection because the kiddos will be looking for it on the shelf.

I thought the kids were obsessed with the Pigeon books last year, but I think Pete the Cat and Press Here are bringing it to a whole new level.

Speaking of a whole new level...have you heard of Candy Corn M&M's? They are orange, white, and yellow and filled with white chocolate. YUM. Sadly, they are apparently a Walmart exclusive, so I had to track them down on amazon and spend way too much for a 9 oz. bag. They arrived today and made me a very happy camper. I heart prime shipping.