Sniff the flowers, blow out the candles

This morning, I had one of those days that made me want to put my head down on a desk and cry. My morning class had a very difficult time staying on task...not all of them--most of them are actually really on task and good at following rules and directions. There were a few kiddos however, that made the morning quite a struggle. I had to make my first negative parent called and tried to explain in my best Spanish that we are having some behavioral issues in the classroom that make it very challenging for me to teach. This child had a time out (missed PE while I retaught the lesson he ignored), then after another incident, I had a private talk with him in Spanish about behaving and following directions and he still kept it up. I don't like to have children miss recess or fun activities because I recognize that some kids need MORE activity than we are allowing which makes taking away opportunities for movement seem illogical in terms of getting them to settle down, so I am finding that I struggle with finding appropriate consequences. Sometimes I ask a child to leave the group and return when they are ready to follow directions, yet that sometimes backfires and the child just goes back to his/her seat and does nothing so they basically get out of the work. Because I am so limited on time, that makes holding students accountable a challenge. I sometimes feel like a failure in the consequences department because I have a hard time finding true consequences (which actually cause the undesired behavior to change). Yes, I can ask a child to leave carpet, but if they were not interested in what I was teaching in the first place, that is probably going to actually increase the probability they will misbehave in the future rather than decrease it. I also use choice time as leverage and indicate that students who make good choices earn their playtime, but some of the kids in my class receive ELD instruction in small groups and it is during this time that the rest of the students get play time (don't even get me started on how much I think that is not fair to the students who leave, but I cannot teach anything new while are gone, so choice time infused with learning games is pretty much the only option) so some kids don't get play time regardless of their behavioral choices. As a result, I lose the leverage of play time.

I am hopeful that a call home to parents will be a good start to recognizing there is a big problem and that we need to work together to help this kiddo understand the expectations in the classroom. I worry about how this parent may have perceived the call because I don't like to make negative calls prior to actually meeting the parent face to face. I did, however, feel it was necessary today. The afternoon seemed like a dream compared with the morning and I was thankful for a quieter, smaller group to spend the rest of the day with.

Our new math program has the kids drawing "scenes" in which they have to depict a certain number (like Anno's Counting Book). It is really interesting to evaluate these scenes because some children are SO much more advanced when it comes to drawing than others. We did our scene of 4 today and some kids showed 4 houses (like my model), others showed 4 people, and one showed 4 cars. Yet, there were also kids who just randomly scribbled like they have done for both the scene of 3 and the scene of 2. The idea is to draw a scene that incorporates the number in lots of different parts of the scene. For example an outdoor scene with 4 trees, 4 birds, 4 clouds, 4 flowers, and 4 kids playing. Sometimes I feel like such a failure when I look at certain things the kids do, but I try to keep in mind that some kids can be almost a year older than others in the same class and that a lot of things we do in Kindergarten are completely developmental and the skills will come in time with practice. I try not to be too hard on myself, especially when it comes to kids and their artwork. I do not want to imply that there is a right or wrong way to draw/make something because art is very subjective and I know that certain kids are just starting to use crayons and pencils.

Today was a good day for deep breaths and I am hopeful that tomorrow will be a better day! I try so hard to be positive and compliment the kiddos who are doing the right thing, yet it gets hard to be upbeat and positive when I feel like I am slowly losing my mind inside!

How was your day?