Spring Edition: Things Heard in the Classroom 2013

Last week, we finished another year of preschool. As usual, the children in our class kept us laughing, right up until the time they walked out the door ready to move up to the 4-5 year old preschool class, or ready to head to Kindergarten. I wish I had jotted down half the funny things they told us. Unfortunately, the days were so busy, that I didn’t get a chance.  Please feel free to add your own cute/funny things kids have said to you recently.

 

We were shaking maracas, and one 5 year old said, “Look, Miss Sarah, your arm is shaking!” I just told her that’s ’cause I ate too many cookies! Gotta love their honesty!

We had our 3-4 year old graduation program. It was one of a very few days that I actually dressed up. One of the 4 year old boys asked me (in front of all the parents, as we were getting ready to sing for them), “What’s that purple stuff on your eyes?” I told him it was makeup. He asked me why I was wearing makeup. I responded with, “Don’t you think I should dress up for school SOMETIMES?” His response? “No!”

 

We are certainly going to miss the funny stories, the adorable giggles, the belly laughs, and even the chattiness of our preschoolers. This was an especially fantastic year. I can’t wait to see what next year will hold!

A Lesson on Seeds

I recently discovered a book called Sunflower House, by Eve Bunting. I have fallen in love with this book!

The story is about a boy who plants sunflower seeds in a large circle. The book follows the boy’s adventures in watching the sunflower plants grow (and shows what’s happening in the ground before it comes up too). Soon, the mammoth flowers make a perfect fort for the boy and his two friends. They play in it all summer, and even have a sleep over in it one night. In the Fall, the flowers die off. The children discover the seeds in the center of the sunflower, and collect enough to plant more next year.

Besides the wonderful pictures, the story is told in a way that got children very excited about the sunflower house. There are many rhyming words, but it doesn’t have a Dr. Suess feel to it. We learned some great vocabulary words too: “sow” (to which one 5 year old asked me, “Then, we didn’t he just say they planted some seeds?”, “guaranteed”, and “mammoth.”

Some wonderful conversations started spontaneously as I was reading this book to my preschoolers. In the first class of 4-5 year olds, one girl commented that, “Kids don’t drink ice tea.” I then asked the group what they thought the mom should bring instead. Only one child said pop, and none said Kool-Aid. I was surprised! Most of them said juice, milk, or water. Orange juice was the clear winner. They also commented on the “gingerbread cookies” the mom brought, and they said the kids couldn’t eat those, because it’s not Christmas. Another conversation that we had in every class was around the wish the boy made on the stars when he was sleeping in the sunflower house. The children had some great ideas about what he might have wished for. The older classes thought maybe he wished for more sunflowers, or that they wouldn’t be scared sleeping outside. Every class mentioned snacks. Also mentioned, was a pink 4-wheeler, Lightning McQueen, a table, a dog, a teddy bear, and many more random items.

As I mentioned, at the end of the story, the children collect sunflower seeds to plant again next year (though, some children thought maybe they should eat them, make bread with them, or paint them and put them in their candy jar). Last year, I saved some seeds from my zucchini plants in my garden, and from a couple of pumpkins from the pumpkin patch. After letting them dry out, I put them in an envelope. I brought these to show the children. We noticed that some of the pumpkin seeds were pretty shriveled up, and brittle. I told them that I didn’t think they would grow, so I bought some more seeds at the store. I opened the seed packet, and we looked at the seeds.

I brought in several different kinds of seed packets that I plan on planting this spring. In addition to the pumpkin seeds, I brought in  cucumber, snap peas, green beans, eggplant, and carrot seed packets. Before I opened the packages, we talked about what we thought the seeds might look like. My assistant teacher noticed that the sound of the seed package shaking was a good predictor of how big the seeds might be. This was a GREAT discovery! I pulled out one seed from each packet and showed them. Everyone was surprised by how small the eggplant seeds were, and how tiny a carrot seed is! During my lunch break, I photocopied all the seed packets, taped them to an index card, then taped the seed to the back of the card. I didn’t have a seed packet for zucchini, but I happened to have my laptop with. I had several pictures of the zucchini plant in my garden, so I printed one of those off for the zucchini seed card. I put these seed cards on our Science/Discovery table for the children to explore.

One more way we talked about seeds today was that I happened to have a half a bell pepper that I cut to put in my lunch. I noticed that most of the seeds were still attached to the inside of the half I brought to school. I showed the children what the inside looked like, where the seeds were, and gently pulled it off the pepper so they could get a better look.

To wrap up our day on seeds, we planted green bean seeds in a ziplock baggie, with a damp paper towel. We had already talked about how plants need soil, water, and sun to grow. We were using the paper towel sort of like soil, and we taped them to the window of the classroom. I have also done this with cotton balls, which I might do with the three-year-olds, so we can compare the differences in how they grow. We attempted to explain how this would act sort of like a greenhouse, but our explanation was confusing, and I’m not sure they understood the concept. I am hoping that when today’s class comes back to school on Monday, they will see roots starting to grow. We did also talk about the fact that in order for them to grow all the way to having beans on them, they would need to be moved to soil. We talked about putting them in a pot with some soil and putting them near a window if they didn’t have any garden our other outside place to plant them.

The children left today very excited about their planting, and about seeds in general. One mom stopped as they were leaving, and said, “This is a very big deal!” We are SO doing this at home!”  Her son had not stopped talking about the planting and seeds we looked at the whole time she was there picking him up and getting him ready to go. In my book, that is enough to say this was a very successful lesson, and a very successful day!

Kids Say the Darndest Things…

Here’s the late-winter edition of things kids say that make me laugh…

A girl in our 4-5 year old class told me that she does plays in a local theater. This was news to me, so I was asking her about it. She told me that since she’s 4 now, she gets to learn lines. She told me all about how excited she was to finally have lines in the show, etc. When I later asked her mom about it, I found out she had made the whole thing up! WOW – she sure fooled me!! How does a kid come up with so many accurate details?!?

I’ve been having an issue with my dryer shrinking clothes lately. That, on top of gaining a few pounds, pulls out the honesty in preschoolers. The other day, we were doing some stretches at the beginning of class to wake up our bodies… one of the preschoolers told me my belly was getting bigger (and no, I’m not pregnant). The upside? Motivation to start working out again!

A 5 year old girl noticed my wedding ring the other day. She said “Oh, a diamond ring – it’s nice. It looks just like the one I have!” LOL – I certainly hope no preschooler has a ring as nice as a wedding ring! That would require some serious spoiling!

On March 19th, a boy came and said, “Tomorrow’s the first day of summer, and there’s still gonna be snow!” I groaned and said, “Well, tomorrow’s the first day of Spring, but I certainly hope there’s not still snow on the first day of summer!” He asked why not, I told him that would make me sad. He shrugged and went on with whatever else he was doing.

NO more winter updates!!! I’m tired of snow, I’m tired of cold… on to spring and summer fun!

Related posts:
Peeing in the Snow
Heard in the Classroom – Part 2
Heard in the Classroom

Why I Like Conferences

This past week, I did preschool conferences with 59 parents in 3 days. There would have been at least 15 more, but Tuesday was a Snow Day. Those conferences are in process of being rescheduled for the week after Spring Break.

I really enjoy having the opportunity to meet with the parents one on one. I enjoy hearing how things are going at home, and I enjoy being able to share all the great things their children are doing in preschool. I enjoy being able to give parents ideas of things they can be doing at home to expand on what we are doing at school. My favorites part is when I get to show them just how far their children have come since September.

As teachers, we know that some conferences are going to be tougher than others. It’s hard to be the one to tell a parent if their children have difficulty listening, focusing, or following rules. Even more difficult is when you have concerns about where they are at in comparison to other children their age. There are always positive things to say, that is where I strive to spend most of the 15 minutes I have with them.

Conference time is not only a great time to touch base on how the children are doing, it’s also nice to hear the parents’ take on how we as teachers, and our program is doing. I love hearing the parents say things like, “You really know my kid.” and “Yup, we see the same things at home.” It’s nice to know there is consistency between school and home!

While conference week can be a lot of work to prepare for, and exhausting to get through, it is also a wonderful week. By the end of the week, I feel so affirmed thanks to the many compliments I receive about our classroom, my co-teacher and I, and our program as a whole. I hope the parents feel just as good about their children and the wonderful things they are doing to prepare for kindergarten and a lifetime of learning.

To Kindergarten or not to Kindergarten?

With kindergarten registrations happening all around the state of MN, Miss Kim and I have been getting questions from many of our parents on whether or not they should send their children to kindergarten. The parents who have been asking this the most have been those who have boys with summer birthdays.

I remember 7 years ago when I taught in MN, it seemed to be a trend to keep summer birthday boys back until they were newly 6. In the district I worked in, there were many options available for kindergartners. Parents could choose from half-days; all day, every other day; or all-day, every day (for a fee). As a parent, I can understand what a big decision this is, as I had to go through it with my daughter. It’s hard to know what is the best choice for your child. Many factors go into such a big decision. In the end, because of how academically-ready my daughter was, we opted for one of the all day choices. I think we were going to send her every day – I don’t remember for sure, because we moved to WI a month before kindergarten started for her.

When I taught in WI, pretty much everyone sent their children to kindergarten when they were 5, no matter when their birthdays were. There were no “options” for kindergarten. They went to school all day, every day. It was a big adjustment for my daughter. She was still taking naps at home. The first couple months were rough, because she was so tired at night. Once her body adjusted to the schedule, she did great.

Now I am back in MN, in the same district I previously worked in. I only had a couple parents ask me last year whether or not they should send their children to kindergarten. In the end, most of them sent their children. One or two held them back for one more year of practice in preschool. This year, I have had at least a half dozen (or more) parents asking me what they should do.

I believe the reason that more parents are questioning what to do, is because Kindergarten is largely moving to an all-day, every day program. It’s becoming more and more academic. Children are now doing in kindergarten what we did in first grade back in the 80′s. They are learning to read, doing simple addition and subtraction, etc. Our district’s policy is that the schools will “meet the child where they are at.” As preschool teachers, we are doing our best to find the balance between following age-appropriate guidelines, and preparing them for the academic world they will soon be entering.

Here are some of the skills your child ideally would have before going to kindergarten:
*Being able to sit in a large group without disturbing other children, and listen to the teacher. This includes being able to raise their hand before blurting out answers, and is probably the biggest thing that is difficult for many children heading to kindergarten (or at least are age-eligible).

*Being able to follow multi-step directions. In preschool we mainly practice this at the art table, and in small groups.

*Participation in group activities.

*Being able to share and take turns.

*Being able to enter a group of peers and have meaningful interactions with them.

*Being able to ask for help when they need it. This includes both self-help skills (i.e. asking for help if they can’t zip their coat), and social skills (i.e. being able to ask for help if there is a problem between peers).

*Being able to recognize at least 30 out of 52 letters (combination of upper and lower case letters). This is our goal for preschoolers getting ready to go to kindergarten, though many children go knowing more or less. Addition on 2/2/13: After looking at the benchmarks for kindergarten, your child will be even more successful if he or she can identify 40 letters at the beginning of the school year. This is not the expectation, but will help in the overall goals of the year.

*Being able to point and count 25 objects. This is a different skill from being able to count from memory to 25.

This is just a sampling of things we take in to consideration when parents ask us if their children are ready for kindergarten. I wrote a post a while back on some of the reasons you might want to send your child to preschool in the first place. We work on the skills above, and more.

For parents who still aren’t sure, I recommend signing their children up for both kindergarten and preschool for the following year. As it gets closer to fall, they will have a better idea on whether or not their child is ready to move on, or needs one more year of practice. They can always drop their child from whichever program they are not going to go with. It would be a bummer if during the summer, they did not see the growth they had hoped in their child, only to find out the preschools are full.

One more thing to keep in mind, a child who is naturally cautious, slow to warm up, or otherwise incredibly shy, may not necessarily “outgrow” it with one more year of practice. If that is your child’s temperament, another year of preschool might not help. True, they will have an extra year to learn and practice social skills, but he or she will likely still start out kindergarten very shy and quiet. Hopefully, as the year goes on, your child will open up more and have a great year of school.

On a Personal Note:
Miss Kim and I both have boys with summer birthdays. Kim kept her child in preschool until he was 6. She’s never regretted her decision. I sent my son. We lived in WI, where that’s just what everyone did. He was already reading some, and academically was ready. I never regretted sending him as a newly 5 year old, until this year. He is in 2nd grade.

He has always been a very active child. Every year since preschool, I asked his teachers if they thought he had ADHD. They all said, “No, he’s just a busy boy. He’ll outgrow it.” Well, at 7 years old, he still hasn’t outgrown it. He gets in trouble often for fidgeting, and having a hard time paying attention. Academically, he is doing quite well. His behavior is, unfortunately, getting in the way of being completely successful in school. Whether or not an extra year before kindergarten would have helped him, I will never know. The down side is that he is feeling bad about getting in trouble all the time, but can’t seem to help it. My challenge as a parent is now to help him learn new strategies, and to keep his self-esteem from taking a further hit.

Every child is different. The decision to send your child to kindergarten or wait a year, is yours. Ultimately, you get to decide what is best for your child. Talk to your child’s teachers, explore all your options.

Girls Playing with Blocks

I love when I look in our block area, and I see girls working to construct masterpieces. Maybe because it goes against the norm, which is that the block area is usually filled with boys.

Preschoolers never cease to amaze me with their ingenuity. I have seen children make all kinds of things out of blocks. They build walls, roads, castles, “buildings,” you name it, they’ve probably tried to construct it. I just love their creativity!

Today, we read the book Dinosaur Bones by Bob Barner. The children led a wonderful discussion about seeing bones in the museum. Some of them didn’t think the Brachiosaurus bones could fit in a museum, some of them had seen dinosaur bones in a museum. One page of the book had a boy looking up at a huge skeleton. The children gave all sorts of commentary on how the boy thought the skeleton was going to fall over, etc. It was one of those moments where, as a teacher, you let them go with their discussion. It related to the story, made them think about it on a deeper level, and enhanced other children’s understanding.

Later in our class period, it was free choice time. A group of three girls were working really hard to make something. They plotted it all out ahead of time through discussion, then put their plan into action. Imagine my surprise when they excitedly called me over to see their museum! They used blocks to make the structure of the building, then used smaller blocks to create a defined area for each of the dinosaurs to be on display. They took the people out of the doll house area, along with some furniture, and had the people in the museum looking at the dinosaurs. It was VERY cool!!!

More on How Kids Learn to Read

I wrote a while ago about a training I attended on teaching kids how to read. The focus in my last post was more on how we can prepare preschoolers for reading. At the training, there were things I agreed with our speaker about, and there were things that I didn’t. As a teacher, I find things all the time with differing “schools of thought”. Teaching reading, and teaching writing, seem to be two areas where there are MANY ideas on the “best” ways to teach them. The reason I bring that up, is because I tend to take some of the things that I learn, think about them, think about how it relates to my experiences with children, and either try the new ideas or not.

At the training with the Reading Recovery teacher, she made what many of my peers and I thought was a shocking statement. She said that we shouldn’t teach kids the names of the letters, rather, teach them the shapes. This was considered controversial among the preschool teachers because we are required to “test” the 4-5 year olds on their letters 3 times a year. We also know that within the first two weeks of Kindergarten, they are tested on their letters. If they don’t know at least 30 of them (testing includes upper case and lower case letters, so there are 52 possible), they are put into a group where they will receive extra help in getting ready for reading. If kids are expected to know the names of the letters, why wouldn’t we teach them?

In another training on Creative Curriculum, the curriculum structure we use in preschool, the trainer talked more about this concept. Children naturally learn shapes before they learn letters. When we teach children letters, we should talk about the shapes of them as PART of our lessons. By feeding into their natural way of learning, we can speed up their process of recognizing letters.

The training suggested that this was true with words as a whole. That when they are learning to recognize their names (typically one of the first words they can read), they are actually learning to recognize the shape of their name, rather than the letters themselves. The letters come 2nd. I’m not sure I fully believe this to be true. Here’s why:

At the beginning of each class, we have a name card for each child sitting on a table. When the children arrive at school, they “check in” by taking their name card, and putting it in a clear can. This encourages them to practice reading their name, and helps us identify who’s here for the day. For the 3-year-olds, we have their picture on the back of the card to help them check if they are right. While they are still learning to identify their name, many children will pick another name that starts with the same letter, regardless of the length or shape of their name. This leads me to believe that the first letter plays a more important role in name recognition, than does the shape of it (at least initially).

At the snack table, we have the children once again find their names on the table, so they know where to sit. As we are waiting for all the children to finish washing their hands, we have the children practice tracing their letters with their fingers, have them count the letters, ask them what letter they start with, end with, or have them tell us all the letters in their names. We change it up from day to day, but pretty much always have them interact with the letters in their name in some way. It seems as though this is helping their process of letter recognition.

In short, there are many ways to help children prepare to read. Some of these ways include, playing games to help children interact with letters, talking about what they look like, sound like, etc; giving children plenty of exposure to common words in print (such as their names, “stop,” etc.); playing rhyming games, and, reading to them.

Peeing in the Snow

I enjoy sharing moments that happen in the classroom. I have shared some funny or touching moments in our class here and here.

After a snowstorm of 15″, a boy came in to our class and told us that his dad let him pee in the snow. He told us that the snow turned yellow. He then informed us that you should not eat yellow snow!

I was laughing so hard… I was walking out of the class where the rest of the parents were waiting for us to open the doors, and got some some funny looks. I told them not to tell their kids to pee in the snow, unless they want us entertained by it. A few parents laughed, and few looked horrified. I told them they’d be amazed at all the things we hear!

How Can We Possibly Understand??

The other day, a man walked into an Elementary School. He killed 20 children, and 6 adults (although some reports I have seen have said 7 adults). Apparently, he wanted to kill his mother… I don’t know that we will ever understand what would drive someone to do such a horrible thing! There are so many things about this that I don’t understand. I don’t think any of us do.

I have been trying not to watch too much coverage of this event, because it makes me too sad. As a preschool teacher, teaching children not much younger than the ones who died, and as a parent of a boy the same age as those who didn’t survive, this tragedy strikes way too close to home. This morning on facebook, I saw a picture with the photos, names, and ages of those children who were killed. I looked at the smiling faces of those children; they reminded me of several of my preschoolers, and of children in my son’s 2nd grade class. I can’t help but think of their families. I can’t even imagine what they must be going through! I can’t imagine walking into the house, seeing the Christmas tree with wrapped presents underneath for a child who is no longer there. I see pictures of people’s Elf on a Shelf, and think of how for some of these families, that may be yet another reminder of their children. I can’t imagine how they feel as they see reminders of the “holiday joy” everywhere they go. Joy will be hard for these families this year, and probably for a long time. I try to put myself in their shoes, and I can’t. I can’t even imagine how their lives have been turned upside down since Friday.

I have only seen the picture and story of one of the teachers who didn’t survive that day. It was a first grade teacher who allegedly hid her children in cupboards and closets. When the gunman came into her class, she told them the children were in the gym, and he shot her before moving on… I don’t know if that’s what really happened, but what an amazing story! She literally gave her life protecting the little ones!

I have been seeing articles and reports that the man had autism, personality disorders, and/or other mental illnesses. While I think that his mental illness is obvious by the very nature of what happened, I don’t appreciate autism specifically being “blamed” for what happened. Most people with autism can live mostly normal lives. They don’t go into schools and start shooting people up. While the man obviously had serious issues, let’s not blame autism for what happened! He obviously needed help, but let’s not blame his disorder for his senseless acts of killing!

This whole situation brings to mind a couple of questions. Please understand, I mean no disrespect to the school involved, the teachers, or the families. I just keep thinking about how this could have happened. How did the shooter continue to walk into classrooms after the shooting had begun? In our district, we practice “Lock Down Drills.” I wonder if the school involved in the shooting had such drills in place? As teachers, we practice what to do in Emergency situations so that if it were to ever happen, we are prepared. No one can say how we would really respond in an emergency situation, we only hope that we respond how we practiced. Maybe the school had an emergency procedure in place, but the reality of the situation caused other reactions… I don’t know. I am not going to blame anyone but the shooter for what happened. The reality is this: in the past, I thought lock down drills were silly. I did them because I had to. I now have a better appreciation for why we practice them.

I obviously am a bit emotional over this whole event. No words can really express the shock of what happened. I don’t think we (as a whole) will ever understand what could motivate anyone to kill children or adults. The right words might not come out as we all try to figure this whole thing out. Our hearts are breaking. We can feel for the families affected. We can feel for the other children at the school. The place that they thought was safe to go to every day, has now been tainted… what can anyone do about that? I hope they have counseling available for these children and families.

In the mean time, what I can do is pray. I am praying for the families of everyone affected. I am praying for the school. I am praying for the safety of my children, and the children in my classes. I hope none of them EVER have to deal with anything like this!

Here’s a great article I read about “Dealing With Grief“. It feels appropriate to share, as I am at a loss for the right words to say to express my questions, and my feelings on the tragedy that happened on Friday.

“Heard in the Classroom” – Part 2

This year, Miss Kim and I have many of the children in our 4 year old class that we had in our 3 year old class last year. I have LOVED having so many of them return! Some of the children with quotes in my last edition of this post have returned, and are equally as entertaining this year. We also have about 50 new preschoolers who are equally as entertaining.

One girl, who is now 4, got super excited when we were doing “The Freeze” by Greg & Steve. She said, “This is my favorite!” Then she asked me if we could do her other favorite. I asked her what it was, and she said, “The Sexy Lady” song. I started laughing, and told her that no, we wouldn’t be doing that song in preschool.

We had Parent Days in our classroom. One of the little girls was talking to her Mom and I about how whenever her mom goes to work, Dad brings her and her sister to Grandma’s house. Mom asked why they go there so much. The little girl told her mom it was so he can play video games with her uncle, and the girls can play with Grandma. The mom didn’t think it was too funny, but I was definitely cracking up! Kids bust their parents to us all the time, but to have them bust one parent to the other in front of us? I couldn’t help but laugh – I think it gave her mom some insight on the things we hear about fairly often.

A 4 year old girl told me the other day (out of the blue), “I don’t wear my helmet when I ride my bike.” I told her she should always wear a helmet when she rides her bike. She said, “It’s OK Miss Sarah, I always ride safe.”

A 4 year old girl came up to me after I got my hair cut, and asked where Miss Sarah was. I told her I was right here. She said, “No you’re not, you lost your ponytail!”

Sometimes, we have very touching moments in our classroom. It was show and tell week, I had asked the children to bring in pictures of their families to show. A boy in our class brought a picture of his dad receiving his U.S. Cititzenship (from just the night before). There was so much pride in the little boy’s voice as he talked about it, it got me a little choked up!

We all have those children in our class that require just a little more energy than the rest of the group. I love to see those children playing in the Dramatic Play area, doing things like rocking one of the baby dolls, “feeding them,” etc. It never fails to melt my heart!

One of my favorite times in the classroom, is during free play, when a child sits on “my chair” and plays teacher. They ask me if they can use the pointer I use, they ask if they can wear my “necklace” (a lanyard with picture symbols to remind children of the rules), they’ll go over and count the numbers on the calendar, and they hold up a book and pretend to read it. It’s especially fun when a group of children sit down in the “circle area” and play school with them. Every once in a while, we get a “teacher” that gets mean and yells at the other kids, “Hey, sit down. Right now!” I sure hope I never sound like that!

A 4 year old girl with a very runny nose proclaimed to me that she had “the suds.” We think she might have meant “The Crud”, but it gave us a good laugh!

I asked a 3 year old boy if he had turkey on Thanksgiving, he replied with “No, I had bologna, I don’t like turkey.”

In our class of 4-5 year olds, we have some very creative children. It’s fun to watch them play in our Dramatic Play area. A group of them decided they were going to have a “special meeting” and that they needed tickets. They all walked over to the block area, where the meeting was apparently to be held. One girl, who tends to be the leader often, sat in a chair, while the others sat on the floor, intently listening to whatever she was telling them. I moved closer to see if she was telling a story or what, and she was saying, “I’d like to introduce you to our newest cop.” She asked the boy to stand up, she introduced him, and had everyone say hello. It was very creative, and very cute how they were all into it!

A 3 year old boy proudly proclaimed that his dad worked at Caribou after seeing me take a drink of my coffee (which was from Caribou). I told him his dad must smell good when he gets home from work. He replied with, “No, he smells like coffee.”

Whenever I have my hair down, it gets a little wild. The children in our classroom never hesitate to tell me when my hair looks “crazy”! Gotta love their honesty!