[why kindergarten is like The OC]

Sunday. blog day! And yet another week of school is over. I have now been working for more than a month, and will enter my last week before I finish one whole month of teaching Kindergarten. My gosh, how time flies.

This past week, just from talking to people and with coworkers, I realized that I generally look forward to going to school. The 6 am alarm is a bit hard to hear, but once I get past that, school is quite fun. This is not to say that school last year wasn’t fun. It was definitely fun. But…

1.) I’m not having to lesson plan every single day. I have one 50 min lesson (essentially) that I have to plan for per week.

2.) Kinders are just fun. No attitude, just dragon eggs.

3.) Really, when the most immediate goal I have as a teacher is to work on my “voice” for reading aloud, then you know I have it good. Granted, that is a gross underestimate of what I have to work on. The last statement was more for entertainment value.

This past week has been ridiculously hot in the Bay. It was one of those, I could be wearing shorts and a tank top and it would still be frikin’ hot sort of days. And my school has no AC. Now, I know I shouldn’t be complaining, and I’m not, but can we please take a second to recognize the heat.

That said, the weather made way for a lot of water play, fun in the sun, and silliness. I would put up pictures, but I’m contractually not allowed to put up pictures of our children on any sort of medium. Fun, right?

Also, Uncle Cracker and I have recently realize that our class is much like an episode of The OC. OLD SCHOOL, I know. We also realized that we don’t think any of our kinders were alive during the OC. Why The OC? Well here are the developments from this last week.

Jeremy is a leader in the class. He is older, can read and calculate a bit faster, and can lead a very cool game of Pokemon. Jeremy recently made a promise to Anna that when they grow up, he will marry her. My conversation with Anna went something like this:

Anna: I have something to tell you!
Me: What’s up, Anna?
Anna: Jeremy said that when we grow up, he’s going to marry me.
Me: Really? He asked you?
Anna: Nods
Me: And you said yes?
Anna: Nods again.
Me: Did you get a ring?
Anna: mouths “I think I’m getting one soon.”

Now, this episode alone does not suggest anything OC-esque. Perhaps more like an episode of Say Yes to the Dress. BUT! It get’s better.

So while Anna and Jeremy are having their romance, Sabrina has also developed a crush on Jeremy. Who wouldn’t have a crush on the Kinder equivalent of the quarterback?! Unfortunately, Sabrina is the exact opposite of Anna in terms of size, cuteness, tact, and manipulation skills. She’s not very subtle either. She’ll go up to Jeremy, tap him on the shoulder and give a very “Flower” inspired smile to him. Just like the photo! And of course she follows him around like no other. Finally, Jeremy gets tired of Sabrina and exclaims that she is annoying and that she can’t play with him any more. Sabrina is shocked and left standing alone in the sand pit. *Cue Commercial Break*

Uncle Cracker and I have been singing The OC theme song to each other. Here it is to jog your memory.

In the mean time, some more observation and fun moments from kindergarten.

I have a child in the class who is very quiet, but I think he is quite intelligent with a whole bunch of interesting opinions. He just tends to observe first. I understand that. That was me. So when Uncle Cracker brought his guitar, and Jonny (the quiet boy) picked up two rulers to start banging on random items around the room, I knew something had to be done to encourage his street drumming. We took him outside with Uncle Cracker, who introduced Jonny to some simple quarter note beats, and 10 minutes later, we had a mini band outside. At the end of the day, I asked Jonny, “Are you going to ask your dad to get a drum set?” Sorry, Jonny’s Dad… I’m sure I could’ve encouraged another instrument. Of course, Jonny replies, “yup” in his deadpan tone that he tends to use. His voice is also quite low for a small kinder…

Teachers Differentiating 1

We were singing a song, this past weekend about nature and earth and what we love. As the song kept going, Uncle Cracker, MT, and I saw little Sarah start to sway with her eyes closed as she began to motion with the song. It was like watching a 70s hippie sway and feel the music at woodstock while she was high. Except she was a 5 year old, not wearing tie die, and only high on life and music. She is also probably the most compassionate child of the bunch. If you were able to feel the music like she does at the age of 5, what does that imply for the future?

And finally, before I end this post (it’s getting long, I need to write it in chunks), I have a goal for the next few weeks.

Now that the children are comfortable with each other, we are now having to deal with social and playground conflicts. This means a lot of conflict mediation by the teachers. Through some of my mediations, i realized that I could do the “are you thinking about committing suicide?” talk and “my boyfriend is abusive” talk with my eyes closed. But when I’m asked to mediate a conflict between two kinders where one boy lost another boy’s special rock – I am a fish out of water. I don’t know where to start, I don’t know where to end, and I ramble in between.

So this is my goal: learn how to mediate conflict better. I will reflect on this more in the days to come.

I also need to write about Back To School Night, but I have to get ready for the day ahead of me, so for now, this is it. I’m sure I’ll have more insightful and reflective things to say. I’ll also elaborate more on my goals and what I observe, but for now, I’m off.

[learning battle formations. no, really]

Today, I learned about aircraft battle formations from one of my students. Knowing that I was a visual learner, he recreated it for me with our math toys.

The yellow plane is the bomber. He is the leader and because he is the leader, when the planes practice their formations, the bomber leads the pack.

This is when they are in battle. The lead bomber is in the back, since it doesn’t want to get shot first, and wants to creep up to the enemy.

When I asked him (a male, of course) how he knew this, he just told me that he had thought of it himself. This, of course, is also the boy that guessed the hangman word just from three letters. I asked him yet again how he knew it, and he looked at me matter of factly and stated, “I just sounded the letters out.” It was a nine letter word.

On another note – my mother sent me a care package today. It contained 4 Jack Daniels Mason Jar glasses from my awesome step dad and boxes of macadamia nuts from my mom. Unfortunately, my mom sent the package to my school. My school is a nut-free school. The moment I opened the box, all I saw were nuts. I felt like a horrible person that was about to shut down the school on an epic scale.

But thanks anyways, mom!

[week 2: wishes, shovels, and nostalgia]

First of all, all I’ve eaten today is coffee and a couple of pita chips. Unhealthy. smh.

Yet another week of Kindergarten runs away (like the gingerbread cookies we made) and I’m left to reflect on it, as I have promised myself. I’m also currently Facebook chatting with one of my froshies from last year. He’s that kid who doesn’t do well in school because he’s bored and intellectually beyond his classmates. But he seems to be doing well. That makes me happy.

“A wish”
We have lots of dandelions in our recess area. This means that we also have a lot of dandelion seeds floating in the air. But in Kindergarten, they are not dandelion seeds – they are “wishes.” So every time a dandelion seed floats by, one of the kinders points to it and yells, “a wish!” At this point, they attempt to catch it. If they do, I remind them that it’s someone else’s wish, so if they also make a wish on it, they have to share the seed. Wishes are made and then blown away again.

Kinder poetry.

Shovels
A kid threw a shovel because he thought it was funny. The boy next to him was no longer blonde afterwards. Now he has big ass staples in his head. Oh, kindergarten.

The Magic Clay
We had to have a long discussion at circle time this week, to establish our “agreements” for the class (i.e. keep your hands to yourself, respect other people, don’t throw shovels, etc). And by long discussion, I mean a discussion lasting longer than 7 min. So to keep their energy flowing in the right direction and maintain focus, the master teacher (who I will refer to as MT, from now on) gave them colorful pieces of clay to play with while we had our discussion. In theory, this is an excellent idea, especially since I’m the type of person that would need a toy.

In practice – it actually works! I mean, there were definitely a few kids who were more into their balls of clay than the conversation. BUT for the most part, they were all able to split attentions. Me gusta.

MT 1 Kinders 0

Nostalgia
Uncle Cracker (my partner in crime – I’ll explain in a future post) and I were given the task to go check-out a shit ton (yes, a shit ton) of picture books from the library during reading time. That was probably the most fun task this whole week. I ended up finding all of the picture books that I grew up with, even some of the ones I don’t like, and got to a have a moment with my kinder self. Turns out Uncle Cracker’s favorite books were the same, so we get to have a friendly fight over who gets to read which books to the kids. In any case,  now I get to reread all of my happy picture books, or have them read to me (thanks to Uncle Cracker).

This coming week is Back To School Night. I love those – not. Also, because we teach kinders, we see their parents all of the time. So really, I don’t know why we need Back To School Night for kinders… I guess for the specialist. In any case, huzzah.

I have now completed a plate of left over Filipino food. Om nom nom. But really, plantains in my chicken adobo? Hm… questionable.

I would write more, but with family members visiting, and very little sleep, I need to get to bed before 10 pm. More on MT and Uncle Cracker later.

[dragon eggs, voices, and CSI]

So I survived the first week of Kindergarten. THANK GOODNESS. I had no doubt that I would survive it, but it was still a relief when it was done. To make life a bit more manageable, I’m going to bullet point my observations from this week. It’s probably the only form of “order” I get out of the general chaos that is kindergarten. And lord knows I need some order right now.

1.) Kindergarten = 9th Grade = College Freshmen
No, really. There isn’t too much difference between the three groups… The first day of school usually consists of impeccably dressed children (yes, ‘children’ applies to all three groups) and their overenthusiastic parents that ask every question under the moon while the child tries to stray away in an attempt to look cool in front of his or her peers. Yes, even the kindergarteners. There is so much anticipation, excitement, and fear in the air. And OH MY GOSH, will the parents please just stop?! Your kid and I will connect when we’re meant to. Don’t try to force it. I appreciate the cupcakes and chocolate though…

I feel like I’ve done so many first days of school…

2.) A simple left over easter egg on the other side of a fence = Golden Dragon Egg
I always knew that children had a more vivid imagination that adults. I’ve heard it in studies as well as seen it before my eyes. But now that I teach kindergarten and am surrounded by kids in early childhood, I’m seeing this imagination take place at such a magnified proximity. Our kids found a plastic silver egg on the other side of the fence where kids can’t go. It was left over from summer camp but they immediately concluded that it was a dragon egg. So then the first week was consumed with trying to figure out how to attain the egg from the other side of the fence.

This is your first hit when you search "cute dragon" on google images.

Some kids drew and created elaborate contraptions with stick and rope that was meant to somehow grab the egg, while the other kids fought to leave the egg alone in case the mother dragon returned. One of my favorite opinions/conclusions was that the egg was too soft and we had to wait a few more days until the egg hardened and came to term… and then we could scoop it out with a basket. This kid has been watching Animal Planet too much…

Also, in attempts to get the egg, the kids tried to create a seesaw contraption that would catapult a student across the fence – just like one might see on a cartoon.  BRILLIANT idea. Just not the safest. I wish we could’ve done it though. It was really tough to come up with a reason not to do their seesaw catapult idea besides “it’s not safe.” But who the f cares if it’s not safe? Let’s catapult a kid across!

It is fascinating to see how these little minds are operating and comprehending information. Clearly, I have much to learn when it comes to imagination and play.

3.) Goal: Don’t feel like I have to respond to every child
Since this first week of school hasn’t included much ‘academics’ (like math, P.E., writing, reading, etc), I’ve had the chance to do a lot of observing and reflection. What I noticed was that on a subconscious and conscious level, I feel the need to respond to every child and every outburst. This is very tiring and draining. It’s like when you have a bag with a leak that you don’t know about, and by the time you realize it, the liquid in the bag has drained out. That’s sort of how my energy drains out of my body every time I respond to each kid.

I was watching my master teacher and realized that she really only responds to the kids about 30% of the time. No, she’s not being a b*tch. She’s just picking and choosing which students actually require the attention and need a response. And then of course figuring out those comments that will be fun to elaborate on and will move the class forward. Many of the kids’ outbursts stem from their lack of self-control and general excitement for what’s happening at the moment. But they dont’ really care if you hear or respond to them. They just need to speak.

So what I’m going to work on for the next week or two is figuring out my own balance of who and when to respond to a child and understanding when to just smile and nod.

4.) I need to work on my voices.
I kind of knew this, but for some reason it didn’t register before – but kindergarten has A LOT of reading story books out loud. This in itself is great. Reading picture books aloud is the most ego-abandoning activity one can do. But I really suck at characters voices for the characters in the book. I also tend to forget which voices I used for which characters and then I get confused and the kids get confused and it’s all just a big mess.

So yes, I need to work on voices and accents. It doesn’t help that my partner is ridiculously good at voices.  So much pressure.

That's right. CSI. What what?!

5.) Play-doh, dust, sand, paint, marker, glue, snot… My clothes are not happy
There is just so much going on in the day… My clothes end up being a canvas for kindergarten. So you want to know what happens on a typical day in kindergarten? CSI my clothes and forensic science that shit.

 

I don’t even know what to expect for this coming week. All I know is that this wine is definitely holding me through for the week. smh.

[on play-doh and crushes]

Today I made play-doh for the very first time in my life.

Like, I actually made it from scratch.

I didn’t take it out from an orange, plastic container with a red label and an overly friendly boy on the label.

I really made it by hand… and it smelled like play-doh.

I don’t think you realize how revolutionary this was for my life.

I can now be a proper parent and MAKE play-doh with my kids.

I think being a Kindergarten teacher may be the best crash course in “parenting to ensure your child’s success” that I could’ve asked for.

On a similar note – I think I have a crush. And yes, he is one of my students. If I was a kindergartener in my class, I would have a huge crush on this boy. And even as teacher, I have a huge crush on this boy – in the most appropriate way, of course.

Today, the kids were playing with the play-doh that I made and I asked them to make me something to give them a little bit of a purpose in their playing. I was distracted with some other students working on a math game and wasn’t paying attention to my surroundings. I turned back to the kids at the play-doh table and started talking to the kids. Suddenly, “my crush” yells at me in an excited voice, “look down!” I thought he meant at the play-doh cut outs he was making by his hands, so I looked at his general area. Then he showed me with his own head that I was supposed to look straight down.

The four hearts he made for me. Patterns from a kindergarten boy - brill.

When I looked down, I was greeted by a play-doh heart that he had cut out with a cookie cutter and had somehow sneaked directly under me. I think my heart melted just then. I look back at him with a very genuine smile and thanked him so much for the surprised, and that I was really surprised to see it there (and I really was. I was not expecting that heart). Then he replied excitedly, “that’s the point! You were supposed to be surprised!” He had such spark and joy in his eyes that I could tell that he could tell that I really was surprised and happy to see that heart.

*melt*

And then he continued to make me four more hearts, all with different patterns and textures.

Is this what it feels to be loved?

In any case – I have a crush.

Now, can I have an adult guy who will do the same for me? Play-doh hearts, please?

ps. At the end of the day, my master teacher complimented me on my play-doh making skills and congratulating me on my “first play-doh experience.” I think she could genuinely tell that I was super excited about it… haha.

[on my first day of kindergarten...]

As I sit in a random 3rd grade classroom (waiting for my ride) typing this, I am amazed that I’m still awake and alive. When 2 pm hit, I was about to take a nap with my kids and felt sorely jipped when I was told that “quiet time” was over.

I don’t even know where to begin. I meant to write last week about how I was feeling before the first day of school, but there was a lot less anxiety this year than last year. A lot of people were asking me how I was feeling toward the first day of school and whether I was nervous or not. To be honest, I wasn’t nervous at all. In fact, it was kind of eerie how much I wasn’t nervous.

I get away with this because I teach kinder... hahaha.

I think my mentality going into the first day of kindergarten had a lot to do with the fact that the amount of pressure and stress associated with this position compared to my position last year is infinitely less. I don’t have to lesson plan the same way as I did last year, and I’m not the main teacher in the classroom. So really, I just have to show up and be ready to play. Of course I’ll have more responsibilities starting next week, but for now, I’m just cruising.

Also, I went from having to learn 100 names in 1 week as an RA, to 45 names in 1 week as a HS teacher, and this year only having to learn 18 names. Who knew learning 18 names would be so dang easy.

Honestly, I don’t know if there is really anything I could say that would accurately describe and explain what I experienced today. There were tears, math games, snack time, droopy eyes come 2 pm, and way too many lunch boxes left in cubby holes at the end of that day. It was literally recess on steroids.

That said, I think it’s probably most appropriate if I start off this 2nd round of The Challenge by introducing you to some of my students and their thinking. It’ll frame the rest of this year, perhaps, a bit better.

Over the summer, the kinders were asked to bring in questions and ideas related to what they want to learn this year. These are some of the questions that were brought in on the first day of school:

1.) What is outside the world? – L

2.) What is love and why do people love one another? – A

3.) Why am I who I am and you are who you are? Why am I in this body and not another one? – F

4.) How do you make chocolate? – JS

Lots to look forward to this week and the rest of this year. Will update again this weekend. In the mean time, ponder those 4 questions. Or be like me and ponder those 4 questions with a bottle of wine.