Little Drummer Boy...and girls...

I was given the best compliment of all. One of the high school students told my husband that "Mrs. Smith is the coolest teacher of all." What did I do to deserve such praise? I didn't torture the high school class with a long drawn out Christmas Pageant! Don't you just hate those pageants that carry on for hours at a time, where children are crying, and parents are ''oohing" and "ahhing" at how cute little Johnny is, even though he's got his finger up his nose?

Originally I had planned on reading a book that told the Christmas story, while my little class acted out the scenes. I wasn't even able to get them to stand still for 5 seconds while I directed them on what to do. Nor could I stop them from giggling. It didn't help that my "helpers" kept commenting on my choice for Mary and Joseph. With only two boys in the class, J. was the only choice for Joseph as I surely couldn't use little 3-year old N. for the part, especially when his older sister was Mary! And so J. and N. (big sis) were Joseph and Mary. I might as well have said they were dating or something. Even in the primary grades, kids get silly over such pairings! And all the K5 girls wanted to be Angels. Four angels, One Mary, One Joseph and a lamb. Hmmm....somehow I don't picture the manger scene looking quite like that.

So I opted for singing and performing one song. Just one. And one that lends itself to some kind of performance. What better song than my all time favorite: The Little Drummer Boy. I searched my house until I came up with at least 7 ice cream buckets (the 5 quart size), covered them with paper and had the children decorate their drums. Then while I sang the song, and those who could joined me, the children marched into the room, drummed their drums, took a bow and the show was over. Thus earning me the title of "coolest teacher ever". Simplicity wins every time.

Gingerbread Houses

Christmas was interesting this year. I had no plans on doing anything really dramatic in school with my class, but then the high school teacher showed up with a full blown gingerbread house and announced that her class was going to make gingerbread houses....so of course I couldn't let my class be left out of the fun! I have done these before and know from experience that actually making gingerbread (the real stuff) was too time consuming, potentially frustrating, and not what I had signed up for. So I took the easy way out and had the kids make houses out of Graham Crackers.

Because I was working with one 3 year old and three 5-year olds, a 7-year old and a 9-year old, I wanted to make the process as painless as possible. While my helpers took the kids out for lunch time recess, I assembled the houses using an end of a Capri Sun Juice box (the 10 pack box) as a form, Graham crackers and Royal Icing that I made on the spot. When the kids came in I used my one icing bag to pipe icing onto their houses and then had them attach the candies as they liked. It was the easiest, least messy way to deal with 6 kids at once.

Here are the results:

I tried to start out today with a positive attitude. I greeted the kids enthusiastically when I entered the classroom, even though I was feeling kinda grumpy. You know, TOM grumpiness.

I have been wanting to move on with the K5 girls and start trying to teach them to read by helping them to put the sounds of the letters together that we've been learning all year. They seem to know all their letters now and can readily identify them. They know the basic sounds of most of them. I think we have only Z to cover in the ACE phonics books I've been using. So yesterday I put together some Abeka vowel worksheets and made a 4 page booklet for the girls to do today.

After explaining what we were going to be doing and then handing the booklets out, I began to assist the girls in doing the papers correctly. M. has a habit of just plowing ahead, appearing to know what she is doing and doing it with confidence. I've observed that she has been doing this for all of her seat work. Finish it as fast as possible so that she could go play. Today I decided that enough was enough. Even if she "gets it" faster and can zoom through the paper, she was going to have to sit and color quietly while the other girls finished their paper. Whenever she finishes first, she doesn't just go play quietly, she rushes off, loudly calling out, "who wants to play...??" with no regard to the rest of the class. The truth is sometimes she "gets it" and sometimes she misses it completely. Today was one of those days.

So the tables were reversed. While the other girls had the papers discussed, line by line and learning took place as they discovered where the vowel sound was and what pictures to circle, M. spent the time randomly circling whatever, with no regard to instruction. The result? The other 3 girls were able to play and M. had to sit an extra 10 minutes while I helped her correct her papers.

At math I began the lesson on such a good note. I had read in Eric's Alpha Math-U-See book to use a grab bag game to help teach the children the colors of the blocks. We have been working with the unit blocks for the first quarter but had moved onto the colored blocks depicting numbers 2-9 for the past month. So I loaded up a paper bag with various unit blocks then had the children take turns reaching into the bag without looking, feel a block, tell me the number it represented and what color it was. They had to get all right in order to "keep" the block. All of the kids, including my K3 boy, were successful. All that is, except M. She was too quick to count the blocks and I had to help her on her last turn in order for her to guess correctly. She's a smart girl, but just in too much of a hurry.

From the block game I went on to do a few rounds of "guess what's in the bag" and filled the bag with a variety of items found around the room. I need to do more of this as the kids just loved the game. Guess I'll have to break down and make a real "feely can" - have to ask someone who uses the big coffee cans to save me one. What you do is glue gun an old shirt sleeve, large sock, or other nicer material (you can even sew a tube like sleeve with a draw string top, or elasticised one) to the top of a large empty coffee can. Decorate the can in any way you want. Fill it with different common items - plastic animal toys, cars, glue stick, eraser, sponge, stick, paper clip, safety pin, etc. etc. and the child puts his hand into the can and has to feel to identify the item. Great for teaching reasoning skills, tactile manipulation, imagination, and identification skills.

Today was also chapel day so I did a special felt board story as our lead in to discussing the birth of Christ next month. The Tale of Three Trees. This is the story of three trees who had big dreams of what they wanted to be - one a treasure chest, another a beautiful boat, and the third wanted to forever grow to show God's majesty and point the way to Heaven. I'm sure you know how the story goes. I'll have to leave you with that and have you read it on your own someday. My version of the Tale of Three Trees didn't quite match the Story Time Figures to Tell set that I had, but I managed to improvise enough. ST actually has the story included in the set that works better with the figures, so sometime next week I'll retell the story again and see if they kids can notice any differences. That would be a good exercise for the older kids.

Though it had it's moments I'd say today was a good day.

Happy Thanksgiving

It's Turkey Time! This past two weeks we have had a definite Thanksgiving/Fall theme going on in the classroom. Last week Friday, the school had its annual Thanksgiving feast. Lots of turkey, ham, dinner rolls, stuffing, mashed potatoes - you know the traditional thanksgiving fair - along with some not so traditional foods only eaten on Guam - Chicken Keleguan (chopped chicken, coconut, green onions, lots of lemon juice, hot peppers and salt - mixed together and served with tortillas), barbecued ribs, fried chicken (almost as good as KFC!), red rice and pies galore! We managed to have only one or two near disasters with food plates; otherwise the kids did okay.

The classroom is decorated with the fall artwork. Construction paper leaf people hang from the ceiling, crayon leaf rubbings adorn the wall, seed collages are displayed on another, and our non-traditional egg carton caterpillars (usually a spring project) stare at me in a row from atop the computer monitor. The kids have been coloring turkey pictures, pilgrims and Indians, and cornucopias - but these have all gone home now. In fact we had a big "clean-up" of the class yesterday before dismissing them for our 4 day weekend break (which I am sorely needing!). I sent home all the blankets, miscellaneous clothing items and toys that somehow make it to the class, and threw away all the half-drank juice containers that were accumulating on our lunch shelf.

It has been a trying month as I work on figuring out the classroom dynamics. We had to make some major adjustments so that things could progress smoother. Our first change was to bring Eric back home again. School, or the traditional classroom setting, just didn't work for him. Even though I allowed him a lot of freedom in doing his work, he works better on his own agenda. He is sensitive to noise and distractions and sometimes a classroom is just full of those. Once we let him chose what days he wanted to come to school and when to stay home, my happy creative boy returned. He has learned more in the two weeks we have taken him out of school than he had learned in the past two months of school. Math was a big issue. He was so frustrated and so far behind his fellow 2nd grader (though she is admittedly doing 4th grade work and so we really can't compare). Since coming home he constantly talks about math and does his own problems and actually wants us to give him oral quizzes on math questions! At school all he would do was cry about math.

Let's face it. Some kids are just not cut out for the school setting. Eric is such a kid. It's too bad most parents don't have this freedom to homeschool. Another thing to be thankful for in my life.

Well, coffee is calling me and pumpkin pies need to be baked. Hope all my readers are/will have a wonderful thanksgiving day!

PTC and other stuff

Well, I don't want to set a precedent for only one blog a month so thought I'd better get blogging! Tomorrow is Parent Teacher Conferences - my first one as an elementary school teacher. I'm used to being on the other end of such conferences so am unsure exactly what I aim to do. I actually get to start the PTC today as one family wasn't able to make it tomorrow. As I only really need to see three families (I PTC with my DH on my own two kids daily LOL), that leaves only two for tomorrow. Guess today will be a trial run at this. Maybe I'll even shock myself and blog more on this subject after tomorrow!

I was working on report cards and trying to come up with a format that reflects what we do in class. You can imagine how hard that would be. Can play be a category to grade on? How about block building? Lego? Go Fish? Or the current popular and favorite game of the 2nd graders, Eye to Eye Jr. edition?

Eric and N. are thoroughly enjoying playing Eye to Eye daily. This game comes from Simply Fun, a game company I joined last year but decided not to renew this year after having a difficult time competing with the low cost games you can find at Ross here on Guam. In Eye to Eye you are given a question that you must find three answers to and then compare your answers to the other players. The idea is to "think alike" and match your 3 answers with your fellow players. If you are a unique thinker, this counts as points against you. The points are tracked using wooden cubes that are stacked in a five by five pyramid. The first player to complete his/her pyramid loses. Questions cover such topics as "Star Wars Characters", "Things you eat that are messy", and "Foods that are brown". The Junior version has more kid appropriate questions than the regular version. It requires quick thinking (you are timed if you want to be), creativity, using your imagination, and trying not to be too unique. Ideally you need 3 players to play or it will always end up in a tie game, unless Eric is keeping score. He has the ability to sneak in points against the other player if he/she is not looking! I suppose that would be called cheating, but he sees it as creative scoring.

After my PTC today I'll be rushing over to the Guam homeschooler's support group meeting where hopefully I'll be in time to share my Story Time Felt products with the few moms who stay to the end. I'm hoping to sell a few felt dolls and maybe a toggle book or two. With the dolls on sale this month, I'm hoping they will sell themselves. It would have been nice if the order I placed at the end of September had arrived and I could then share even more great items - like the calendar and felt bible collection I'm eagerly awaiting.

Anyway, pray that I'm able to come up with creative ways to tell the parents today that their sweet K5 child is bossy, an instigator of fights, and doesn't follow directions - oops I mean assertive, knows her own mind, and independent.

Professor Eric

Lately Eric has been drawing detailed pictures of the innards of dogs and cats. The large white board in the classroom has become one of the popular free play resources. I tried to fight it to save my dry erase markers, but have faced reality and realize you can't squelch creativity.

You can view my Picasa Web Album to see more pictures of what we do in the classroom. Just click on the link to the left.

I was amazed at the details Eric puts into his drawings. You can see the valves on the heart and the shape of the bones. He even includes the blood cells and what a broken bone looks like. He needs a few more lessons in anatomy as he has the dog's lungs located right under the jaw bone. But I love the "stuffy" nose on the poor dog! You can even see a pup in the dog's "stomach" (Think it's time to teach him where the baby really comes from?)

His cat picture is just as detailed and hilarious. It is pretty obvious that this boy is a cat lover!

Does it look like school?

I'm still trying to figure this teaching stuff out. Each day I try to make sure that some form of learning is taking place in the classroom. I have filled the shelves with all my discovery toys games, Usborne books, Lets-read-and-find-out about Science books, Story Time Felt stories and dolls, and various other educational items. I have set times where I teach a "lesson" - usually introducing the sounds of the letter of the day, or some math concept - interspersed with plenty of free play time. I worry that it looks like we play more all day than actually learn. So I've started to take "snapshots" of moments in the class to see what is really happening.

I started this snapshot idea when the principal and high school teacher, entered my class to get something out of the file cabinet. I wondered, at that moment, what the class looked like to her. Was learning taking place?

Looking around I saw my 2nd grade girl playing a game of Tooty Fruity (Discovery Toys) with one of the aides. This game is similar to "Snap" where the players turn over their top card simultaneously and if the same fruit or the same number of fruits appear on each card then the player that rings the bell first, gets the cards. Learning skills: counting, color recognition, cooperative play, sportsmanship (can't cry if you're not first), fine motor skills.

In another corner two of the K5 girls were playing with the Story Time Felt dolls. Learning skills: cooperation, matching (outfits), creativity, imaginative play, sharing.

On the floor the K3 boy and another K5 girl are building with lego. Learning skills: fine motor skills, dexterity, cooperation, sharing, creativity, imaginative play, color recognition (they were sorting legos into color groups).

The 6th student, my 2nd grade boy, was working on a math pace, using popsicle sticks to figure out addition facts. Learning skills: counting, number recognition, addition facts, writing skills.

If you look hard enough, children are learning at all times. It may look like play, but in reality there is learning taking place.