And now it is Tuesday!

It is Promograduation today!

Yesterday I hung two big banners in the cafeteria; hopefully they are still hanging.  The Paper People go up this morning, and I need to place the tambourines and maracas under the kids' seats for quick retrieval (yet limited access) before their performance.

I have extra safety pins, bobby pins and clear nail polish in my bag.

I have a vegan coffee cake as a teacher thank you for dealing with picnic lunches today.

We are also having a Special City Visitor at Promograduation.  I believe this Visitor is planning a solo trip, but sometimes Visitors collect District entourages like chicken coops collect Kindergartners.  I am already getting District Bigwig hobnobbing later this week (although, alas, not at a venue that will allow for the impoliteness of reality), so I'm kind of hoping for limited entourage excitement.

And that the kids sing loud enough to be heard.

And now, I go to work!

So Friday night, the chickens continued to grow.  How irritating of them to do all that life cycling!  Anyway, when I got to work Saturday it was clear that the current coop situation was untenable, so building a new, high-sided coop of chicken wire, duct tape and the old coop beat out every other responsibility.  Update:

1. Self-Portrait Banner: Glued-and-glittered the names of all the students, cut the paper to the right size.  I still need to glue the portraits themselves on.  One portrait needs to be finished.
2. Chicks: In possession of an even newer, even better coop that should take them through the week. 
3. Diplomas: FINISHED.
4. Assessment: FINISHED.
5. Report Cards: I. don't. want. to. talk. about. this.
6. Loading Cards: Need to attach assessments.
7. Cum Folders: Oh, yeah.  Gotta do these, too.
8. What I Am Doing Today: Going to work.

I have a UTR thing Thursday evening, and on Friday I'm checking into a sorta-fancy hotel with one of my Kindergarten cronies...and we're checking in at 3pm on the dot.  So I'm short afternoons to do mental health care (=go to the gym) and dentistry (of all times to break a tooth.  At least it's not visible) while also getting checked out of my classroom.  ARGH.

The sad possibility that I leave for New York Tuesday week (la la la la la la la) knowing I have to return to clean out my room grows.  I have considered making pledges ("No checkout, no visits to designer concessions!"), but I have this feeling that these would turn themselves into ("I will checkout all the faster so that I can wear this afterwards!").

(For the Responsibility Record: I have three homes for chickens, and if I have a couple of Straggler Chickens for whom I am caring for a couple of weeks, I do have someone on tap to take care of them while I New York it up.)

Promograduation is Tuesday, and...

1. Instruments for performance of "Turn the World Around": Sanded, primed and painted.  Still need to be decorated.
2. Giant "Class of 2027" Banner: Decorated.
3. Paper People: Autobiographies written, affixed.  Googly eyes placed.  Most of the paper people have bottoms.  Still need jackets, hair, decorations and final coloring.
4. Self-Portrait Banner: Um.  Yes.  Er.  In Planning.
5. New Exciting Dress for the Teacher, Found at a Cost Point that Excuses Jello Mold Incidents at the Potluck: Check, Betsey Johnson crinolined prom dressy thing, bought secondhand.
6. Sashes for Graduates: Glittered.  (Each kid gets one; they read "Future (Insert Career Here)".
7. Chicks: In possession of larger new coop with bedding they cannot fully saturate with water for fun.
8. Diplomas: I have them.  They have nothing on them, but I have them.
9. Assessment: FINISHED.
10. Report Cards: I. don't. want. to. talk. about. this.
11. First Grade Class Loads: Done.
12. Loading Cards: Need to attach assessments.
13. What I Am Doing Today: Going to work.

PG&E hates chickens.

I know because we had a power outage of adequate length that we had to move all the chickens - the ones in the incubator and the ones in the brooder (the kids named it "The Nest") - to another teacher's house.

They come back to school tomorrow.  13 have hatched and 2 more have pipped; one of the ones that pipped is not a healthy chicken and won't make it, I don't think.  This is sad and hard to explain to the kids. One of the ones that hatched today has shell stuck on its head and was attached to its umbilical cord for awhile.  It isn't drying very well.  Of course, it is my favorite chicken and the only one that I have secretly named in my head.  But otherwise they seem okay, especially given the whole "driving in a car after drastically falling temperatures".  We'll see.

In conclusion, PG&E tried to kill my class' chicks, the foul fiends.

Chicken Impossible Continues

Eggs Pipped Today: 10
Eggs Hatched Today: 4

One of the four chicks was so hot to get out of its shell that it wasn't entirely detached to the membrane and it bled a little.  By the time I left school, it had stopped.

Of course they started hatching as soon as school got out.  Another teacher taped one hatching while we were in a staff meeting, and I texted a bunch of parents to come and see if they wanted.  Some of my kids who are in after school came and saw two hatch.

Crossing my fingers they are dry, fluffy and alive tomorrow.  I have a 7am meeting, so I will see them bright and early.

Chicken Impossible!

We hooked up a "brooder" at school and found chick starter within city limits, which made for a win Saturday.

Also, we think we candled an egg.  We think there was a mass of soon-to-be-chick in it.

Side Benefits

My Resident is soloing this week and next.  So far, I have entirely prepped out an end of the year project, kept all our plants alive during the heat wave, made a calendar set for next year, and spent five minutes and rather more dollars at an online vintage flash sale.  (Let's just say that my vacation souvenir budget has been, erm, deducted in the amount of one fine dress.)  I'm always there, and I watch what's going on or take notes/get involved when needed, but for the most part she's in charge.

Next week I will spend the time doing end of year assessment, so today is the end of the semi-holiday.  And since it's the second week, I'll be able to focus entirely on the child I'm assessing (as opposed to having one ear open for drama - this is the longest period I've ever had a student teacher teaching solo in my room and it's a test in releasing control, that's for sure).

Life Cycles Positive?

My new incubator arrived Friday and keeps a perfect temperature of 100.5 degrees.  I can't find the little "ready" light, but I do have a thermometer: success at last.

I have given up on the silkworm eggs, and while the snails ate four ounces of cabbage in less than twenty four hours, they continue their refusal to provide a living example of oviparous animals in the classroom.  We did run into some mating snails on our field trip, and I considered bringing them back to class as an example for the rest of the terrarium but didn't.  The silkworm eggs appear to have failed; I'm not sure why.

ARGH LIFE CYCLES.

1. Snails: intensely amorous, anti-egg.
2. New, Unbroken Incubator: not yet received.  I don't even know if it has been shipped.
3. Silkworm eggs: 2 weeks on a heating blanket, no hatch.

ARGH.  So it's viviparous animals by picture now.  On the plus side, the seeds in a bag all appear to be viable except for the winter squash.  (Place paper towel in plastic bag.  Add seeds.  Spritz liberally with water.  Seal bag.  Tape to window.  Observe development.  Plant when done (paper towel and all).

Life Cycle Land

The snails' ongoing egg strike despite their bountiful, warm terrarium in the greenhouse and ample food, not to mention my stalwart protection against the forces that would eat them is really quite a drag.

Still, the silkworm eggs are resting comfortably on the heating blanket and with any luck will hatch next week.

And then on Tuesday I received a gift of a circulating-air, automatic turner incubator.  It arrived unboxed during class, so I had to explain what it was.  What with the forces of cute present, I found myself committing to attempting a hatchery providing iron-clad, signed-in-blood "I will take these chickens off your hands on May 27th, 2011 without complaining" contracts enforceable by law, moral code, and so on.

It took less than a day for a child to arrange just such a contract.  Apparently the cute works at home, too.

I now have 30 fertile eggs sitting in my pantry and more or less managed to regulate the incubator temperature on Friday, so all systems are go for a Monday afternoon setting.

I have a bad feeling that the social studies standard I haven't covered yet is going to get really short shrift with all the science going on.  That said, we are doing a school performance covering the virtue of patience and will be using our life cycle knowledge and waiting waiting waiting to craft it.

In other news, I decided that appropriate souvenirs would include both a dress and an exhibition catalogue and ordered the latter in advance so I don't have to lug it around.  I also arranged some visits with grad school cronies and similar who are New York-based.  These plans will provide serenity/mindfulness moments during the next two months of being covered in paint, soil and incubator-temperature-regulation stress.

Memo to Self

I have a field trip today that is a first-time event: it was arranged through the Nutrition Project and this is the first time they've sent a class to this site or even done this activity as an off-site event.  It involves taking my class on MUNI, and so that we can take one train rather than three buses, we are going to have a little walk.  It is raining at present and gusts are expected all day.

So given all of these factors, an extra-alert teacher would be something good to have.

I'll have to settle for a teacher who kept coming up with new plans in her sleep for making this trip go smoothly and finally gave up on the whole sleep thing at 3:45.

Oh well.  It will be excellent.  I have a full complement of adults - chaperones, Residents and SNCs coming with us.  The hour-by-hour weather report suggests that a picnic lunch on the way back will be a possibility, I have a toque for each child and the best field-trip pants ever.

Of my twenty four pockets, I plan to use:

1. MUNI fare pocket.
2. MUNI transfer pocket.
3. Personal Clipper card and ID pocket.
4. Mobile phone pocket.
5. Emergency car sickness gum/lozenge pocket.
6. Bandaid pocket.
7. Hand wipe pocket.
8. Additional badge pocket.
9. Emergency non-MUNI money pocket.
10. Keys pocket.
11. Chapstick and cold medicine pocket.

That will leave me with a baker's dozen pockets before counting jacket pockets.  EXCELLENT.

I had twenty one students until December, when one moved across the Bay.  Two students moved over the break.  Two more moved out of state this month.  I am taking this personally.  Realistically, I know this is due to many factors for which I am not actually responsible, but I miss my students and I'm still taking it personally.  However, for my remaining sixteen it does mean lots of personal attention and some pretty cool projects, including COIL POTS.  COILING the POTS consumed a great deal of attention, far more than I thought it would, and left the kids tired out by the brain expenditure.

Tet and Furlough

The Tet and furlough weekend is nice for many families, but I need to get into the shower pretty fast here because I am babysitting a kid at my school whose family was out of options for childcare today.  These weird weeks are hard on families...not to mention my pocketbook, since Friday funday is also Friday nopay for me.

I got a chance to look at the District's new plans for middle schools and bus routes.  I admit that I am irritated that there's evidently money for a 7th period at middle schools but not enough for lowering class sizes at the highest-need non-QEIA schools.  (Same funding source?  Probably not.  In favor of a 7th period?  Oh yeah.  Piqued anyway because I think 14:1 would make the biggest impact on student achievement and it isn't that pricey?  Yep.)

The middle school plan is...not my cup of tea.  I am not clear how it creates more equity and I don't think it's intended to do so.  I'm curious about the projections the bus plan used, but it I like better.

We had two tours this week, which makes for maybe ten or twelve this year.  That's a lot more than last year (two or three) or any year before (zero).  People liked what they saw, although their surprise at seeing it is always a little trying.

Neither rain nor snow nor heat nor darkness...

So the thing with a field trip to Slide Ranch is that once you're scheduled, it's do or die.  You need small buses to get there, which ran us $400 a class.  The Ranch itself has a modified lottery system, and to get a fall trip your application is due the June prior.

So the rain did not stop us from going.  Upon arrival, we did open up the question of completing the trip activities to the parent chaperones.  Parents were overwhelmingly in favor of full participation, so we did everything.  Eventually it stopped raining, but I was up to my knees in mud by the end of it (largely due to a freak out in the goat shed, which necessitated a carryout, and I couldn't navigate the board walk with a kid).

On the plus side, the buses had to travel so slowly that I only threw up on the way there.  Which is nothing.

It was a great trip - very exciting and highly engaging.  The rest of the week was something of a wash, though.  Thursday was useless: everyone was tired and grumpy and I still hadn't warmed up.  Friday was marginally better.  Everyone needs a holiday, badly.

We have a week left and it will be quite low key; although report cards now don't go out until 7 January I finished all the assessment.  We have one more verse of "Christmas in Hollis" to learn, and while we made egg nog* (and egg nog ice "cream" from the leftovers) we still have to do something with collard greens.  We're also having an art sale Thursday.  My resident just taught a fairly heavy week of math content, so we'll just continue to review that and introduce nickels: nothing too intense.

Next week is the school dance.  As always, I take the kids who are not able to attend this virtuebration and get crafty with them (I cannot handle the 300 children, loud music and flashing lights of the dance: better to have all the bad-tempered behavior challenging children doing arts projects and making fun of the oldschool hip hop and Afropop we favor in my classroom.)  I think I have the project selected (translucent tile suncatcher grids), I just need demos and grid ideas.

Although I've hit my year goal on filled Donors Choose projects (30 lifetime filled), I am somewhat bummed out because it hasn't been the banner year we had last year, during which I sometimes got two projects in a day over December.  I got backpacks and school supplies for the summer, one for each kid, but not the materials to fill them.  Worksheets aren't terribly useful because it's hard to find ones the kids can do and check independently; most of my students have working parents and/or parents who are not able to check work in English.  So activities and self-checking games are better.  I sent the packs home last year; there was still regression over the summer but it wasn't as intense and some of the kids came back a little more ready in math, apparently (they had a lot of fact practice stuff and got faster).  Still, there's time left.




*No egg, no rum extract soy milk powder egg nog, but egg nog nonetheless.  We did grate fresh nutmeg over it!  And fold in child-whipped cream!

So When Does It Turn Into Real Money?

If I had a dollar for every time I heard a SFUSD administrator say "It's only a million dollars", I would have the best wardrobe and best-kitted classroom ever.

I think the most offensive thing in the Trish Bascom scandal is that her lawyer is out there claiming that the kickbacks payments were "bonuses" to hard-working employees.

GAG.  As one of the many SFUSD employees who is losing salary through furloughs and cut Prop. A bonuses, this kind of talk makes me want to break all Student Support Services' pencils and steal their staplers.

That said, I look forward to using this example of SFUSD's absolutely appalling cash-handling skills and administrative spendthrift when they lay off all school staff come March.  It is beyond time for SFUSD to stop clutching its pearls and claiming that financial rigor has come to its central offices: it hasn't.  It is beyond time for SFUSD to take responsibility for its bad choices and its decisions.  I would respect those choices a lot more if instead of claiming that there were huge central office cuts, the District would admit it continues to bulk up administratively.  Offering some rationale for reality is honest.

One More Day!

Oh my goodness, these children need a break like you wouldn't believe.  The teachers, too.

Sadly, it's a bit of a collision course in that almost all the teachers are at various stages of this year's Nasty Fall Cold, while the kids are all over it and are absolutely wired and excited and hey, do I know Christmas is coming?  What with all that and the weekend rain, you can be assured twenty-odd peppy, if not very motivated children and one grumpy and not very motivated adult.

So we mucked around with primary and secondary colors via Insta-Snow, painted and got out the smart body supplies: maze balance boards, scooter boards and Body Sox.  This went okay, as did being very explicit about my personal level of energy (low), Kleenex consumption needs (high) and desire to manage behaviors that everyone knows are unfriendly to others (nonexistent).

Still: ONE MORE DAY.  We are having a potluck tomorrow evening schoolwide and I have a lot of no-knead bread dough rising for that.  Since I just this weekend got roped into cooking a Thanksgiving meal I am refusing to do any shopping for it (except for possibly a fine new outfit to wear), and that shopping is supposed to magically happen whilst I munch potlucky dishes.  Yum.

Saturday, 8am

Oh boy, I am going to do Enrollment Fair again this year!

YAY!  Nothing like an early Saturday morning in a vast, crowded, echoing space.  Memo to self: stock up on doodle paper, caffeine, etc.  And bring a fat stack of our awesome new Todd Parr designed shirts.

Actually, I kind of like going to Enrollment Fair, although it is not really how my school drums up interest. It is certainly true that I have been asked questions that are borderline offensive (and sometimes well over the border), especially since I live by my school and I don't consider my neighborhood "the ghetto".  But mostly, it's interesting.

In other news, I volunteered to copy edit our BSC.  Since we're three years in, I wish that they would allow us to set up the information the way we want.  I mean, presumably all the schools have instituted programs and priorities that they believe will close the opportunity gap.  Now it would be useful, I think, to delineate those goals in a list and then note how they impact the equity/access/accountability issues.

But then, three years in and I am still waiting for the District to share its own Balanced Score Cards for various Central Office bodies and its own improvement plan for how it assists the sites on their journey, so I suppose format changing is unlikely.

And while I'm ranting...

In 2005, California had a whooping cough epidemic.  I caught it; despite the romantic image of 'whooping' I developed as a child reading Ballet Shoes, it is really not a good time.  The problem is that the whooping starts up after you're feeling pretty good, so you end up back at work having an uncontrollable, endless and breathless coughing fit in front of twenty-odd frightened children.

Anyway, here we are having another pertussis outbreak.  Lucky California!  No dark sarcasm in the classroom means lots of it elsewhere, you see.  Needless to say, this has become fodder for anti-immigration fear mongering (apparently whooping cough takes on human form and comes to the United States without papers, hellbent on infecting upstanding white nationalists citizens) and bad mother blamers (the New York Times had an article titled something like "Wealthy Stay at Home Mill Valley Mothers Fail to Vaccinate, Thereby Causing Nuclear War").*

DTaP vaccines become less effective over time.  Whooping cough sucks, but not literally seeing as how you will be unable to suck down any air.  Get yours updated today!

*For the record, I find anti-vaccine philosophy the kind of individualist, Ayn Randesque tripe that makes me gag, even when I don't have whooping cough.  I do not, however, think that the ponderings of a few overly-educated, overly-monied mothers makes a trend, and I wonder why it is always the mothers who are to blame for anti-vaccine sentiments.


Also, I personally cannot get a DTaP booster; I have an actual, doctor-verified, terrible horrible no good very bad extreme adverse reaction to tetanus and no pertussis vaccine is made without it.  So while this is a case where I am personally counting on herd immunity, it is also one where I cannot lord it over others while waving my pricked arm self-righteously.

I figure if we set the alarm off because no one thought to disarm it since no one was thinking that we'd still be there when it went off, we must have had a pretty successful Back to School Night.  I think we had better than 50% attendance, which is pretty good when you take in second shift jobs, transportation difficulties, general disenchantment with the establishment, etc.

The classroom was finally down from its tropical rainforest heat this evening, undoubtedly helped along by Crafternoon: all academic work before lunch, followed by an afternoon of crafts, motor development and games that require turn-taking over in the unused dark portable with its industrial-strength fan.  Removing twenty three bodies from the classroom helps a lot in cooling.

I had a kid disappear off my roster this week but continue coming to school; her mom came to Back to School Night and they declined their waitpool school because her child is so happy.  That's always nice to hear.  I also wore a kicking dress (ombre silk McQueen S/S 2008, salvage as usual), so really I think I have to call that a success.

In general, I'm not a big fan of press reports, books or films decrying the Dread Teachers' Unions.  I note with interest that all the venture capitalists so hot to fund KIPP are not so hot to send their own children to KIPP.  And I am always bemused by prostisuits and educrats explaining why 37:1 is actually optimal for classrooms while their own children attend fancy private schools with 2 teachers for every student.

So when I heard Donors Choose was hooking up with the makers of Teachers Hate Children So Much or whatever the latest pro-privatization propos* is called, I gave my computer monitor a good hairy eyeball teacher look.  Sadly, it did not cower as expected; nor did it alert Donors Choose to hook up with an education ally, not some destroyers.

This did not, however, cause me to stop writing Donors Choose proposals.  I got four funded over the summer.  I had two projects still up this morning, when a donor funded all 2,200 projects in California.  My school had the most projects posted of all SFUSD - fifteen.  All fifteen got funded.  We're getting a curriculum kit, a mess of leveled libraries, cozy furniture for classroom libraries and Peace Places, basic supplies, storage carts and shelves, sensory integration and fine motor equipment, play therapy equipment, a DVD player, math games...

None of these are provided by SFUSD or the state.  Heck, they can't even get classroom mats or cots so the Kindergarten students can rest comfortably.  If we want our students to have what some kids get, we need to buy it ourselves or find someone who will.

I suppose this is a case of trampling on principle for daily reality, a pose I generally do not favor.  Still, standing on principle in front of twenty one students who already aren't getting a fair shake doesn't sound so hot, either.

*Guess who just read Mockingjay?

This blog=facebook without endless teacher stuff.

It is my general practice to begin obsessively checking online weather reports on any late summer afternoon during which I do not observe fog rolling in.  So I was well-prepared for the hot days this school week:

• sprayer bottles filled and set to mist
• case of water bottles, each labelled with a student's name
• procedures for bottle refills and accidents planned
• consideration of responses to unconventional bottle use
• checked batteries in sensory fan
• purchased two small box fans
• rescheduled all heavy academic content/serious procedure teaching to the morning
• enforced resting (usually I have a quiet activity running - not this week)
• planned outfits so that I am not grabbing knee-high boots because they are the only shoes I can find on my way out the door
• mandated jacket removal upon entrance
• scheduled afternoon indoor PE with second grade classrooms for the two hottest days
• purchased popsicles

My classroom has a full wall of windows and old school encapsulated asbestos insulation, so it gets very hot.  All the Kindergarten bodies add to the heat.  The kids are cranky and tired, which heats them up further.  So my overall goal is to keep the classroom mellow, emotionally smooth and friendly.  Years of experience have taught me that it's better to spend afternoons rolling through the tunnel and painting than pushing through curriculum.  Not only is the former academic anyway (this.  is.  Kindergarten.), but the latter doesn't build goodwill.  I will need that later for heavy-duty academics, especially on days I am cranky and tired.

The transition to Kindergarten continues.  There was an upswing in roughhousing this week; I did some individual/small group stuff around limits and personal space.  Roughhousing is of course not allowed; sadly, that does not cause it to disappear.  On Monday we will be reading So Much as part of my anti-roughhousing/situational appropriateness campaign.  I talked to the lunch yard monitors and after school leaders.  Last year's anti-roughhousing campaign went pretty well, so I am hopeful this year's will too.

I have three students who are really struggling with behavior expectations.  Well, perhaps I should say that I am really struggling with their behavior and my expectations.  However, the behavior is out of line, so it's just finding the appropriate techniques for teaching/enforcing acceptable behavior.  One of the three has been doing better in the morning and apparently is a night owl by nature, so I think the issue is worsened by tiredness - after lunch, the kid's done for the day.  There is also a language issue, and since morning recess marks the downward trend in behavior, I suspect a need for structure (I find morning recess very difficult myself, what with the kids and the water and the bathroom and the play structure and the hoops and the balls and the blacktop and and and, myself).

I had a breakthrough with one of the others; I think the issue was limits-testing.  I will bargain with students about the amount of work that needs to be done/how it needs to be done/when it needs to be done (I like Collaborative Problem Solving a lot and try to use its philosophy in little situations like these), but there are non-negotiables.  Anyway, after losing out on doing a craft project until the work got done as agreed, this child has been doing a lot better across the board.  (She did get to do the craft project, by the way; it was just seeing that she would not get to do it while everyone else did that I think did the trick.  Yep, I'm a MEAN LADY.)

The third child is experiencing a disconnect between behavior systems at home and those at school.  Specifically, I will not be providing chocolate ice cream to end a tantrum.  Nor am I able to ignore the child until approached with an apology (the kid has stamina, I'm telling you).  I reserve incentives for kindness, personal best work, etc.  This child has been having serious difficulties in all environments (there is no adult on staff who has contact with K who has not had a Bad News Bulletin for me), and after some reflection and discussion with our emotional/behavioral support people, I think we are in for a couple of unhappy days before just how mean and non-budging I am comes through.  There was a large tantrum on Thursday; it was not rewarded.  Friday I did some one on one with this child, so I am pretty sure that certain cause-effect relationships are clear (throw food in cafeteria?  Clean food in cafeteria.  Rip up work?  Get new work).  For next week, I am planning to set some very specific targets with this child with short time spans and clear incentives.

I left work on time yesterday so that I could do real life stuff, like shoes and gym, before seeing a fellow K teacher play with her band.  While I was enjoying the show, my car failed to enjoy a hit and run.  At least DPT was good enough not to give me a street cleaning ticket, since I did not feel up to getting it off the street until today.  The fact that it had been pushed onto the curb and into another car may have influenced that decision, although the other car was gone this morning.  Anyway, it is time to walk over to school and get ready for the next couple of weeks (and Back to School Night!).  The sleep deprivation associated with concerts, early-morning police reports and poking vengefully at the many pieces of not-my-car car left behind will make this a little harder to do; I had better write a list before I spend another hour on non-classroom tasks.