In These Times of Counts and School Shifts

...a friendly reminder that, in the event EPC calls, do be so good as to inform your child's current school that you won't be returning.  This is just simple politeness.  EPC does not call the school to inform them, and - speaking from years of SFUSD experience - it may take quite awhile for your child to actually be dropped from our enrollment.

Additionally, if you choose to decline your new spot, please do your best to make this clear to EPC.  Otherwise, they call my school, bluster their way into being transferred to my room, and holler at me over the phone during class time.  I'm still not sure how the person hollering figured it, but the opening line was "You can't tell us where the child is going to school.  OR the family."  Eventually I was able to cut in and inquire what, precisely, they would like me to do given that the child was presently in my classroom, eagerly awaiting my return from phone screaming.  Once that point got across, the person hung up abruptly.  I'm still not sure what the point of all that was, but I fear it being repeated.

One of last year's Kindergartners asked me today why the current Kindergartners are so little, because when her class was in Kindergarten, they were WAY BIGGER.  It is for the best that the current Ksters did not hear this, because they may have needed to defend their honor.  This class is like that.

Today it was very warm, and by the end of some quite rigorous groups we had eighteen kids who were hot, tired and doing eighteen different things.  This was a little overwhelming for the new Resident, even though they settled down in two minutes.  One of the nice things about experience is that this kind of thing happens, and you know it.  You have ways to get them back on program and you don't internalize the chaos.  Besides, we gave them rather meaty work today and despite the breakdown after doing it, it got done and done quite well.  Hopefully she believed me that these things happen and it gets better.

One Week Down.

Saturday I was exhausted and somewhat sick and spent the entire day on the couch rereading Elizabeth George novels.  That's the result of a first week, I think.  The work is particularly physically demanding, and emotionally you have to be on the top of your game the entire time.  Anyway, overall I think I did pretty well establishing the class community and getting started:

1. I have a hard time with files because there's just so many of them.  Every single master goes into its own file, creating giant piles of files (I have a file cabinet, but one drawer is permanently jammed and the other is full of puzzles.).  This year, I have decided to make a file for each week and put every master I use that week in it.  Since I use the same things around the same time each year, this should - if I maintain it - make it easy to find things in the future.
2. Our formal Caring School Communities meeting was lacking, but the general ideas of it (looking at the speaker, one speaker at a time) were introduced.  I'll do this meeting again next week.
3. Reading Workshop is going pretty well; the kids are really into it and they have a lot more interest in the class library than in years past (the loft helps there, too).
4. I spent half an hour after school every day just cleaning up and organizing.  If I can keep this up, things will go well.  I also spent one lunch break copying - a task immeasurably helped by having spent the afternoon before organizing things to copy.
5. I didn't introduce a formal classroom management system until Friday, and I won't begin using it until Tuesday probably.  That's the longest I've gone without.  As yet, the class is fairly manageable, and I'm also letting the little things go.  Having a resident helps, since she or I can take on a meltdown while the other deals with the rest of the class.

This week, I really want to get all the Brigances done and start demanding lowered volume.  I have a couple of kids who are just loud - not grumpily loud or not getting my work done loud, just totally unaware of their volume.  I also need to order animals for the year (other than Silkie eggs) and call the local library to schedule a field trip.

Death Match!

IN THIS CORNER, me.  On a scanty three hours of sleep after an attack of ADHD brain, wearing a disappointingly plain outfit and equipped with an ipod.

IN ALL OTHER CORNERS, my classroom.  Left in the disaster state I thought appropriate Saturday.

I'm staying until it's done and hoping to stroll out of school by 8pm.

I ended my Adderall holiday today by taking half of my old morning dose.  That should partially hone dulled brain.  Since ADHD was responsible for dulling it in the first place, I think it's a fair trade.

I have relatively good coping strategies for getting by with a lack of executive functioning.  I also am of the school of thought that believes there are positives to ADHD: it can make you quick on your feet, willing to try new things and intensely creative.  I think I'm more accepting of learning needs in the classroom, too, because I know there are environments in which I cannot be successful.  That said, I really love Hyperbole and a Half and somewhat identify with this.

In other news, here is the dress that the USPS finally saw fit to deliver.  Providing that weather reports hold, I'll be pairing it a turtleneck shell as a first week of school ensemble.  I also have a kicky Byron Lars suit and a Fendi sundress for first week looks.  Today, however, it's going to be a scruffy day.  I may even wear pants.

In further other news, I have a Resident again this year - hooray!  I also have a document outlining my responsibilities and the program's early goals to read.  I am looking forward to perusing it since it should help me be a better mentor for my Resident.

ETA, 7:05 PM: Barring about an hour's worth of scrap-collecting, I'm done.  The new set up rocks my socks, too.

13th Paycheck!

We start so early now that the District and UESF worked out something so that the check I expected in July 2011 came nearly a year in advance.  This is clever on both parts, since the beginning of the school year has got to be prime teacher spending time and flush pockets makes for fun at the teachers' supply store.

In fact, someone should recommend a federal stimulus plan of this nature: hand public school teachers a few hundred bucks and tell them to go to town on classroom materials.

I personally got some science stuff - the materials to do a little unit on magnetism and refills for a unit I did last year on light and color.  I got a prism, which I didn't have last year (just various prismatically finished things), and a pound of Insta-Snow.  Accept no fake snow substitutes: Insta-Snow is where it's at.  Were I more ambitious, I might try to do a whole unit on polymers rather than just explaining how the snow works.  Its purpose is to reinforce color blending.  I let the kids go to town with Insta-Snow and colored water or diluted liquid watercolor in primary colors and have them record their color formulas.  (This is after we've blended primary colors to make secondary colors and talked about complimentary colors and all that - otherwise, I'm guessing you'd get a lot of mix-everything-to-brown.)  It's very engaging and the whole thing made the kids very impressive at MoAD last year because they could explain shading using complimentary colors.

I also picked up some craft stuff - little foam fruits and veggies, wings for the kids to decorate and wear - and a few gender-neutral additions for the dress-up cabinet.  Oh, and three pairs of dress-up shoes.  A few of the kids are quite tall this year and can only wear the largest pair of shoes, so I got some bigger ones.

I also have a birthday coming up, so I figured I deserved a new pair of shoes.  Over the summer I had a conversation with a Neiman Marcus clerk in which we agreed that the utter lack of McQ in San Francisco is a tragedy.  It ends up that if you are willing to wear last season, you too can shop fine diffusion lines at Loehmann's.  I do not buy by season, both because I live in strange weather San Francisco and because I shop by awesomeness of the item.  Anyway, I ended up purchasing another excellent dress at a very good price.  Perhaps the stimulus plan could be slightly more broad; the kids looooove my new shoes (they have big big bows) and I know I teach better when I look fab.

Yawn.  I went to a birthday party for one of the kids at my school today and spent a solid forty minutes in the jumpy.  It calls for an early bedtime, I think.  I need to go to school tomorrow to ready things for next week and possibly give a second coat to the backscratchers the kids sanded and primed on Friday, too, so it  will be an early day!

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.

Respite ho!

I don't know what it's like district-wide, but the first week at my school is endless flux at Kindergarten.  Kids not on the roll appear; kids on the roll disappear or never show up in the first place.  The kid who sobs on Monday runs on to the playground screaming for joy Tuesday, while the happiest Monday kid lurks at the gate crying.

Presently all of our Kindergartens are full or nearly full - I was overloaded for most of the week, actually - so at least we don't have class collapse fear.  Overall for the week things were fine: no accidents even.  Alas, on Thursday one child was absent.  She returned Friday only to throw up, in which she was joined by several of her peers.

I was hanging up the rainbows the kids made Friday and I realized that they were probably the best set a class had produced yet.  Almost everyone used all six color strips and got them in rainbow order (I number them to help them out a little bit...if they know their numbers).  Yet at the time they were making the rainbows I was feeling totally overwhelmed by child insanity, adult insanity, noise and trivial misbehaviors all adding up to SYSTEM FAILURE.

I think this is a little bit feedback from the start of last year, when our classes were small and we were stressed.  And I started last year with a student who was entirely out of control: body memory, I guess.  Anyway, it's a good reminder to chill out and care less about the small stuff, or the times when sixteen kids need my total attention at the same time and two other kids are throwing bits of paper at each other.  Even when they don't all get the attention and the paper bits collect like snow, the rainbows still get made and I don't need to be all tense and grumpy and join the paper fight myself.

In other news, I wore this the first day of school:

Got it at a thrift store, new with tags.

I still haven't worn the runner-up (this also thrift store Givenchy that supposedly/theoretically/according to people who possibly would know dates to the McQueen era), but I did pull out the Lacroix (salvage), the Balenciaga (salvage), the jacket with the heart-shaped buttons, the dress I bought on the Jeremy's Teacher Shopping Trip and the nifty Puma/designer collab dress.  In short, my clothes are awesome.

For readalouds, I stuck with the excellent-yet-brief/audience-participatory favorites: Tickle the Duck, Knuffle Bunny, Z Goes Home - stuff like that.  We also made Texas Snowflakes (but haven't turned them  into hats yet), had a garden lesson, two parachute PE blocks and one visit to the Imagination Stations (the play kitchen is popular, but still nothing compared to the Dress Up Bureau).  I made new alphabet first-run sheets this year and broke out the Handwriting Without Tears letter building blocks and magnetic boards (which as soon as I have a slot on Donors Choose available I am begging for more of.  Hmmm, awesome syntax there.).

Skillwise my class is all over the place.  I have only three students who need to learn how to use scissors and several kids who can write their names.  Two kids are reading a little and one can do a little phonetic spelling.  Several will benefit from the letter/number sorting game we will play on Monday.  The behavior patterin is interesting; I have very little hitting/pushing/shoving overall but a lot of issues with kindness/sharing/negative self-talk.  We started Caring School Communities on time and I think it will make a difference.

Procedurally, we have made a good start at composting/trash/recycling, walking in a line and respecting personal space.  Friday we started on work completion expectations.  Scissor safety is going well; glue use not so well.  I did a poor job of glue stick demonstration.  Also, my hypothesis around mechanical pencils (that massive lead wasting would not occur if we had them on day one) has failed.  

My general teaching philosophy is that it is useless to teach all policies on the first day, because the children cannot learn them all and the teacher cannot reinforce them all.  So I introduce a few at a time.  This seems to work.

Resident-wise, my resident is confident and can give directions, lead a table group and read Tickle the Duck (which allows for two daily reads, since I refuse to read it more than once a day).  With her first week schedule I don't really think we had any feedback time, so I am trying (not too well) to use the method I saw Adria Klein use: you're there and you pop in as needed.  The kids like her a lot.

One of my students had a bedwetting incident last week, which is possibly a school stress because my teacher is mean thing, or a sleeping so heavily because of the rigors of all day Kindergarten thing, or part of the coming of the virulent fever and flu with which this child was afflicted shortly thereafter.  This makes me sad.  On the positive side, I have not yet had many children disappearing into waitlist schools with no goodbye.   I can say that that behavior makes many many many teachers feel rejected and mean. (I know because it comes up at lots of trainings when Kindergarten teachers sit together.)  So far, only one student has left for another school, and I was keeping that child an hour after school because she was on the after school program wait list and her mom had no way to pick her up before then - clearly a case where a wait list opening was a blessing.

In the best news of the week, I am not going to school this weekend.  YAY!

And so it begins!

I went to school yesterday.  I dragged in a big wet vacuum to steam the rugs, but I forgot to ask how to use it (oops) so I wasn't too upset that the floors in my room were just getting waxed.  I had surgery on my hand and it's still not 100%, so I am hoping to use a patented combination of whining, eyelash-batting and bribery by baked goods to organize a work gang.

Today I am also going to school, but it's only to meet up with some of the fabulous ladies with whom I work so that we may refresh our collections of salvaged couture and DIY remakes.  Which brings me to the next stereotype in my teacher fashion parade:

The Teacher Who Wears the Same Uniform the Kids Should.

This teacher invariably has one or both of the following motivations:

1. S/he is not an early bird and teaches at an early-start school.  Uniforms do not require one to be awake and generally do not require ironing.
2. S/he has some kind of ethical/political/socioeconomic position that is best visited upon fellow teachers through wearing the uniform...accompanied by regular lectures.

Monitoring the students' uniforms is not something I'm willing to waste a lot of energy on.  Like many of my fellow attention-challenged, I have to get up very early so that I can be fully functioning by the time school starts, so I have lots of time to decide if I'm feeling Midge Wood or Grace Jones.  While I have great sympathy for the ethical/political/socioeconomic arguments, I prefer to make them while well-dressed.  (Also, buying salvage means fair trade labor and reuse.  WIN!)

Whatever the case, the course of action is clear: avoid this person at least through first bell.

Strapping on helmet.

Living three blocks from school and possessing a full set of keys, I don't really have a whole lot of excuses not to work over the summer (except burnout avoidance).  Throughout June and into July, I was caring for our late-blooming silkworms so I went in every couple of days.

I haven't been to school for three weeks.  The administrative staff is back in today, and so am I.  Something nifty is happening, so there will be a lot of people there, but it is still a little jarring.