Dates, Schmates.

We did Halloween on Friday this year by unanimous staff consent.  A Monday Halloween is a week of disregulated, sugary children: when you start the school week with what is basically a play day, it's hard to recoup.  A Monday Halloween is even worse than a November 1st picture day, and I speak as someone who  had to take extreme measures to remove the last of the waterproof makeup from a child's face.  I know someone who teaches in a school district in which November 1st is always a teacher PD day, to which I say: BEST PLAN EVER.

After over a decade of Kindergarten teaching, I know that there is never any need to provide more than twenty minutes of designated "class party".  The kids do not enjoy eating snacks for longer than that, no matter how gooey the snacks are.  (This year, I had amazing 100% compliance with the class snack policy. As the kids munched fruit, cheese and the little pumpkin tarts they baked at school, there were no complaints about Mean Teacher and her Mean Anti-Candy Policies, either.)  Also, we snack outside.

Regardless of the fairly easy Halloween day, by the end of it I was so exhausted that I'll be at school on Sunday.  This would have had to happen anyway, I think: Kindergarten was on duty to clean the staff room, and when I left around 4:00 the copier was still broken.

Performance Standards

I want to know: what are Michelle Rhee's performance standards for her new position?

Superintendents, chancellors and the like receive their salaries independent of whether or not their district shows improvement on unreliable state test data or more reliable information (say, district infrastructure improvements, employee satisfaction and retention data, etc.).

But seeing that Ms. Rhee is now outside of public education and working as a lobbyist, I'm sure that the charge she led to evaluate teachers is one she's modeling for all of us, right?  What is her value-added assessment?  When will she publicize her results, much as the LA Times does for LAUSD teachers?

Or are value-added evaluations only for the little people?

I LIKE 'matchy-match'.

To wit, Monday's outfit:

Ten Weeks Down.

I have reached the point of the year where I am so stressed out I don't sleep very well and would consider taking a mental health day except I am too busy to actually take one.

I am in favor of teachers - well, every worker, but especially teachers - taking a mental health day.  Underslept, overstressed teachers are grumpy, and grumpiness is not good for classroom community and management.  The job is so emotionally demanding that recharging is a necessity, not a convenience.

Luckily for me, the constant business keeps the grumpiness in check, since I like varied and changing environments.  Also, I used parent-teacher conferences to get the next three permission slips signed, so the big ARGH source of Paper Management and Control has been mitigated.

Anyway, we have two field trips next week.  One of these is a school-wide service event for which I am a primary planner.  The week after we have another field trip.  I did all of my conferences except one (child out sick) this last week.  I am helping the New Resident finish her first big series of observations/write ups, have a wedding to attend, need to plan for Thanksgiving and deal with some family health issues.  Also, I skipped a doctors' appointment this week and need to stop doing that.  However, I am tired of hearing words like autoimmune and rheumatoid and needed a holiday from that.

Conferences went very well.  Nothing I said was met with shock, which is good: my understanding of the child being discussed was in tune with the parents.  The kids report liking school and everyone is making good growth.  I had zero no-shows, although I had some problems getting scheduled translators to actually appear.  This is especially irritating for me when they are paid SFUSD employees for whom this is part of their job.  But in the end I did have a translator for every conference that needed one.

I made it 47 school days before I repeated an outfit.  I did not feel like wearing an evening gown on the day of Jump Rope for Heart - I changed to jump anyway, but dealing with an internally-boned dress in the confines of a bathroom stall was just more than I was willing to take on.

I've been thinking a lot about teacher impact on a classroom.  It's important that I'm not grumpy, because when I am a fine fog of irritation fills the classroom.  Still, not all lesson failures or bad transitions are teacher-caused: child mood is important, too, and sometimes things just go wrong.  According to this very famous graph, teachers are at their lowest around now, and a couple of my colleagues are feeling very hard on themselves.  Anyway, I plan to pontificate about this later.

News.

1. I went to a conference on Mindfulness in Education, which was neat.  There was a lot of problem-solving around the secular nature of mindfulness being misunderstood, I don't think that's why some schools and communities avoid it.  I think that the grounding mindfulness gives you, coupled with its inherent ability to create community and an ethic of empathy, are contrary to the political pressure for an individualist, no-responsibility-all-men-are-islands society.  You can't really be mindful and blame others for being poor.
2. One of the caterpillars went into chrysalis and I was doing a leaf change when it did.  I am afraid it will not emerge because it was bothered.  I have not mentioned this to the kids and am counting on the checkered skipper caterpillar to chrysalis itself when I am not around.
3. I still have not repeated an outfit, mostly because it's been warm and my warm-weather clothes have not all been worn yet.
4. I had a Donors Choose project expire, so I had an empty slot and I figured, why not shoot for the moon?  So I have submitted a proposal for a classroom loft.

Differentiation, School Selection, "Those Kids".

One of the justifications I hear for avoiding certain city schools for Kindergarten has nothing to do with bad teachers, bad buildings, low fundraising or behavior: it's the "giftedness" issue.

It scans something like this: a lot of the children at School Y don't know the alphabet when they start, so my child, who does, will be bored and unchallenged.

I am not terribly sympathetic to this argument.  In general, my students don't know the alphabet when they start.  Learning it takes around five to ten minutes of our school day for whole group instruction, doing activities that are fun for everyone and teach more skills than letter names (for instance, activities that hone eye-tracking or hand-eye coordination, or patterns, or teach cooperative skills, or teach classroom structures that we all need to know - since alphabet teaching doesn't last all year, and I need to teach these structures, it's an important and valid educational goal).  Everything else is in small group, targeted to the needs of the learners.  After all, it's not really "knows the alphabet" and "doesn't" - there are the kids who have sorted everything but b d p q, the kids who know the capitals but need work on lowercase, the kids who know eighteen letters, the kids who need to sort out the category "number" and "letter".

And again, I'm not doing this all year.  And not for a long time each day: I take teaching science and art seriously, we have other aspects of reading than alphabet recognition to cover, and so on.

My other problem with this argument is personal.  I was a very gifted (if also very hyper) student.  I was reading before I started Kindergarten and not just a little, either.  By the beginning of first grade I'd finished off the Ramona Quimby books and starting in on Joan Aiken.

In Kindergarten, I was absolved from penmanship practice and phonics workbooks (about fifteen minutes of the day) in favor of additional recess with a couple of other early readers.  In first grade, the reading teacher pulled a high group from the class, and I went for awhile, but I was too high for that group too, so I stayed with my class.

I was also high in math, and honestly?  I wasn't bored very much.  This may be thanks to the magic of ADHD, Saving Children from Boredom By Providing All Kinds of Bad Ideas.  It wasn't due to excellent differentiation in first grade, either: I did the same work as everyone else.  But the work we did didn't just teach reading: it also taught skills that kids need.  Some of these - like paperwork skills - I really wish we didn't need.  But we do.  They also included games, and games are fun even if they're easy.

Nor do I think I could have gone further faster had I been in a classroom of all high-performing children doing high level work: attention was an issue, for sure, but I am an intensely non-competitive person.  I have yet to see a model of gifted instruction that doesn't only pay lipservice to cooperation and multiple intelligences but actually believes in it.  I was the kind of kid who threw the county spelling bee once there were two kids left because I wanted it over and 2nd place was pretty good.  I am the kind of teenager who never shared her SAT score because all the tension around those numbers was scary.  I am the kind of adult who won't play Trivial Pursuit at the Albatross because people get so nutty about winning.

So the gifted classroom was likely to make me sit with a box on my head more than I did already (it's fun to make whoooing noises from under the box!  Like your own ghostly echo chamber!).  Besides, the stuff I learned and read and did I learned and read and did because I liked it.  I am one of those irritating nerds who learns stuff because it's neat.  I majored in a field notorious for its geektitude.  I went to a university that prides itself on being the place where fun goes to die.  Etc.

Also?  I don't know about the everyone-knows-the-alphabet Kindergarten, but in my classroom, which annually spans from fluent readers to no-name-writers (somehow people assume there are no high kids on the southeast side, and honestly?  Some of my kids are probably higher than the average child at Clarendon), everybody looks pretty gifted to me.  If Kindergartners were formally identified for GATE, I'd probably identify everybody, because every kid has some spike of awesome in some area that needs nurturing so they can apply that awesome broadly.

Forty Days

Forty days in and I haven't repeated an outfit.  I am now allowing repeats - I could do a couple more weeks but it would involve wearing jeans three days a week and at least one evening gown that is a bit restrictive. For day 40, I wore:

• purple and gold dirndl
• red sweater
• purple tights
• red cowboy boots
• purple jacket

The art teacher told me that she's so glad I wear colors.

In other news, I mistakenly announced that one of our caterpillars had died, but it in fact was molting.  Hopefully I did not interrupt the molt when I was changing out old leaves - it looked alright when I left.  I was able to correct my mistake before the day was out, luckily.  It had gotten itself stuck to the roof of the terrarium, which is why I thought it was a goner.  Here's hoping it's alright tomorrow.

We have two caterpillars, both collected from a nearby park on a field trip.  They're different kinds, so it's cool to see how the caterpillars are different, etc.

Kindergarten Logic

Given:

• Chicago and Pluto both end with the long o sound.
• Chicago and Pluto are both cold.

Therefore, Chicago and Pluto are the same place.

Accomplishments.

I wrote four one verse songs for four stages of the water cycle, all set to "Alouette".

Additionally, I wrote my masterpieces out on large paper and got 1st graders to decorate them appropriately.

Hey, not all of us are going to win Nobel Prizes or MacArthur genius awards.  I'll take my victories where i can get them.

Could YOU teach?

Since many mavericky media types seem to think my job is crazy easy, I thought I'd post some of the oft-forgotten requirements.

Can YOU:

• Go seven hours without a bathroom break?
• Calmly accept that your shirt has been used as a Kleenex and you have no way to change it or even wash it well?
• Stoop and squat to tie at least a dozen shoes a day?
• ...including those whose laces are wet with unknown liquids?
• Read Bearsie Bear and the Surprise Sleepover Party, making distinct character voices for all seven sleepover participants?
• Go an entire working day without talking to any adults?
• Open twenty milks in ninety seconds?
• ...while cleaning two spilled milks?
• Hunt through musty backpacks full of papers, small toys and crumbs to triumphantly find a permission slip?
• ...then run a 50 yard dash at NFL-draftable speeds to get it signed?
• ...and remembering to bring a pen and a clipboard?

Reading Ms. at the gym today, I was reminded that one of the many reasons women are disproportionately impacted by cuts to public education and social services is because women disproportionately fill the jobs in those fields: teachers, social workers, nurses, etc.

This got me to thinking about value-added assessment as a year-to-year salary and job security "tool".  Specifically, what does that structure do for teachers who wish to have a child?

Since the majority of teachers are women, and assuming something other than the temporary corps of Teach for Some Experience about America for My Resume, many teachers are going to take maternity leave during their career.  Twelve weeks out of thirty five is a lot, and no matter how much planning goes into it, a long-term sub is not the teacher.  It's likely that children's test scores will be impacted by a teacher's leave.

So that teacher who chooses to have a child may be gambling with her job.  Unpleasant.  In most jobs requiring the same educational preparation as teaching, that kind of pressure is sex discrimination.  Something tells me that New York City public schools aren't intending to make any kind of allowances for that.  I doubt the great male minds at the Gates Foundation have thought of this, and Enron was a notoriously sexist climate so I'll bet John Arnold hasn't either.

Of course, if you do have an endless stream of two-years-and-outers, this isn't really an issue.  It's only when teachers want to stay and work that they develop these adult lives and become such a drag on the system.

Bill Gates and His Laboratory.

Oakland Unified wants to close some schools.  It's planning to close thirteen schools, most of them small schools.  Small schools are very expensive to run - in particular, they increase administrative costs.

Bill Gates and his eponymous foundation were huge drivers of small schools - they sent a functionary to a staff meeting at the school were I was teaching to try to find teachers to support such an effort.  (They failed; we had seven hundred and fifty K-6 students and a mess of portables, sure, but things were good.)  I asked the functionary what would happen after the three years of Gates cash; he admitted that the costs would fall to districts - and that the costs existed.

Gates didn't spend any foundation cash on research, and ended up pulling small schools cash early when the schools ended up making no real difference (except for the added costs).

Gates now has a new solution for the districts he's burdened: cut pensions, raise class sizes and institute performance pay.  Apparently, the financial issue isn't the additional administrators on the payroll thanks to small schools, or the increased building costs small schools require, or the costs associated with school closings, or falling school budgets.  No, it's the teachers.

Needless to say, Gates has put as much research into this as he did small schools.  I'm sure the effects will be predictably similar, if not worse.

It's time to stop allowing big pocketbooks to experiment on our public institutions.  They aren't even willing to clean up after themselves, and they want to punish us all for their messes.

It's time to stop allowing Bill Gates opportunity after opportunity to destroy public education.  Yes, he made a lot of money by taking A prompt out of the public domain and selling it as his own program.  Yes, he has a great deal of interest in public education although not so much that his children attend public schools or anything.  Yes, we often learn from our mistakes.

But Gates shows no learning: he's still jumping in with both feet and a blindfold.  When it ends up he's landed on concrete, he demands public money for his hospital bills.  He's unwilling to research first: it's all urgent urgency, and it's better to fail a few years of children than look at any data beforehand.

OUSD should bill the Gates Foundation.  Once Bill's cleaned up after himself, it might be possible to start taking him seriously.

More Unsent Letters

Dear Christian Science Monitor,

How nice of you to send me a teaser magazine suggesting I subscribe to your publication.  The contents of that teaser were exceptionally instructive, particularly when you explained how money doesn't matter to school success.

As you see it in your center-right, two-sides-to-every-issue faux contrarianism, some schools are making it work without a penny extra.  Apparently they do this through merit pay.  Since my understanding is that merit pay would, in fact, lead to higher salaries, I must assume money is being cut elsewhere - either through destroying retirement funds or cutting student programs, I suppose.

Despite there being not one datum that supports merit pay in any way, I have to tell you you're missing the obvious:

Money Does Too Matter.

Money matters for my students, who annually get more crowded classrooms with fewer resources.  It matters to their families, many of whom live in poverty with all of its deleterious effects on school success (bad health, trauma, poor nutrition, food insecurity, housing insecurity...).  It matters to me, because I am on track to spend more than my "Hard to Staff" bonus on the school supplies California won't buy this year.

It matters to the many, many upper-middle class parents - some of whom undoubtedly work for the Monitor - as they willingly pay five and six and seven times more than California's per-pupil allocation in search of well-funded, low-poverty private schools.


And it definitely matters to you, editors of the Christian Science Monitor.  What underlies all this "school success has nothing to do with cash" nonsense is selfishness.  "Public schools take too much of our hard-earned tax dollars," you huff and puff.  "We need that money for other things, like tax breaks for the wealthy.  After all, private school tuition is higher than ever!"


Your teaser made it abundantly clear that your publication is not to my tastes, and I'm not the kind of reader you want.  In the future, to save on paper and postage, I recommend that you cross-check your purchased mailing lists with public teacher credential databases.


All the Best,


E. Rat


 

Kindergarten is Neat

Yesterday my class got ooooh and aaaaah excited by getting a piece of McIntosh and a piece of Granny Smith apple to eat and compare.

Also, Readers' Workshop included one kid strutting around like the peacock in The Best Bottom and another kid who finished retelling by announcing, "And that's THE END of Big Al."  Not to mention the kid who came in announcing that he had a connection to Trouble Gum.

Hmph Halloween.

Except for the year I wore an old black lace prom dress and a witch hat, the Ksters never figure out what my Halloween costume is.  I suppose that's fair; I mean, I couldn't figure out the "Baterina" craze either.

So this year, I'm not bothering.  I'm going as Melanie Daniels from "The Birds".  I have my little green suit, a neutral pump and plenty of ravens to affix artistically.  I figure this costume will at least look freaky and be recognizable as a costume - last year I went as a sailor and some of the kids didn't think I wore a costume.

Unsent Letters

Congressperson Ryan:


I do understand that talking points require certain inflammatory statements be intoned.  That said, your depiction of "class warfare" - that of the teeming multitudes against the very wealthy - takes partisan rhetoric into mendacity.


"Class warfare" is Bill Gates explaining - from his vast mountains of riches and nil teaching experience - how having thirty students in a class wouldn't make much of a difference.


"Class warfare" is Republican-dominated state legislatures condemning the formerly pensioned to penury while protecting and increasing their own lifetime rewards.


"Class warfare" is the rising poverty rate nationwide.


"Class warfare" is the end of the free snack Food Bank program at many school sites this year, because fiscal austerity means San Francisco is not a poor enough county to qualify for federal funds.


"Class warfare" is spending more money on incarceration than education.


"Class warfare", in short, is what people of the upper classes visit upon my students.


ETA: Scott Lemieux sums it up: 


Again, the central premise of the contemporary Republican Party is that people making $400K+ a year are living a hardscrabble existence, while a teacher or police officer making $50 K a year is enjoying a pampered life of unimaginable luxury.

Not All Guests, Also Crafts.

What We Have Been Doing Lately:

Sprouting Wings: I bought these.  The quality on these is really good - the cardstock is so thick the kids couldn't paper punch it, actually.  This was a three-day project:

1. Symmetrical Painting: Paint half of one side with a thick layer of acrylic paint, fold over and press.  This would've gone better with finger paint - it's easier to get a thick coat and finger paint is less sticky - but we didn't have any, and I uncovered a bunch of acrylic at SCRAP last year.
2. Pick Two Centers: Kids got about twelve minutes at two centers (three available): using dot markers, using glitter glue and stick-on rhinestones (you used to be able to get these very cheaply at OTC, but no more it seems), and using paper punches and ribbons to make streamers.
3. Finishing Day: Kids get a twenty-minute center to use whatever they want to finish off their wings, plus chip glitter glue (which covers huge areas with both sparkly shapes and translucent color for a nice effect).

Unity Mosaics: We do a virtue every month at our school and start with unity.  I got a bunch of paper mosaic tiles and gave every kid a pattern sheet to make a mosaic.  Each one had a quarter of a larger design, so when they were all fitted together, they made a big wall display.  The kids really liked these, particularly seeing them hanging, and want to do this again.

Oh Look, Science: We demonstrate liquid water turning into a steam by making tea using mint from the school garden.  Once the kids start steeping their tea (we were fairly free with the honey this year, too) we demonstrate how the steam can be collected and condensed into water).  We also put flowers in liquid watercolor so that we can use capillary action to show that liquids flow.  And we froze liquid watercolor so that the kids who aren't using the play sink can use paintsicles (luckily, it's supposed to be warm this week).

Once we finish with water/states of matter/water cycle stuff, I want to do color and light again.  I also committed to doing a month of family/celebrations/remembering crafts and Dia de los Muertos stuff with the 2nd graders next door and my ex-Resident's 1st graders.  And I signed my class up for monthly environmental education trips with Kids in Parks.  So in some ways it feels like my first year all over again - tons of new stuff to plan out and organize, etc.  Still, some things are easier: this is the first year that I've managed to have stress-free crafternoons, just assuming the kids will move themselves between stations and everything will get cleaned up (starting clean up fifteen minutes before the bell helps - if they clean fast, we can pack up and go outside for a quick afternoon debrief/PE game/song, and if they don't it still gets done by the bell).

Weeks of Plus-Many

Last week, I hosted eight kids on ISS over the week.

This week, I have hosted two kids on cool-downs, one kid on ISS and four kids from a first grade class that had a no-show substitute.  I have also had eleven adult observers over the week.

Today I am anticipating no visitors whatsoever, and we are going to observe steam and use the boiling water to make mint tea.  Also, capillary action will enable observation of water flowing upwards to dye flowers.  Barring any spillage, it should be an easy day of just-us.  Which is really nice sometimes.

grit teeth and bear it.

Very busy, class very cute, twenty two days and no outfit repeats as of today.

Heat Wave Education!

Given the insulation, we're in for a couple of warm days.  These will be only the second and third of the year.  However:

• big giant Donors Choose fan: check.
• small, strategically-placed fans: check.
• spray bottles set to mist: check.
• class set of bottled water: check.
• popsicles (the high-fruit, low-sugar kind): check.

So at least we're prepared.

Self-Exposure

From the New York Times:


“Let’s hope the fiscal crisis doesn’t get better too soon. It’ll slow down reform,” said Tom Watkins, the former superintendent for the Michigan schools, and now a consultant to businesses in the education sector.


The fiscal crisis is harming students.  Case in point: the Arizona district profiled has more students qualifying for free or reduced-price lunch with no demographic change: it's the same kids, just living in more poverty.  Closer case in point: the San Francisco Food Bank isn't providing snacks to low-income schools this year.  They don't have the resources.


That's just food.  Higher poverty means worse housing conditions: we have more homeless or insecurely-housed students than ever at our school.  There are fewer programs for children outside of school.  Adults are under more stress, and higher stress rarely leads to good outcomes for children.


I could go on, but I don't want to take the focus off the education deformers.  Ultimately, they are so tied to their agenda that they cheer for conditions that are bad for children.  Mr. Watkins hopes that more children suffer so that his profitable, private concerns get more public cash.  Rarely do reformers state their purpose so clearly.  They're about anything but the children.  The harm children experience is second - if that - to the profit motive.


We need to take these revolting folks seriously, but we must refuse to cede them even an inch.  There is no moral value, no ethics, and no care for children or our future in their position.  We must call out their lies.

Three Weeks Down, Three Day Weekend.

We had a stunning turnout at Back to School Night.  My personal BtSN stress was lowered by the helpful addition of a project for parents and kids to do.  These came out really cute and I need to get to work to hang them up.

Also, the kids got to go to town on the play kitchen while there, and since they've had relatively little kitchen time they should be very happy today.

The kids also earned a special reward and voted for a Learning Video, so they get to see a Tomi Ungerer story DVD and then watch the "Solids Liquids Gases" video from Here Comes Science to preview the water unit starting next week.  Providing the Hunt for a Working DVD Player is successful, it should be a good afternoon (for a fairly warm day).

Now I just need to decide if the harem-pant jumpsuit or the Ferretti sundress provide the best warm day wear.

Sartorial Kindergarten.

I am not really a fan of those "one month of outfits, ten pieces of clothing" challenges.  Why restrict one's abundance of garments?  The utilitarian creativity of such frugal attempts may be exciting, but I'd rather mix it up a bit more.

Hence I am challenging myself to no repeats in any four week period: easy from the perspective of total clothing owned, difficult because I tend to get attached to a piece for no good reason and want to wear it repeatedly until it bores me (at which point I shove it in the back of the closet and - hey presto! - within a couple of months it's exciting again).

So far: this is day thirteen, and I'm still on track.

November is Coming.

The initiative text:

Shall San Francisco Unified School District repair and rehabilitate facilities to current accessibility, health, safety and instructional standards, replace worn-out plumbing, electrical and other major building systems, replace aging heating, ventilation and air handling systems, renovate outdated classrooms and training facilities, construct facilities to replace aging modular classrooms, by issuing bonds in an amount not to exceed $531 million, at legal interest rates, with guaranteed annual audits, citizens' oversight and no money for school administrators' salaries?


This is a clear YES vote for me.  I teach at one of the fifty schools that will be renovated if this passes - probably in the bunch that will be fixed first.  Some of the exciting things that I believe might happen:

• new pipes featuring lead-free water
• construction of an actual working ventilation and pipe system to the boys' restroom in my wing (as opposed to the current "hole in the wall" approach being used)
• electrical upgrades that will enable all four teachers on my wing to use one electric fan each without shorting out the power (honestly, even if we had SMART boards and whatnot we wouldn't be able to use them on the electricity available)
• heating that breaks down fewer than the current five or six times a year
• construction of a non-plywood, non-rotting ramp to the portable classroom

and if we get really, really, really lucky

• asbestos removal or better encapsulation so that I can hang things on the walls

Also on the ballot is Proposition H, a non-binding screed about neighborhood schools.  I suppose this sounds really great.  Of course, even in a strict neighborhood school system, you can't create capacity out of nothing.  And then there's the issue of, you know, equity.  Then there's the kind of problematic association with Paid GOP Spokesperson Michelle Rhee and her exciting organization Students First.  UESF ran a good article on this - as soon as they update the links to the latest issue of the Educator, I will link to it.

Chicken Impossible, Year Two.

I field questions related to the chicks - where are they, will there be more, when exactly are those more coming, etc. - everyday.  Unfortunately, many of these questions are asked by small children, for whom time concepts are not entirely concrete as yet.  March is far away.

By the time I do get eggs and set up the incubator, I have to wonder if chicken fatigue will have set in...but I doubt it.

I got funding for the Chicken Impossible: Anti-Slug Action Force project, which means I will need to come up with some graphical representation of when, exactly, we will need to set up the hutch and the pen and the brooder.  It also means I have committed to chicken stewardship at my home over the summer, which should be an adventure.

In other news, after reading this, I have decided that in the future I will be referring to Michelle Rhee as a "paid Republican Party spokesperson".

Two kids from my class got waitpool requests; we were reputed to have a waitlist (since EPC was erroneously listing us as full) which means we may receive a bunch of new students over the next couple of days.  We'll see.  Enrollment is up but the Ks are still smallish this year.  I am hoping we can maintain that since this is a year with a heavy majority of students who didn't attend preschool and a lot of four year olds.  That doesn't preclude Kindergarten success, but it does require different strategies and a lot of differentiation.  All of that is easier with smaller classes - even twenty two children makes for a big class when the target is fluent reading and Common Core standards math mastery.

Crossing fingers, legs and toes

Eeeeewwww, insomnia attack.  This will be my first badly underslept day this year.  The timing is not ideal.  It requires controlling the effects of little sleep - grumpiness, sensitivity to noise, crankiness, mild forgetfulness - with students still new to Kindergarten.  (It's the same with being sick at the beginning of the year).

Plus side, I'm introducing the BOOK BOX today, which should remind me to be positive, and the kids have drama for the first time with our most excellent drama teacher.

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.

Teacher Esoterica: More Stuff to Buy in Bulk...or just buy.

1. Squirt Bottles.  The applications are endless: misting students with cool water on hot days, getting cool painting effects, demonstrating how rainbows appear, quickly creating a humid environment in the snail tank or greenhouse.  It's worth it to have a lot of these, each labeled with its intended use (or at least some of them labeled "water only").
2. White Address Labels.  A quick source for important information ("I have a permission slip!" stickers, for instance), name tags, file organization and similar.
3. Shaving Cream.  Practice writing while cleaning all the glue off the table!
4. Bubble Wrap.  Sensory pleasure for all ages!
5. Air popper and popcorn.  For about twenty dollars, you can provide cheap, healthy snacks that just about every kid will eat.  Freshly popped popcorn needs neither salt nor butter, and buying kernels is far cheaper than microwave packages.  One cup of kernels makes two big bowls of popcorn - enough to feed a whole class generously.  This can also provide an extremely cost-effective fundraiser.

Day Four

Okay, we got through Wacky Wednesday.  So far this class has not been untowardly; indeed, their management issues have been straightforward and they're generally disposed to enjoy themselves.  It helps a lot that it hasn't been very warm, so while they get tired they're not exhausted and uncomfortable all at once.  I am hoping to finish off the week on a good note these last two days, but at the same time waiting for the boom to drop.  I've been cutting activities shorter than I generally do so that things finish before the kids do.  It helps.

The lunch issues are still not worked out, and it's infuriating.