Everything I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

Pajama Day and Rain, Sleet, and Snow

2009-12-18T09:21:00.000-08:00

Today was pajama day in kindergarten...and then the rain, sleet, and snow came.

I Don't Know

2009-12-09T10:40:00.000-08:00

We wrote in our journals today about something we like to do with a friend. Everyone was able to understand that they were to draw a picture of themselves with a friend. When I called S to my desk to show me what he drew he pointed to himself and called himself by name. He told me who the other 2 people were in the picture. When I asked him what they were doing he said "I don't know". He may be learning English and he may understand some but he still does not know everything he wants to say.

Glue no

2009-12-09T10:24:00.000-08:00

We are still working on the ABC's of Christmas. Today we worked on Lights. This was a new project for us this year. The instructions were to tear paper and cover the entire light bulb-so no yellow showed. This is what my friend ended up with. During this project he came up and said "glue no" and showed us his empty glue stick. A child learning English is an amazing thing.

Trashurmama

2009-12-07T11:06:00.000-08:00

We are in the midst of our ABC's of Christmas. We do an activity for every letter of the alphabet (angel, bell, candy cane, Dear Santa...) Not only do the children learn the sounds of the letters, they also have "stuff" to give to family and friends for Christmas AND it is fun! The other day when we were writing our Dear Santa letters one of the children came up and told us he wanted a "trashurmama". This is what my assistant and I both heard. We asked him to repeat it three times and heard the same thing each time. We finally had to ask the class what he was asking for...a transformer. Out of the mouth of babes.

A Sentence

2009-11-19T10:14:00.000-08:00

Today was a day I will never forget. We were working on beginning sounds-Bb, Hh, and Mm. We started by letting the children use cards to match the sounds then moved on to the worksheet you see in the picture. I was working with this child, a child who just a short while ago lived in a refuge camp and...are you ready for this? He said a sentence!!!!!!! I would pick up a picture card and tell him what the picture was then he would tell me where it went. He was doing a great job. I picked up a card and he said "where du bus go?" I grabbed him, hugged him and screamed. He probably thought I had lost my mind but he just smiled-just like you see.

Scarecrows

2009-11-09T16:18:00.000-08:00

Today we made a scarecrow book. My children did a good job. They were able to read the book (The pants are blue. The boots are black.....) and knew the colors. Even my children who do not speak English were able to "read" and color. More importantly they ALL cut one page at a time-not all of them together.

Altoids

2009-10-28T13:06:00.000-07:00

I have a child in my class who had his tonsils and altoids out...

Assessments

2009-10-22T12:27:00.000-07:00

For the past couple of weeks I have been assessing my children morning and afternoon and will continue into next week-hopefully finishing by Wednesday when the bell rings and the first quarter ends. I know my children are tired of this and I certainly am. Every day, pretty much all day long, I am calling children to my table and asking them question after question asking them to do task after task. It will be nice to be able to start teaching again.

The Simple Things

2009-10-08T16:23:00.000-07:00

Today was a really good day (again!) in kindergarten. First thing this morning we made apple pizzas. The children flattened a biscuit and we added apples on top. They LOVED them. I didn't have to coax any of them into trying it. Some ate them so quickly I wondered if they even chewed. So much for the leftovers to offer to anyone else in the school-the children ate them all and asked when we could make them again.

Rules

2009-10-07T14:26:00.001-07:00

It was a great day in kindergarten today. Some children finally learned that if they follow the rules they don't get in trouble. Well...they at least learned it for today.

Good Things

2009-10-02T19:47:00.001-07:00

This wasn't the best week. Tough times at school and sick girls at home. So here are some of the good things:

T talked to me. This child has pretty much been silent all year. When you ask him a question he makes tiny grunting sounds-like a baby. Not only did he talk to me, he raised his hand at group time to contribute.
We got a new student. There is a lot of paper junk that has to be done with a new student that just makes it a real pain but this is a sweet child. He has had some trouble in his short life and is still sweet. And he is the only one in the class that laughed when I said something about the flying monkeys coming out of the coat closet-the rest of them just looked at me-scared of when it might happen.
We have done something this week that I have never done before. My class and I have been reading my Principal's husband's blog about his bike ride across NC and have been tracking him on a map. They have looked forward to reading this blog everyday. Just proves that children can learn and have fun at the same time.
I was able to clean my desk off after school. For some reason this year the papers just keep piling up and I have been doing this every afternoon-except for this week. I finally found the bottom of the pile.
The teacher down the hall showed me great writing from one of my students last year. A mom of one of my students from last year told me about her son reading to her and how great he was doing. A student from last year had two good days-and I know he is with the right teacher this year.
Picture day is over, at least for the fall, and no one had ketchup on their shirt.
Starbucks this morning.
Michael called me tonight.

Hope everyone has a good weekend.

Spiders

2009-09-30T15:22:00.001-07:00

Did you know that spiders will wrap you up in their webs and eat you up?

Sharing

2009-09-25T14:32:00.000-07:00

Today we brought out the treasure box the for first time this year. We had a rough behavior week and I figured we would have some tears when some didn't get to dig for a treasure. I was wrong. I guess it was a good thing. The haves shared their treasures with the have nots and the have nots were happy for the haves. Sharing is a good thing.