Dreaming of Wishing Wells

Yikes...I've been neglecting this lately, mostly out of laziness/tiredness. I am getting over a bad cold that I got as soon as I went home for Thanksgiving break. I feel mostly better, but still extra tired. I think most of my class has colds as well. A lot of them have been snoring loudly and grossly at nap time. But they never stay home sick! I'm thankful for their good attendance, but really, keep your germs away from me. Last week I had a humbling experience. The toilet in my class bathroom overflowed. Yuck. One boy in my class always uses a ton of toilet paper, and I've told him to stop and he'd say OK, but I could tell he didn't really care and was still going to use a lot of toilet paper as soon as he went in and shut the door. Well, it finally wouldn't flush and overflowed and made a huge mess. And I yelled at the kid (kind of. I don't really yell) and made him cry. And the good thing that came out of this situation....he never uses too much toilet p...

I'm really tired, but I didn't write on Sunday like I normally do, so I thought I'd write quick tonight. I enjoy teaching my class new words, especially to catch their attention during a chaotic moment. Today when a few kids were still packing up to go home and the rest of the us were on the carpet, one of the boys at his cubby dropped his lunchbox and said, "Oh! It fell!" Then one of the boys on the carpet for some reason thought the other kid was talking to him and jumped up and yelled, "DON'T CALL ME A FAILURE!" So I taught the class the word paranoid. But this one kid is really, really paranoid. I try to find a balance between being sensitive about it and telling him it's actually crazy that he'd think some of the things he does. In addition to a paranoid child, I have a child with really, really low self-esteem who continues to be a challenge to me. At the beginning of the year he did have some behavior problems. But he doesn't real...

First off, I have embarked on the new frontier of kindergarten. This is not what I intended to write about, but it's a big deal to me, so I want to mention it. I am getting rid of nap time. And I'm calling it the new frontier of kindergarten. That gives me an extra hour plus of instruction time a day. And it means I won't have to be as stressed out trying to squeeze everything in the morning and always having to cut something out. It also means I'm kind of crazy. Now I won't get to eat my lunch while the kids sleep. I won't get to correct their papers and get their homework ready. And I won't get a few necessary moments of peace and quiet. But I really feel like it's the right thing to do. I've only done it one day so far, but it was really good that day (one rambunctious child was absent which may have helped). I think some people at the school really think I'm crazy, but I'm excited. It's motivating me to come up with more interesting l...

I think one of the kids in my class is Max from Where the Wild Things Are . His name even starts with M. And he's just like him. He's kind of wild and plays rough, he has a great imagination, and sometimes he gets really mad and mean. I had this realization when I was talking to him at the end of the day on Tuesday. He'd been pretty grumpy during the afternoon and bugged me all through naptime. So I'd said something to him like, "Where's the friendly and kind Maurion I love?" and he said completely matter-of-factly, "I ate him." Before that, he said to a girl that he thought was staring at him (when he was mad she'd gotten books to look at during rest and he hadn't), "Whatcha lookin' at? Do you want your face to get stuck in a block of ice?" I think he might have meant that her face might get stuck like that. But it was funny. Then he said, "Do you want your face to get stuck in a cake?" And when I walked him over ...

Last week my class went on a field trip to Linvilla Orchards along with the Pre-K through third grade classes. We had beautiful weather and got to go on a hayride, see farm animals, and learn how cider is made. The highlight of the trip for me, however, was the bus ride. The students do not ride buses to school, so for some of them it was their first time on a bus. We discussed appropriate bus behavior ahead of time, and I explained that they would need to speak in quiet voices, but I said it would be OK if they sang. As soon as we pulled out of the school parking lot, a few of my students began leading the class and soon the whole bus in all the songs we sing in class, especially our very favorite, the worship song “Every Move I Make.” It was a 30 minute bus ride each way, so eventually they ran out of songs. That’s when one boy in my class spoke up and said, “I know what we should sing!” Then he began chanting “When I say Hillshire, you say Farms!” Now I, being cable deprived...

In college one of my friends would often say, "Did that just happen?" after a particularly strange conversation or experience. It quickly caught on as a catchphrase for my group of friends, and we found plenty of opportunities to use it. I have a lot of "Did that just happen?" moments at school, but unfortunately there's not usually another adult for me to ask or laugh with. One of the many reasons I loved having Linda in my room last year as an aide was that I'd feel better or more sane just making eye contact with her after something bizarre happened, like a child saying something ridiculous. Like last year when a girl in my class proudly declared that she'd hit the gym teacher, Mr. Jeff, with a tennis ball...in the vagina! She practically screamed the last part and thought she was something special, and I didn't have the heart to inform her, no, that's not quite right. Anyway, Linda promptly dismissed herself from the carpet to laugh hyster...

First of all, I had an interesting experience the other day. I got a new student. And I got his mom. She dropped him off (late) and then ended up staying for the day. The whole entire day. She was in my classroom all day. Maybe this doesn't sound like that big a deal, but I don't think I've ever had any adult in my classroom for the entire day (since student teaching), and it really made it hard for me to teach and act in a usual way. I was mad at myself pretty much the whole time for not kicking her out, but then she kept doing nice things like offering to donate a CD player for my class (which I can't wait for!), saying she wants to help with marketing and fundraising for the school (both desperate needs), and offering to donate and science curriculum and teach social studies lessons about places she's visited. So I felt like I couldn't kick her out. All in all, it was OK, but I was thoroughly exhausted at the end of the day. I felt like when the kids misb...

1. This picture is great because he was miserable a majority of the time. He cried and yelled basically every day and didn't really play with the other kids. But you wouldn't know it looking at this. 2. They are precious. Especially when they weren't giving me major attitude. 3. Happy memory: when they finally earned their pajama reading party (the second to last week of school). It was so much fun and gratifying to see how much they really loved books. 4. They day we got our beanbag chairs, graciously donated from Fellowship Church. Maybe they were a little disappointed when they realized they weren't giant red sacks full of candy, but the beanbags really spiced up my otherwise lame reading area, and I loved this impromptu moment of sharing and reading one day after rest time during free play. That was a big deal for this group! 5. This child is so, so, so dear to me. His behavior and academic challenges took a lot of my energy last year, and we had our hard times. B...

So...chronicling my first year of teaching in blog format did not turn out so well, considering my last post was at the end of September. Why? Well, laziness is one reason. And lots of things happened I really didn't feel like reliving by writing them down. One of which is that right after my last post, I was mugged. And I didn't feel like writing about that. Which led to me just not writing anymore at all. But I kept at least a somewhat regular journal, even though it wasn't very detailed, so all of my crazy, hilarious (well, now they're hilarious...they weren't all at the time) stories will not be lost forever. And now I am a second year teacher. For some reason it is really exciting to not have to say I'm a first year teacher anymore. It definitely comes with a feeling of much more credibility, and I think it makes parents take me a little more seriously. They know I survived one year at Urban Promise and willingly came back for more, so I must be tough and ...