Brothers.
May 05
Joey has an older brother. In fact, his older brother goes to our school. Sam is in fifth grade so the age difference is pretty big, but the way he takes care of his little brother is something to be admired. Last week, the book fair started in our school’s library. The day it began, Sam popped in to see me. “Hey, Mr. _____, I have some money… can I bring Joey to the book...
Chickerella.
Mar 29
Yes, you read that correctly, Chickerella. She showed me just how important and powerful our Fairy Tale unit has been. We started with Cinderella and ready many versions… even Dogerella, but I had never heard of Chickerella. Until yesterday, when Maria, a little girl who is just learning English, came running over to me during Library. Waving the book in her hand, her smile was...
The Artist.
Mar 16We are winding down our study of fairy tales (I plan to go out with a bang next week, but you’ll have to wait to find out more about that…) and we finished with Jack and the Beanstalk. After starting with a physical sculpture activity again using some of the action verbs from the story (‘slithered down’, ‘strings vibrated’, etc.), we delved in. We read the...
Deep in the Forest.
Mar 12The creative juices are flowing in my classroom. Turbo charged. It’s something to behold. This morning, we started by working in three small groups. With an adult to guide each group (and my wonderful Ed Tech Ms. C. to guide me), each group worked to make physical body sculptures of things from the Goldilocks and the Three Bears (a forest, a table, a bowl, a chair, a bed, and the...
Inspired.
Mar 09
We all hate it. I realize a lot of work goes into most professional development (here on out referred to as PD) days for teachers, but most of us (well at least me) are used to being in the classroom. We love to be active, moving around, engaged in something, anything. Most PD days have us sitting in rooms, small or large, and just listening to information. Sure, we might ask a question...
Epic.
Mar 06
We’ve been studying fairy tales. We started with Cinderella, which to me, seems like one of the most basic, simple, and core fairy tales. We started by reading a fairly traditional retelling of the story and then explored some variations of the story. Well today, I decided to show the Disney version of Cinderella. Much to my surprise, only three of my sprouts had seen the movie....
Preschool – part two
Feb 17I’m going to try and approach this the same way I do in my classroom. As I tell my kids, “I’m not perfect. Even teachers make mistakes.” At times, I feel like nobody reads my ‘little blog’, but apparently, I was wrong! I do wish folks would comment on the cute stories, you know the ones where I make a child smile or get a sweet note or hug, but I realize...
Daycare is not preschool unless your child’s daycare is providing a quality preschool experience, immersed in play, child-led, developmentally driven, and preparing your child for success in school.
Feb 16
*Thanks to my friend Deborah over at Teach Preschool, I’ve come up with a new, hopefully more accurate title for the post. This year, there a preschool in my school. Yes, I work in a public school and no – it’s not a Head Start program, but a regular, public preschool. My district, much like what the President is now proposing, has set forth a goal of public preschool for...
100th Day!
Feb 11
Well, it really doesn’t get much better than the 100th day in kindergarten. It’s kind of like Christmas, Valentine’s Day (coming Thursday!), and the Fourth of July wrapped into one. Well, it is in my class anyway. I used an entire bottle of glitter to make this for the doorway: We sang our hearts out. We sang the 100th Day song by Jack Hartman and while we didn’t...
One on one.
Feb 02
Yesterday I was able to read with almost every student in my class. After I posted this on my Facebook page, someone asked if I would share about my reading program – of course! When I moved from second grade to kindergarten four years ago, I started out pulling reading groups, just as I had in second grade. What I found was, unlike my second graders, kindergarteners were so easily...
