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Clean Up Carastrophe

I started thinking about some of the practices my students use today when cleaning up after centers. I have a few who wander around the room with basket or container in hand waiting for someone to put something in their basket all the while looking very busy. I have a couple who decide it is time to go to the bathroom. I have a few who just walk around aimlessly and several who really clean. My thoughts immediately think: They have been cleaning up all year, they should know what to do and how to do it. There is no way that child has to go to the bathroom every day at clean up time. Seriously? Carrying a basket is not cleaning!   Okay now take a breath, reflect, think.  This is not a problem that is these students. This is MY problem. If I really am honest with myself, this shows I did not do a good job of teaching what I expect my students to do during clean up time. I need to go back and simplify my expectations so that my students clearly understand what to do when the clea...
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Reflect

It has been over a year since my last post. I started on a journey a year ago this past fall that seems to have completely occupied my time and thoughts. I have been reflecting on my teaching practices, but not writing them down as much. As this journey is drawing to an end, I realized that I missed a golden opportunity to write my thoughts and experiences here and not just in the papers I'm writing for the classes I have been taking to achieve a Master's degree. Hopefully, I complete this journey in May. Until then my intentions are to start writing thoughts that I am pondering. This will help me think through questions and wonderings I have about teaching and learning. 
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Inspiration comes from the oddest places

My Youngest daughter was in a play called "Up the Down Staircase" this past week. I had no idea what the show was about, so I went in not sure what to expect. Watching the young girl playing a new teacher in a classroom of adolescence was interesting and brought back so many memories of my first year teaching. The contrast ended there though as I taught a classroom of 4 year olds. The story was touching and one line in it really got me thinking about the children I see every day. The seasoned teacher told the new one to look past what the students were saying to hear what they were actually saying. In PreK we need to look past the actions to find out what our students are saying. Since our students are just learning to express themselves with words, they express themselves best in actions. Looking on my classroom it made me think differently about how I can best teach them and the tools I need to provide to help them learn to express themselves. As I am thinking and brainstor...
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Regaining Focus

I woke up to see this light on my bedroom door. It was fairly large about 6" tall by 2' wide. I kept staring at it and trying to figure out what it was.  Was it a burgle in the house? The flashlight just holding steady and reflecting on my bedroom door? All these crazy thoughts were going through my head. Then I put on my glasses. The reflection changed, it was only about 1/2" tall by 4" wide. I got up to investigate and found one of the kids had left the speakers in their bathroom and the little pin LED light was being reflected off of my door. It suddenly hit me. How many times have I in my teaching lost focus? How many times have I looked at a something in my classroom and it seemed ginormous? Too many to count actually, if I'm honest. Sometimes our problems seem so big and overwhelming and then we put on our glasses and focus. Well, actually something like what just happened to me makes you stop, step back, and take a minute to focus and see the problem is no...
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Clean Up Time Thoughts

I'm wondering what everyone does at cleanup time. How do you get your class to stop play and clean up at the end of center time? Her are some thoughts that I have tried and seen in other classes and am trying now. 1.  Use a song to signal clean up time is here. It gives the auditory signal for your auditory children that there is a change coming in our day. 2.  Turn on overhead lights to give a visual brightness of the time to clean up. ( we keep our lights low for normal class time. I saw one of my team mates do this and loved it. She also does number 3 that I plan to try ) 3. Use a magic wand to tap children on the head or shoulder that gives them permission to clean up and assign a specific job to them ( Please pick up the paper off the floor) 4.  Have pictures on shelves if you want things put back in a specific place.  5. Have mini lessons with items from around the room and have children return the items to the correct center during this time. 6. Have children ...
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Tolerance vs Acceptance

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I tweeted a thought I had earlier today the tolerance is temporary, acceptance is permanent and we should all strive to be accepting. I'm not sure why, but this thought has been on my mind for a couple of days now. I think of life in general and how sometimes we tolerate actions of those around us. Sometimes those actions irritate and annoy us, but we tolerate them in hopes that the actions will go away.  In the classroom, we need to learn acceptance. A child comes in on the first day with all he/she is. It is our responsibility to accept that the child will have faults just like we as adults do and our responsibility to accept the child's faults and build on the child's strengths. To do this we have to build a community in our classroom. Make our classroom a safe environment. By a safe environment, I mean a place where the child feels safe to be who he or she is and feels comfortable talking to you as the adult. In this community, it becomes possible to find our the child...
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Community Using Calendar

Ideas were passed around at my last team meeting about creating a calendar through the year that was meaningful to the kids and parents. We wanted something that parents could look at when they drop off and pick up their children. We all decided that in the hallway outside our doors we would have a place for each month of the school year. We will choose 2 pictures that represent what we learned about or was special that month and we would have the children create a piece of artwork to display under the pictures. We are hoping that this will be a way for us to build community in our families and classrooms throughout the year.  What are some of your ideas that you use for building community? 
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