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This has been, as I’ve mentioned, a slightly more difficult start to the school year than I’ve had in recent years. However, it feels like it’s about me rather than the kids. This class is very sweet, with no major behavior problems, unlike last year.
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One morning, not long ago, one of my brightest little boys made my day. His bus arrives early, so every morning he peeks in through the window on our door, sometimes jumping up and down with excitement. If he sees one of us moving around the room, getting
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Not too long ago, the letter of the week was Q. I introduced it, and then demonstrated how to write it on my big chart paper. First I wrote capital Q correctly, a few times, and then I showed how to write lowercase q. “Now I’m going to write it the wrong
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Yesterday was another hard day. Our one child is in a tailspin, presumably because things are very bad at home, and brings to our peaceful little classroom a tornado of terror, rage, and stress. The three adults are barely coping, and it feels terrible.
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Today we went to the auditorium with the whole school for an assembly about Black History Month. The featured speaker was wonderful, but his words went over the heads of my small ones. Nonetheless, they were very patient and good, and they enjoyed the
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Today was our first day learning about our February theme, Families. We talked about different people who are in a family — mommies (I said, “some families have a mommy, but not all”) and daddies (I said the same thing), and sisters, and babies, and brothers,
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Today Crow hit a little girl at the beginning of the morning, at journal time. It came out of nowhere. I put him in the take-a-break chair. “Crow, did you hit her?” He nodded. “Why did you hit her?” He looked blank and nodded again. I started to think,
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I’ve got a new friend in my class. He is very much like one of my other boys, in appearance, behavior, curiosity, and temperament. However, the original boy has a really stable home life, considering that he was once homeless. The new boy….maybe not.
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Almost every day, I have been sitting in the block corner at centers time with my little blocks-challenged friend. (On the days when I haven’t been there with him, my special ed teacher has been.) And each day, he has learned a little bit more. Let’s
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One of my developmentally delayed sweethearts is a little boy who knows all the letters, and a lot of sounds. He knows numbers, colors, shapes, and that sort of thing. It’s obvious that he has difficulty with verbal communication — he will repeat what
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My parent conferences are over, and they went extremely well. Everyone showed up except for one, and I think they were home with a sick kid. Almost everyone (including Little One’s mom) reported that their children love school so much they want to come
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“Honey, shhh. You can speak Parseltongue once we get outside.” (Yes, I am a big enough Harry Potter fan that I could tell what that whispering noise was, when we were in the hall getting ready to go out.)
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A little boy in my class raised his hand at story time the other day, and piped up, “Mrs. X, you have a beautiful face.” I melted, naturally. ”Oh, honey, what a nice thing to say. I love you, too.” A few days later he said it to my Americorps volunteer.
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It’s like Lord of the Flies downstairs in our cafeteria every morning. Last year was the first year that our school breakfast became a madhouse, and it’s even worse this year. The kids get off the bus, come in the door that’s closest to my classroom,
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He’s still bouncy; nope, haven’t figured that one out yet. I talked to his mom and she was puzzled. Apparently he’s pretty calm at home, like he used to be in class. She said, “He really does love school, though” and I told her, “yup, he bounces in with
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