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Elbow, knees, dreams

a blog about preschool, public schools, and what it's really like to be a teacher

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the first two days of school
There are two boys in my class who know each other from last year and are giving me a run for my money. Let’s call them Max (as in Where the Wild Things Are ) and David (as in No, David !). Max has a face like an angel and also likes to screech. Read More...
name tags
How many times do you write your new students’ names? How many sets of name tags do you make? I spent the day making name tags. First there are the name tags for their cubbies. Then there are the name tags (on cute froggy shapes) that go up all Read More...
My school family
Every day, at the end of our morning together, my class stands up and holds hands in a circle, and sings the “School Family Song,” to the tune of “You are my Sunshine.” You are my family, my school family, I feel happy when you Read More...
Walking in the halls
Perhaps because I started out teaching in a high-poverty school, and such schools tend to be law-and-order places, I am fairly strict about my students’ hallway behavior. Now I work at a school where people are pretty lax about the halls, and my Read More...
Opening up centers on the first day of school
On the first day of school — my least favorite of the year, but that’s a different story — my centers are all closed. The house corner gets roped off with a sign that says “Closed” even before the open house, so the children Read More...
When the cat’s away, the mice will play
We had the best time today. The entire school and almost the entire staff went to a big celebration in a park, and we had the school to ourselves. Three kids were absent today, as was Ali, so it was me, Jan (my para), and 12 preschoolers. We went on an Read More...
Boys, boys, boys
A few months ago, while at a lesson waiting on my kid, I started chatting with another parent. He told me all about his son’s ADHD, and commented that “women teachers just don’t know how to teach boys.” I’ve been thinking Read More...
The Little Things, part 3
When I taught preschool at a daycare center, during my first official year of teaching, I had a big classroom with a large area where we could sit on the floor for circle time, in an actual circle. Now, many years later, I am teaching preschool in a public Read More...
The little things, part 2
Perhaps because I really started out teaching in daycare, before I taught kindergarten at that inner-city school, I still obey the rules about licensing and ratios and proper supervision. I never want to have my students out of my sight, because if something Read More...