Search results matching tags 'literacy', 'team teaching', and 'silly'

Made.

Anonymous — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 21:43:19 GMT

Today during Writing Workshop, I worked with Sophia. She came in a struggling learner and has made slow progress. We’ve worried about her and have had her parents working with her on some of the concepts she’s had trouble with – with limited success. As I helped her with her writing, I got quite a shock. [...]

Giggle Fit.

Anonymous — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 20:22:42 GMT

Let’s be clear about something right away… it was ME having the giggle fit, not a sprout. Now that I’ve got that out of the way, here’s what happened. The class had just returned from Art. We were all gathered on the carpet for a story. It was a big book – my favorite kind [...]

Tunnel Tag.

Anonymous — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 12:31:35 GMT

Two days of rain. Two days of inside recess. One of those days with no special. I’m convinced Mother Nature is a cruel, evil, spiteful lady… Of course, with no recess and no place to take the class, by the end of the day Friday, things were looking grim. To be clear, in our class [...]

Breathe.

Anonymous — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 19:19:20 GMT

Day three and things are getting better… slowly. I seriously forget how challenging the first few days (weeks, months?) can be. So many of my new friends have no pre-school or daycare experience and they truly have landed on a new planet. Everyday brings improvements and weekends bring an opportunity to catch up on sleep! [...]

Dusty.

Anonymous — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 20:44:00 GMT

This week we started a mini-unit on Goldilocks and the Three Bears. We’re reading as many versions of the story as we can and making our own storyboard and stick puppets to practice retelling. Our student led conferences are at the end of the month and each child retelling Goldilocks to their parents is the pièce de résistance of the day.

I did this last year and read many, many versions of the classic tale, but one I missed was Dusty Locks and the Three Bears by Susan Lowell with illustrations by Randy Cecil. Mrs. D. offered it up to me to read (we always do two read alouds and share them) with, “Can you do a southern accent?”

“Sure!” I replied, figuring I’d wing it.

Well let me tell you, if you haven’t ever read Dusty Locks, stop what you’re doing, run, don’t walk, to buy it, and READ IT to your class or children at home. This was the most fun I’ve had reading a book aloud in a very long time… this from a guy who reads many books aloud daily. It was downright hilarious.

The story stays relatively close to the original, with plates of beans standing in for the porridge and lots of fiddles and cowboy boots and hats.

Dusty Locks entrance (please imagine my best southern drawl):

A cloud of smoke?
A swarm of mosquitoes?
No sirree! It was a dirty little girl.
She hadn’t had a bath for a month of Sundays, so everybody called her Dusty Locks. But Trouble was her middle name. That little outlaw had run away from home without stopping to kiss her mother good-bye!

Really? I have to give the author credit, the writing is laugh out loud funny.

Upon seeing the plates of beans, Dusty Locks cries, "Ya-hoo! I'm so hungry I could eat a saddle blanket."

When Papa Bear sees someone's been eating his beans, he growls (in a deep southern accent), "SOMEONE'S BEEN EATIN' MY BEANS!"

In case you haven't guessed yet, I had a ton of fun reading this book... as did all my sprouts. The illustrations go perfectly with the text and it just injected a burst of laughter and joy into our day. Don't be shy, invite Dusty Locks into your heart and let her rustle up some trouble.

100 ways.

Anonymous — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 20:40:00 GMT

Oh the one hundredth day of school… I try to explain it to my non-teacher friends and they just don’t get it. It’s like Christmas, Valentines, and the Fourth of July all on one day. Maybe it’s something about kindergarten and the fact that it is their first hundred days in school, period… whatever the reason, the exhilaration is palpable.

During calendar time, as Jason did the careful work of counting our straws to make sure we indeed had one hundred, the grounds crew decided to remove the icy, crunchy snow that had piled up to almost the top of our windows… with shovels, at the exact moment he began counting… the shades were pulled and we talked about ignoring distractions, but it was hard.

As Mrs. D. read the first of many read alouds about the one hundredth day of school, the first page read, ‘Little Johnny came to school and plinked a penny into a jar. Mrs. Madoff told him his would be the first penny in the class jar.’

Yes, Mrs. Madoff. Mrs. D. burst out laughing… I let out a howl. The class looked at us like we had ten heads. It really is nice having another adult to appreciate references that fly over the kids heads.

When each sprout was counting their collection of one hundred items they’d brought in, I heard a desperate Rebecca call out, “One of my marshmallows, it’s missing!”

I ran over.

“Rebecca, what’s wrong?” I asked.

“My one hundredth marshmallow, it’s gone… Luther ate it!” She cried.

I shot a look at Luther. He looked guilty, but he always looks guilty.

“I didn’t eat it, Mr. _______, I’m being honest,” he proclaimed.

With that, Mrs. D. wandered over.

I explained the dilemma to her.

“Well, Rebecca, you’re missing a marshmallow because you ate one… remember you thought you had an extra?” She asked Rebecca.

“Oh yeah…”

Later as we made our necklaces with one hundred pieces of Fruit Loops, Sarah made me bust out laughing again.

We had instructed the class not to eat any cereal as they counted and worked. We were using communal plates of cereal and we promised when we finished the necklaces everyone would get a small cup to eat. This satisfied the kids and while they moaned and groaned about how amazing the cereal smelled and how they all wanted to eat it so badly, nobody did.

As we finished and I was about to announce we were ready to pass out the cereal for eating, I glanced over at Sarah… her necklace was in her hands and she was gingerly licking it. I lost it… laughter that probably alarmed the teacher next door. Oh well, it was funny.

There were probably one hundred ways I laughed or smiled today. Loving your sprouts and job is a brilliant way to spend your day.

Strawberry.

Anonymous — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 20:22:00 GMT

As you know if you teach kindergarten or have read here, Bingo is about the most fun and exciting game in the world. There’s something about shouting out ‘Bingo!’ that just motivates kids to focus and learn. We don’t play too often because we don’t want to dull the shine, but today, when we played, we offered an amazing prize… a strawberry scented sticker.

Each winner got to come up and select a strawberry scented sticker. We played ‘Letter/Sound Bingo’ today. The caller gave a letter sound and the players covered the corresponding letter. In addition to the awesome sticker, the winner got to call the next game. We played enough so about half the kids got a sticker.

Every time a winner received their sticker (I always put it on their hand), they’d offer the others at their table a sniff of the prize. What tickled me was how even those who already had their own strawberry scented sticker on their hand wanted a sniff. Was there some different, deeper or richer strawberry smell on the new sticker?

Scented stickers always fascinated me as a kid. They’re not easy to find. The website EverythingSmells.com has some rather cool ones. I keep them in a tightly sealed Zip-Loc bag to keep them fresh and ready. They don’t come out often, but when they do, the room smells like a strawberry field... or hot dogs... or root beer... or pickles. Pick your poison.

Bingo!

Anonymous — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 21:06:00 GMT

Twice a week, Mrs. D. and I are able to split our entire class by ability. It’s brilliant. Half of them go to a special and we’re left with half the number of sprouts and both of us. Sometimes we even get another adult in to help out. We are able to do some serious interventions with a small group and our class really seems to thrive with this individualized attention.

Last week, on one of these days, we decided to play Alphabet Bingo with our group needing more work on letter identification. One of the aspects of kindergarten I love most is introducing your students to something they’ve never experienced before. When you’re five, you haven’t lived long and there is much to take in. As luck would have it, most of the kids had never played Bingo before.

Now Bingo is nothing fancy. There are no flashing lights or blips and bleeps. It’s pretty boring if you stop to think about it. Well, you would think these kids were playing for all the booty under their collective Christmas trees. They were seriously excited, enthralled, and entertained.

Oh, and there was learning going on to boot. That’s the catch – they’ve having fun, playing, but learning and they don’t even know it. Us kindergarten teachers are sneaky that way. And what did you get if you won a round of Alphabet Bingo? Why you get to come up and call out the letters for the next round. What a prize!

As we finished our time with Bingo, I walked around the room and saw sprouts helping each other identify letters and strengthening their letter identification skills. Of course, they were having a blast. Like the sign outside my door says, ‘Work hard, have fun.’

Dimples.

Anonymous — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 21:25:00 GMT

Today, as Mrs. D. read Splat the Cat, I sat next to Richard who was simply tickled pink each time the teacher’s name was spoken. For those not familiar with the story, her name is Mrs. Wimpydimple – a seriously funny moniker.

I can’t explain why the sound of her name was so hilarious to Richard, but watching him crack a smile and attempting (rather unsuccessfully) to suppress giggles each time her name was spoken just made my afternoon.

When Mrs. D. finished the book, I commented on the silly sounding name.

“Richard, you really loved that name, ‘Mrs. Wimpydimple,' didn’t you?” I asked him provoking more smiles and laughter.

“Does anyone know what dimples are?” I questioned.

A group of blank stares signaled me to explain.

“A dimple is, well look at my face when I smile…” I began offering a wide grin and my own dimples as evidence.

We then proceeded to have everyone try and show us if they had dimples and watched as they all tried to out smile each other. All the smiling lead to more laughing… laughing led to a spontaneous hug-a-thon where everyone made a line in front of us and gave us hugs… a few friends for the first time this year and others going back and forth between the two of us like a ping pong ball hugging one, then the other, then back again for more.

Even with all the learning going on, we never stop smiling, laughing, hugging, and having a grand old time. Just another amazing day in kindergarten.

Genius.

Anonymous — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 17:47:00 GMT

Yesterday I wrote about our adjective lesson with pumpkins. One of the sprouts I visited to help with his descriptive word was Billy. As I squatted down next to Billy’s seat, I glanced at his pumpkin… it was a big ol’ mess of a scribbles, so I wasn’t quite sure how he was going to describe his pumpkin.

“Billy, what adjective do you want to write for your pumpkin?” I asked.

He looked at the picture and then back at me.

“Scary,” he replied.

I couldn’t agree more.

“All right, ‘scary’ – What sound do you hear at the beginning?” I prodded.

“/S/, /S/, ‘Snake,’” he said as he wrote the letter S. We’ve been chanting the sounds every day (sometimes more than once) and most children can identify a sound and write the corresponding letter without naming it – amazing.

We continued with each sound in ‘scary’ until the final one.

“Scar-EE,” I said, emphasizing the last sound.

“What sound do you hear?” I asked, fully expecting Billy to write the letter E.

He wrote a Y.

“Wow, you know it actually is a Y, but in this word it makes the /E/ sound, how did you know that?” I wondered.

“It’s just like the Y at the end of my name,” Billy replied as if it were as plain as the nose on my face.

I got chills when he said that. I called Mrs. D. over and had him explain it to him. I then looked up at her and said, “Genius.” She nodded in aggrement.