Lola went to art today, on Black Day, to draw pictures with white crayon on black paper.  I had stencils for city buildings with window cutouts, so she made a lovely picture with lots of buildings.  Then she cut it into lots of small pieces. Was this frustration?  Boredom?  The joy of cutting paper?  I have no idea.  I can’t speak ...

Alas, it was another difficult morning. Most of the hour I had before school started I was at a tech meeting in the computer lab, where we learned how to do a behavior screener on each child.  I got all mine done — which was good — but only with lots of technical glitches, which was not so good.  Everyone on the staff is ...

Actually, things went okay today, on this, our eighth day of school. On Friday I passed out the Friday folders to the children as I was lining them up to go out in the hall to get their jackets for recess.  They started opening their folders, dropping their papers on the floor, and chatting with each other, and I had a really hard time getting ...

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.  David is really smart and sweet, and cannot stop hitting other children.  Max loves school, ...

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 kids are among the few who are quiet and orderly.  My routines haven’t changed, though, ...

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 exploration adventure, starting with the [...]

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 school, in a very small classroom.  Our [...]

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 happened to them, it would be my responsibility.  So — I want to [...]