I had a formal observation today.  What I mean is, I was the one being observed.  (Usually it’s the other way around.  I do 2-4 observations a quarter.)  Every one of us, even the master and mentor teachers, needs to be observed once each quarter, and this was my last observation of the year.  The mentor [...]

Today we had a visitor.  It’s a common occurrence in my classroom, only today, our visitor was four years old.  We’ll call him Charley.  Charley’s dad brought him to school so that I could watch him play in my room for an hour, and evaluate whether or not he will be okay to enter kindergarten in [...]

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 [...]

Some weeks ago, a person from the early childhood department was visiting my classroom, and she saw me doing story time using the repeated interactive read-aloud strategy, so we talked about how it works, and I offered to do a little workshop on it for the other pre-K teachers in the district.  She said, “sure”, [...]

As a part of Joel at So You Want to Teach?’s Blog Revolution Project, I am tasked to write a post in the form of a list.  Try as I might, I could not think of a title that involved a list.  I like the ‘diary of a preschool teacher’ title, anyway, and think it [...]

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 about that ever since. A few years ago, I had a four year [...]

There was an article today about what children read most often, listed by grade level.  I was surprised by how prosaic the list was, and realized that these are the books that teachers (and children) are so familiar with, we hardly notice them. Green Eggs and Ham, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, Are You My Mother?….I [...]

On a walk to the local library for preschool storytime, we saw a robin.  D., who speaks very little English and has some special needs to boot, pointed, and said, “chicken!” At first I told him it was a robin, and then decided to simplify, so I taught him the word “bird.” Then today when the principal [...]

There is a boy in my class — we’ll call him David, for reasons which should be clear to fans of David Shannon’s No, David! books — who is always getting into trouble.  He is a sweet boy, actually, and I’m always happy to see him, but he is impulsive and loud, and needs a lot [...]

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 [...]