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 you say, or repeat one phrase over and over, and he doesn’t always know how to answer a ...

I like the fashion blog She’s Still Got It, so I visit it at Cafe Mom fairly regularly.  While there this morning, I stumbled upon this article:  “6 Lies Parents Tell Themselves About Preschool,” by Amy Reiter. Here’s what she had to say, prompted by the story of the little British boy who left his nursery school and walked home alone: Here are ...

I love my class, but boy are they loud.  One child with special needs talks really loudly but has no idea that he does.  When I ask him to speak quietly, he looks either blank or confused.  I guess his voice doesn’t sound loud to him.  Little One is pretty good about using an “inside voice,” but when she loses it, she SCREAMS.  And at least half ...

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, and pass me on their way to the cafeteria.  I used to just wave my breakfast eaters on, and have ...

Dear parents, Thank you for sending me such a sweet bunch of kids.  They are very smiley and seem to like coming to school.  They giggle when we read silly stories, and they already have favorite books (“The Pigeon!”  “The Chicken!”).  They love recess and Gym class, and they are learning our school routines, day by day. I do have a homework ...

The afternoon teacher only had 8 kids yesterday, on the first day, in part because her busing was all screwed up.  That was hard, because it was too few kids. I had 16 yesterday, and 19 today, and it was kind of too much.  One of the three new ones has special needs, and spent most of the morning crying, screaming, hitting teachers, or collapsed ...

*I am going over the winter pre-reading assessment results and trying to focus on all the kids who were in the red zone for rhyming, alliteration, vocabulary, letter names, and/or letter sounds, and spending one-one-one time with them.  So is every other adult who works or volunteers in my room….There are always kids being pulled aside to work ...

You would think that wouldn’t be so hard, right?  I mean, this class counts the days of the month, every day, in English and in Spanish.  They count the days we’ve been in school, every day.  Okay, so lately I’ve been lazy and we’ve been counting by tens to 80, and then by ones after that (it takes a long time for this class to count to 80).  But ...

At art class today, the children were asked to make bugs out of a variety of construction paper shapes.  They did pretty well with it, and the resulting mural is just lovely.  I hope the art teacher puts it up in the hall near our classroom so we can enjoy it. Monkey struggled with it, without ever knowing he was struggling.  He found a circle ...

Wow, yesterday’s post certainly touched a nerve.  That was the most hits I ever got on my blog, and the most comments.  So thank you, everyone, for being part of the conversation. So the question is, how do preschool teachers strike a balance between helping their disadvantaged students get a great education and a leg up, and remaining true to ...