Rain, Rain, Go Away

      Today was a rainy and dreary Monday, but I guess everyone's got to have those days some time or another. Since we couldn't go outside we went to the gym to played games and exercise.  Our new challenge is learning how to do push ups, and it is hard teaching them when your not so great yourself.  Anyway, Mondays are always a little hard as I am usually still protested the fact that the weekend had to end.  However, it is always nice to start my day with having the students come in cheerful, and excited to be there.  Since this is preschool many of them still love school, and today I got a couple good mornings, and one I missed you but one greeting in particular made my day a little better.

       I have talked about my student, A, before, and ever since that beginning of the year he has been having a hard time getting dropped off in the morning, and I know it has been really hard for his parents to leave a screaming child.  Recently he has been getting better, but is usually still a bit grouchy in the morning.  However, this morning I was not paying much attention and he came running in to the classroom and wrapped himself around me.  He said, "I missed you Ms. Lisa, I wanted to come back to school so bad!" Now if that doesn't make your day better I don't know what will.  He then pulled a paper out of his backpack and explained that he had written me a letter.  When I looked on the paper he had drawn four heads as usually (himself, Mom, Dad, and me), and then on the back he had made a colorful heart with my name under it.  He told me, "I made a heart because I love you like a heart".  It is so amazing to see how much the students mature from the beginning of the year, and I was really proud of A today.

TGIF

       Thank goodness it's Friday, and thank goodness it is almost 60 degrees in GA today.  I am happy to report that the trees we hung our bird feeders from were filled with birds the morning.  Everyone was so excited, and later when we were out on the playground they saw some hawks and thought that our food had attracted them as well.  I explained that we didn't really want those birds coming into our playground.

      Quote of the Day:

                "Ms. Lisa, ladies go first right?" Said a five year old boy as we were lining up to go outside.  So you see there are still a few gentlemen left.

      On another note our beloved fish, lava, dies while we were all stuck in our houses because of snow.  However, I went to PetSmart the other night with some fellow teachers and we picked out a new class pet.

       I know that they are a little hard to see, but he is a red crab named Mr. Pinchers.  The class was very excited to have a new pet, and they are having fun learning how to care for a pet crab.

Also, we had our school art gala last Friday, and I have finally downloaded the pictures of our classes exhibit.  We were given a sheet and told to decorate it, and this is what we came up with.  The students also all submitted a picture they made of their family.  In all the families really enjoyed the gala.

I am going to go enjoy my weekend now...

Lisa

For Better or Worse

            Teaching really has to be for better and for worse, and let's just say I have learned to take the better and the worse one day at a time.  Get ready because today’s story, while humorous, is a little unappetizing at the same time. 

Everyday my students nap from about one to a little after two in the afternoon, and before they get on their nap cots they are supposed to use the restroom (I mean they are five years old so there could be accidents).  Usually my class is pretty good at this, does a great job sleeping, and there are seldom problems.  Until today!  My assistant teacher kept saying that she thought she smelled something in a certain area of the room; however, I was a little stuffed up today and couldn’t smell anything.  I was apologizing to her though when I was helping the students wake up suddenly smelled it as well.  It is preschool so I have dealt with this before and calmly told him to go in the bathroom, and that I would get him some clothes.  Since Five year olds can dress themselves they are able to take care of this without a lot of help from me, and since kids can be cruel even at that age I try not to make a huge commotion. I got his spare clothes out of his cubby and  brought them to him with a large bag to put his dirty clothes in, but I don't think I explained the process very well...

Five Minutes Later

I looked back in the bathroom to make sure he wasn’t having any problems, and as I opened the door the first thing I noticed was that the bag I had given him was still empty.  He was wearing the clean clothes, but I suddenly realized the dirty clothes were now in the toilet (luckily not yet flushed).  This is the moment in my job where patience really is a virtue.  I, again calmly, held the bag right by the toilet while he pulled his clothes out and into the bag.  Just as we exited the bathroom his mom was walking in to pick him up, and let me just tell you that was a fun conversation.  I mean you would think that it would be common sense not to put your clothes in the toilet, but I don’t blame him because his reasoning was probably just that they needed cleaned and that was the only water around.  Sometimes I have to remind myself that they really don’t know any better until they learn, and I think that that little boy learned something very valuable today.

 

MORE WINTER CRAFTS:

I couldn’t resist because today was we had a lot of fun with our winter theme. 

Science: Birdfeeders

Literacy: Winter scenes with marshmallows

We made bird feeders with either pine cones or toilet rolls, soy nut butter (since our center is peanut free), and, of course, bird seed. 

Afterwards we hung them from the trees on our playground

                p.s. I know it is winter, but we did notice some birds roaming around on the ground, and we suspect they were searching for food.

Next, If you lick one side of a marshmallow and stick it to a piece of paper it will stick as if you glued it. We used the marshmallows as snow (go figure).  The class loved this, and I was surprised with the creation they came up with.          Here are a few:

Thanks for reading, and thank goodness tomorrow is Friday!

Lisa

Special Delivery

I love it when one of my students is welcoming a new sibling into their family.  We have an expectant mother who is due in just a couple weeks so it has been a topic of discussion lately. Today I let the students share stories about thier family with the class and he informed us that his mom was going to have a baby girl next week at the doctor.  Now, of course, you know this brought up the idea in other minds as well.  Here is the conversation I had with the next little girl who shared,

“Ms. Lisa, my mom is going to buy a baby.”

“Oh really, how come?”

“Because we want a baby.”

“Where is she going to buy it from?”

“I don’t know, probably we’ll baby sit it first, and then buy it.”

I think these are the kind of stories my mom was always afraid I would tell at school, but don’t worry I’m pretty sure there is no baby buying going on in my class.

Now, as promised, a couple samples of our winter art work:

Shaving Crème Snowmen

I mix together shaving crème and glue so that when it dries on the paper it stays the same as when it’s wet.  This was a great project for sensory as well as following directions.  Some of them were afraid or not sure about taking out a hand full of the shaving crème, and others could not wait to get messy. 

Next, we added faces, arms, and legs to our snowmen. 

Painting with Ice Cubes:

This is one of my favorites every year. They take an ice cube and paint on their paper with it.  This is very messy and wet, but it is great for teaching the process of ice melting, and liquids and solids.  Some teachers also stick toothpicks in the ice, but I like having them feel the ice cubes, and controlling them without letting them slip all over.

These are just a couple projects we are working on right now, but don’t worry there’s always more to come tomorrow.

Where does snow come from?

Finally, I have the time to start writing.  After having a whole week off for SNOW IN ATLANTA I am finally able to get my students back on track.  To go right along with this crazy winter we are having we have been talking about everything winter this week.  It is so funny the things that you think everyone knows, but really until children are taught they do not know.  Today I ask the question “Where does snow come from?” and when I called on a student he answered with a complete straight face, “it comes from a snow machine in the sky.”  Other answers I got were, “a snow factory”, “God”, “Santa Clause”, and a couple said, “the clouds”.  These responses led to a discussion on clouds, and how we can tell what weather to expect by looking at the sky.  All in all it was a great topic.

Just after the New Year we added a new addition to our classroom.  Our new assistant teacher is a great addition, and the students love her.  Today one of my students, let’s call him A, had a conversation with our new teacher that I think is something students are often curious about.  However, not all of them always voice their curiosity.  Here is how their conversation went:

“Do you have a boy?” A

“What do you mean? Do you mean do I have a son?”

“No, I mean do you have a boy? You Know?” A

“Do you mean a boyfriend?”

“Yeah” A

“No I don’t have a boyfriend”

“Oh, well why don’t you have one or any kids?” A

………

The conversation kind of dwindled off there as it was time to go home, and I think we change the subject.  I love the children don’t have any problem just asking something if they want to now, and I think that adults could take some advice from this as well.

While the new teacher is asked about her love life, I was asked about my age.  I always tell them to guess my age to see if the can match the stages of life with some sort of age.  For example, some say that I am 6 since they know that I am older than them, and 6 is more than 5.  However, today I had one boy guess that I am 65.  WOW, since I am only 24 I guess we will have to work on that.

Tomorrow I will post pic of some of our winter art work we are working on.

My day written in finger paint;

Lisa