I'm Not a Parent, But I've Learned A Lot About Being One!

This week was a very exciting (and very sugar-induced) week of Spring Celebrations! Even with all the exhilaration from those 4 days, my mind has been drifting in quite a different direction. The week was exhausting but not because of the sugar-high little bodies, Peeps science experiments, egg/spoon balancing game, or the egg hunt.

Much of my attention and brain power has been devoted to the variety of parenting styles I’ve come to observe in my room and how those styles influence the children of those parents. Being the logical, usually clear-minded person I am allows me to see why the children coming from certain parents act in particular ways. Most of the parents with which I come in contact have done a stellar job so far in raising their child, as I have observed over the past 2 months.  Children of these kinds of parents are not the ones I’m worried about… it’s the others. The children whose parents are blind to the little things they do that will hurt their child, either in the short-term or long-term.  The children coming from these families have inspired me deeply, not just as a teacher but as a woman who knows that she will one day be a mom.  (No, I’m NOT pregnant!) This week has got me thinking hard about what kind of parent I want to be alongside Tony.

Some Little Nuggets of Parenting Advice I’ve Gathered In Preschool:

• A child needs to have 2 parents that love them.  It takes a balanced, loving set of parents to raise a child.

• “Loving” your child means that you send your child to school with a winter coat when it is 25 degrees outside.  You are lazy and/or do not love your child if you send them in anything less.

• A teacher or day-care worker is with your child for 40 waking hours per week.  Wouldn’t it be a wise choice, as a parent, to give the highest respect to the person who is molding and taking care of your child for 40 hours per week?

• Talk to your child about their day, and actually listen to them! If they don’t give you an answer, find another way to ask them.  Don’t give up. Always keep the communication line open with your child.

• Do not assume your child is either an “angel” or “devil” child. Every child can do amazing feats, and every child misbehaves at times. That’s the definition of a child. How parents and teachers respond to the child’s actions is how the child learns.

• Parents need to acknowledge and praise their little one’s accomplishments, and make a big deal about it in a positive way.  On the opposite spectrum, appropriate consequences need to be done on-the-spot for unacceptable behaviors. They depend on us, as parents and teachers, to do this!

• For heaven’s sake, parents: spend time with your child! If your child’s teacher asks you what your kid likes to eat for breakfast, you BETTER come up with an answer. “I don’t know… he’s not a breakfast kid” is NOT an answer, and you need to spend more time with your child.

• READ. READ. READ. Can’t even begin to explain the hundreds of positive things you are giving to your child when you read with them every day.  So simple. Just do it.

I apologize if these bullet-points sound “rant-ish” or angry to you, as an audience. I could go on and on. I’m not angry, just (overly) passionate about wanting the best for the kiddos in my class.  Classroom teachers are not the only teachers in a child’s life. The adults at home are the other teachers, just in a different setting. All the passion that I have cannot make up for a lack of positive teaching at home for these innocent kids.  Parents, do your job. You have to be teachers too!

Whew...

Now, on a much lighter note, enjoy some of this week’s cutest little quotes!

Quotables

(drinking my coffee at breakfast table)

Little Girl: “Anne, why do your teeth look brown?”

(3 kids at table listening to “Snow White” book on tape)

3 Kids: (unison gasp) “They said the word ‘kiss!’”

Little Boy: “Ewwww!”

2 Little Girls: “Hehehehe”

3 Kids: (yelling across room) “Miss Anne!!! The word ‘kiss’ is in this book!”

(Our new afternoon assistant, Kate, is from Britain and has an accent. During her first afternoon with my class, a few of the girls were asking her questions.)

Little Girl: “Kate, I think I heard your voice before. I heard it in a movie or something.”

(Kate, reading the kids a springtime story in the afternoon)

Kate: (British accent) “…And the bunnies were jumping in the green, green grass…”

*wide-eyed kids all staring at her, totally entranced by her voice*

(waking the kids up from naptime)

Little Girl: (yawning and stretching) “Anne, I just had a dream about you! I dreamed that you and me were going on vacation, and we were going to Montana to see Grammy and Grampy and Uncle Jim!”

Signs of Spring.... Uh.... Where?

I know I'm probably the 5937th person to say this in the past few weeks, but seriously... I'm so done with winter.  It's one thing when the winter drags on and on, and winter blues set in.  It's on a whole other level, though, when you have a full week of your curriculum called "Spring Has Sprung" and there are 5 inches of snow still on the ground and you can't go outside with your kids 3 out of the 5 days because of negative windchills.  As a teacher, this week kicked my butt.  I couldn't get excited about teaching my lessons because I have Double Winter Blues... regular blues because the winter's dragged on, plus some more blues because the parents all chuckle because I tell them that we're learning about the signs of spring!  What a joke!  I did try to make the most of it, though!

Highlights of the week:

• Playing with dirt! And mud! All my boys were loving it, and most of the girls did too! They loved discussing mud and puddles and experimenting with it themselves.  Especially proud moment when I asked the kids how mud is made, and one of our more dependent little boys was the first one to answer saying, "It's when the dirt mixes with the water!"  He was beaming!
• Eating dirt! Usually on Fridays, we try to make a special snack or have a food coordinating with what our theme is for the week.  Friday's treat was definitely one of the tastiest: chocolate pudding mud topped with some crumpled up Spring Oreo dirt and sour gummy worms crawling around! Definitely hit the spot for Miss Anne's chocoholic taste :)

Kid Quotable of the Week:

Anne: "What kind of things are in the dirt?"
Little Boy: "In the dirt.... like Joe Dirt?"
Anne: (extremely taken aback) "How do you know who Joe Dirt is?! What does he look like?"
Little Boy: "He looks like a girl. He has some long girl hair."

The Leprechaun Peed Green In Our Toilet!

Just when you think you're gonna have a productive, fun-filled week all the way through, there's bound to be some kind of chink that gets thrown in your chain unexpectedly.  This week, it was in the form of a sore throat and a 102.7˚ fever... and it majorly kicked my butt! Planning and implementing your own curriculum and making it awesome for the first year teaching is tough. Wanting to accomplish all this while you feel like you're on your deathbed: a little bit tougher.

I know it's weird to say, but I'm still thankful to have had a work-week like this because I learned so much from living through it!

Starting on Monday, I was so excited to get this week going with our SAINT PATRICK'S DAY theme! :) Little did I know, Monday was the only day this week that I felt up to par.  We learned all about Ireland, where St. Patrick comes from, and had to focus on his love for his home and much less about his love for God.  A fun little aspect that all the boys AND girls really grabbed onto was a legend saying that St. Patrick chased all the snakes off the island of Ireland, which is the reason there are no snakes there today! In our sensory bins, the kids got to play with rubber snakes in the water on this day.  Loved it!

Tuesday morning upon waking is when it all started sliding downhill.  I've never woken up without a voice, so when I did on Tuesday, I figured it would come back by the time I drove myself to school.  Not so much.  Since I didn't feel completely awful yet, I wanted to just make it through the day and get some good sleep that night.  Unfortunately after a morning with no voice, dealing with another child who got sick in the classroom, and overexerting my declining physical condition, I had a high fever by noon. No fun :(

On a happier note, the leprechaun introduced himself to the kids on Tuesday morning! At the end of our circle-time book, we found a shamrock taped to the inside of the back cover! We ended making a cute "trap" to catch the tricky little guy and put some Lucky Charms in a bowl under the trap to lure him in. They were way too excited to really do much of anything after that, so we had to go on a leprechaun hall hunt. We explained that our leprechaun was leaving us shamrock clues with long messages on them, since there were many "trick shamrocks" in the halls (different-colored shamrocks for other classes).  And we also explained that the leprechaun doesn't like loud noises, so we had to be veeeery quiet and sneaky too! (Also a good explanation for why we didn't have to look in the big people bathrooms. The flushers would be too loud.)

Then the kids did something that made me so proud: they came up with the idea on their own to write a note back to the leprechaun to ask him to leave us clues!  I was so impressed :)
We all agreed on what to say to him:

On my sick-day Wednesday, the sneaky leprechaun left this note for the kids in the kitchen.

Amy had the kids brainstorm all the "T" places where he could be hiding under at school:

On Thursday, one of my little boys found a shamrock clue under the muscle-room TV!

Friday, these kids were soooo ready to find this sneaky little leprechaun! This is what they encountered when they came back to the room after muscle room time:

Under our white table, one of our sensory bins was where the leprechaun hid the loot! Found the SPARKLY and delicious shamrocks!

The kiddos concluded that our leprechaun was very sneaky but also very nice to us :)
We had a fun-filled rest of the day doing some math with Lucky Charms and dancing/musical chairs with some Irish music!

Kid Quotables

(kids are raising hands as we discuss what we already know about St. Patrick's Day)
Little Boy: "One time, when I was out on the playground, I found a piece of gum stuck to the slide! So I wanted to get it off, and I picked it all off!"
Me (smiling): "Sweetie, we're not talking about gum right now. Can you tell me anything about St. Patrick's Day?"

 (Returning to school on Thursday after being home sick Wednesday)
Little Girl: "Miss Anne, guess what the leprechaun did yesterday!!?"
Anne: "Uh oh... what did he do?!"
Little Girl: "He did a shamrock clue in the kitchen for us!"
Little Boy: "And then he came in our room and peed green in our toilet!"

(Someone got sick on our ABC carpet on Tuesday. By Friday, we still didn't have our ABC carpet back in our room, even though we knew it had been cleaned. Anne, Amy, and a few friends  go to investigate.)
Amy: "The carpet was cleaned, so can any of guys wanna smell and make sure its okay for our room?"
Kid 1 (smells carpet): "It smells like puke still."
Kid 2 (smells carpet): "Puke."
Kid 3 (smells carpet): "Still smells like puke."
Kid 4 (smells carpet): "I smell peaches!"
*Anne & Amy die laughing*

(The leprechaun came to our room, left a huge mess everywhere, and left the kids a gift.)
*Kids enter room and scream/laugh with excitement, in search for the leprechaun and his shamrock gift*
Little Girl: "The leprechaun made everything a mess! He threw paper all around and messed up the boots!"
Little Boy: "Woah! Miss Anne! The leprechaun was even strong enough to knock YOUR boots over! He's really strong!"


ONE OF ANNE'S HAPPIEST MOMENTS OF THE WEEK:
My first get-well card from one of my kids! She wanted me to open it right when I walked in the door on Thursday.  Her mommy said that she wanted help to make it for me at home!  Brought a few happy tears :)

Here's hoping to some actual SPRING-like weather next week for our "Spring Has Sprung" week!  I don't need icky snow slop for our spring walk next Friday...  

Gotta Keep on Truckin'

So, I'm posting this a day later than I normally do because its been quite a tiring weekend!  After doing my teacher in-service hours yesterday morning, I came home and wanted to crash on a chilly, rainy Saturday afternoon.  With today being Sunday, I have a feeling that this may be a short, sweet post! Lesson learned: do blogging on Saturdays!

Alright, back to business...

Who doesn't love transportation week?!

To tell you the truth, I was afraid that a lot of the girls in my room would shy away from our theme this past week.  When I come to work every morning, most of my girls are either coloring or playing with Barbies and a dollhouse.  And I'm supposed to teach these little ladies to be excited about planes, trains, and automobiles? Right...

But we made it happen! All my kiddos loved having a fun mix of creative art projects, sensory activities, and writing practice.  Here are a few of our fun projects!

One major incident occupied my mind during this week besides teaching about transportation.  For those that are unfamiliar with our school, we have a system called Persistent Unacceptable Behavior (PUB) documentation.  My assistant teacher Amy and I have been very concerned about documenting the behaviors of one child in particular.  This child is very intelligent, but he persistently needs to have attention on him.  He uses potty words, disrespects teachers and students, does not listen, and distracts other children who are on-task.  Finding ways to always keep him focused and listening is such a big task.  As Amy and I had meetings this week with our management to finally get them involved, it made us feel like we were no longer alone in our struggles.  The empty words that Mom tells us everyday can be analyzed by management when they have meetings with her also. 

When Wednesday's managerial observation of this child finally came to fruition, Amy and I had high hopes that we could figure this child out once and for all.  It was a total flop. Distress set in. The child was an ANGEL during the observation and displayed no signs of his PUB.  The child made us feel like complete idiots for documenting the last 2 months of all this unacceptable behavior. Some days are rainy-feeling and teary-eyed. Feels like you try your hardest and it's just not enough.  Wednesday was that day.

Luckily, Thursday was a new day. Amy and I were pleased to hear that the observation of this child will not stop and getting Mom involved was an integral part of making change happen.  Thursday was actually an eye-opening day for me.  I was finally able to really connect with this child's mother, as she told me a story of how much her child adores me as their teacher. Brought me to tears. And gave me hope. Hope that I CAN help this child. The mother believes in me. Other staff believes in me. I know I can make a difference. This child is one of those opportunities.

One of my last weeks in my Kindergarten student-teaching experience in 2011, I will never forget a quote from my extremely wise cooperating teacher, Mrs Winchell:

"It's not the kids that excelled and did extremely well in my class who come back to give me a hug and say Hello.  It's the boy or girl who needed my help the most, the kids who struggled, the kids who had troubles at home. Those are the kids who will never forget you. And those are the kids YOU will never forget."

I thought about that notion a lot this week to get me through. We gotta keep on truckin'!

(So much for a short, sweet post!)

Tip-Top Teeth Time!

Dental week rocks my socks!  Let me tell you why.

First off, I wanted so badly to be a dental hygienist while I was growing up.  I just loved learning about teeth and was one of those strange kids who actually looked forward to going to the dentist.  I know, weird.  But taking all those icky chemistry classes at the U changed my mind, and now I'm doing what I know I was meant to do: teach! So in turn, having a love of dental health led me to come to school in Minnesota.  I changed my career path, but fell in love with my husband and found a new home here.  Moral of this story: I have my love of teeth to thank for leading me to finding my Tony.  Teeth, you rock :)

Next, and on a more educational side of things, it is a blast to teach children about their teeth because there are so many resources and so much to talk about!  During this Tip-Top Teeth week, we learned all about the dentist, brushing/flossing, losing teeth, the tooth fairy, and talked about our own "tooth tales".

In case I forget to write about it later, I need to mention a very dear friend because he just came to mind.  This week, I renewed my love for Arthur.  I read his stories and watched him as a kid with my brother and sister, and I have to admit that my college roommate and I occasionally snuck some Arthur viewing in between classes.  My kids this week loved learning about losing teeth and the dentist from the book Arthur's Lost Tooth!  Then (if they were good listeners that day) they got to watch the TV episode of the same Arthur story!  I thought it was wonderful how it explained that everybody loses their teeth at different times, and you are not a baby if you still have all your baby teeth! 

Pinterest was my best friend this week, as well.  I have a goal of doing at least one science experiment per week with my kids because they were so intrigued and curious about our experiment during teeth week!  Last weekend, I hard-boiled 3 cases of eggs and bought some Coke.  Monday, I explained that we were going to be scientists and discover what would happen to our teeth if we forgot to brush and floss and have lots of sugar on our teeth.  At group-time, every kid got a clear plastic cup and a hard-boiled egg.  We pretended that our egg was a tooth.  After carefully placing our eggs in our cups, we talked about how soda and other sugary things affect our teeth and what not brushing and flossing does to our teeth.  I poured enough Coke in each cup to cover the egg.  (insert "Woah!" *giggle, giggle* while I poured soda in all the cups) We wrote down all of class predictions for what our egg (tooth) would look like when we checked on it the next day. 

Some of our predictions:
-The tooth would crack.
-The tooth would be pink.
-The tooth would be green.
-The tooth would be brown.
-The tooth would have a hole.
-The tooth would have a cavity.
-The tooth would be smaller.

They were all SO pumped to look at their eggs when they came in on Tuesday!  Seeing that kind of anticipation to learn and discover new things is what I live to see! This was definitely one of my favorite things about this week.

Recycling the white styrofoam egg containers was very easy, too! For one of my groups during the week, the kids practicing their newfound flossing skills on the white egg containers. It worked perfect!

Playdoh and white beans was another fun asset to the week, serving as a sensory, fine motor, math and dramatic play activity!  I have to say that my first time making homemade playdoh was a huge success... and I trusted my recipe I found to be wonderful, since it was from Martha Stewart :) I wanted the playdoh to look like gums, so I kept adding a few drops of red food coloring until it turned to a gum-color.  The kids had a blast counting out all the teeth they needed to put into the gums and also extracting them when pretending to be dentists!

Another high of the week was doing our "Fun Friday" tooth snack! I sliced some apples and had some marshmallow creme, red food coloring and marshmallows. After putting some red food coloring into the marshmallow creme, we had some "gums" to put on our apple smiles and then some marshmallows to use as "teeth"! So delicious and fun.  I think the best part our special snack was having one of my little girls, who never ever eats fruit/veggies, try the apples and love it!  When her mom came for pick-up, she was so happy to tell Mom that she loves apples... Mom thanked us profusely! :)

Finally on Friday, we discussed our very own "tooth tales".  We found out that only 2 kids in the class had lost a tooth.  We asked them how they lost their tooth and how they felt when it happened, which reassured the other children in the class that it's not a scary thing.  Since a few kids in the class have some wiggly teeth right now, it was nice to have them share that peer positivity! 

Lunch-time on Friday was probably the most ironic experience I've ever had while teaching:
after talking all morning about loose teeth and the tooth fairy, we had hot dogs and apples for lunch.  You could probably guess what happened next... one of my little girls took a bite of her hot dog, felt something funny, spit it out, and had her tooth laying in her hand!  She lost her tooth on our "tooth tale" day!  It was so neat to have the rest of the kids see the little girl's reaction and be able to talk to her about it during lunch.  She told everybody that it just popped off when she bit her food, and she wasn't scared at all.  She said she was surprised and thought it was fun! :)

Kid Quotables
(right after finishing calendar/weather with the kids at circle-time)
Anne, wearing one of her favorite sweaters: "Raise your hand and tell me what we're talking about this week."
Little Boy: "Miss Anne, we're talking about teeth.  But I have a question: Is your sweater inside-out?"

(in the middle of switching our groups)
Another Little Boy, quietly: "Miss Anne, I have to tell you something."
Anne: "Of course! What do you have to tell me?"
ALB: "My mom has LOTS of cavities in her teeth."