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!)