A Goode Ladye's Press

moved

2011-08-25T23:41:00.000-07:00

to here - please come with me for some more wonderful teaching ideas and links!

Sounds of Numbers

2011-03-23T14:33:00.000-07:00

This was delightfully read in the final pages of the Teacher's Edition of "Sounds of Numbers" from 1966:

Developing Sensitivity to Humanness

Often in classroom teaching

we become so preoccupied with "skill development"

that we tend to forget that the primary purpose of teaching

is to help children claim kinship with man's humanity.

As you use the Sounds of Language selections

to create a spiritual setting in your classroom

that inculcates and fosters feelings of individual worth and high idealism,

you can be assured that you are engaging

in humanly-useful language teaching and "skill development."

For it is on the wings of words

that man claims his identity with his culture.

We must help children find access to those words.

Can you imagine, without giving yourself over

to a feeling of great joy and accomplishment,

what will happen to children who for six years

during their elementary school reading experiences

feel the flow and depth of life-lifting language in their daily lives?

And if the Sounds of Language program fulfills all of its expectations,

you and I and every concerned human being

who has dedicated himself to helping children learn

will have developed a camaraderie

that will change the course of language instruction in our schools

and make language truly available to children

in terms of their emerging human needs.

Second Storyline...World Travelers

2011-02-06T21:08:00.001-08:00

In January, we started our "World Traveler" storyline. We began with a blank world map and I had the kids color the continents one color and the oceans another color. We talked about the continents and we named North America. I drew on Oregon and then a dot in the center for Sisters (Central Oregon) and talked about North - we have a big compass rose next to the big map of the world. I drew the world map free-hand and it is basically black outlines on white paper. I've written the continents names on sentence strips, each one a different color, to help them remember.

I had the huge cruise ship painted in black on white paper in the hallway. We talked about cruise ships and what you do on them. We had loads of fun discussion with it...I wish I could find some picture books with stories about kids going on a world cruise or travel. I thought about the Flat Stanley books, but didn't want to get into the whole penpal kind of thing...maybe next year?

I gave the kids people shapes and let them make a character. It was so fun! they went crazy! We've got Ninja's, senior citizens, mamas with babies, people in wheelchairs (see below). I helped them make a "blanket envelope" and pillow to keep their person in. They made their bedrooms just the way they wanted (so creative!). I gave them each a room number and we put them up in order. I let the kids frequently play with their characters. We even made passports for their characters.

When we finally started our cruise, we talked about ocean life. I chose to talk about Octopuses and Sea Urchins (mostly because they are interesting, and mildly because I found some cute crafts) After we learned about the Octopus, we made this craft out of toilet paper rolls!

First we had to paint them. I let the kids paint the rolls any color they wanted. When they were dry, we simply used a pencil to draw on seven lines...I showed them how far apart I wanted them and how long I wanted them, then we cut them. They made 8 legs!!!

We used hole reinforcement stickers for the suckers...then we used eye stickers!

Really quickly we studied sea urchins...it was during a 3-day week I was sick one of the days when we studied these, but that didn't seem to matter. I made salt dough that I let the kids knead. We added purple tempra paint, because we'd studied purple sea urchins. I had the kids use purple crayons and color flat toothpicks then stick them in how they wanted to make sea urchins...so fun! They needed a piece of paper to dry these on as the oil liked to leach out as it dried.

I'm sorry to say that we didn't do much about being South America as far as crafts. We did discuss the Amazon and animals who live there.

Then when we finally got to Antarctica, we studied Penguins.

We read this one...it was PERFECT about where Penguin's live, and about other animals who live in the Antarctic.

This is one I'll add to the readings next year:

I had the coolest little art project, where the kids free-hand cut these penguins out.

It was a good listening activity for them. I had them cut out an oval with a piece of white paper. There were varying degrees of "oval-ness" but that wasn't the point. they came out amazing!

then the kids glued their white oval on their piece of black paper. I had them cut around it, leaving some of the black showing, and making sure that one end had the most black and that would be the penguin head. Only one kid cut out exactly around the white oval. It was okay, we just glued that all back on another piece of black and tried again.

Next they used the black scraps they had left to cut out flippers!

Then with the white scraps, we cut out little eyes.

with some small orange scraps we cut out beaks and feet!

with out last bits of white, we cut out a snowy ground. they all came out so well!!!

One of the centers during our Antarctica week was spent following a step-by-step of painting a penguin. didn't they come out so cute?!

Last week was in Asia, and we studied, mostly, Chinese New Year as a means to learn about Asian culture. For Kindergarten's purpose, that was just right!

I'll put that down here later.

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Here is the song I'm teaching the kids. It goes to "Take Me Out to The Ballgame"

Let's name all of the continents

there are 7 on earth

There's Europe and Asia and Australia

North and South America

Now don't forget about Africa

and Antarctica, too

for there's 1, 2, 3, 4567 continents!

We use some hand movements, too to help us remember these.

We make a seven with our fingers and show a circle with our hands at "There are 7 on earth"

Europe, we do a thumb's up

Asia, we make our arms go out large

Australia, we point down to the corner

North America we point up

South America we point down

Africa we point straight ahead

and Antarctica we hold ourselves and shiver

Then we count with our fingers as we sing.

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Our tricks for learning about where the continents go:

Europe = "You're Up!"

Asia = smallest word, largest continent

Australia = the one by itself

North America = of the two Americas, it is the one that is NORTH or UP, also "our home"

South America = below North america...SOUTH or DOWN

Antarctica = the South Pole...COLD!

Africa = on our map it is the one in the middle.

A Sick Day

2011-01-06T09:02:00.000-08:00

I have so much to say today...but not sure if I have the energy to do it. I am at home today with the nastiest cold; it took away my voice! But, I digress...I want to talk about Control today.

I've left my classroom and my children in capable hands today. The sweetest soft-spoken, red-headed woman subbed for me yesterday and I've read her comments and talked to her in person, and I can honestly say that she is the best person to ever take over my classroom for me, in 14 years. That says a lot. I am a control FREAK and I am working on being more flexible. Probably no one knows how flexible I have actually had to be. They don't know how agonizing it has been for me to say, "Sure." and "No problem."

This is how I think my substitute was good: she allowed the students to be creative. She held their needs above the plan that was set down. She was gentle. She listened. She asked. She was flexible and still in control. Amazing...

In my teacherly opinion, a good classroom consists not only of what the teacher has to say, but what the students have to say. I like for them to understand that this learning business is their responsibility as well - yes, even in Kindergarten.

She completely was Mother Bunch. Exactly what kind of teacher I hope these children get when I am away. I read and reread what I've written there, because it is the truth that it is in my heart. It is the lighthouse by which I steer. I believe it because I've experienced it along with myriad other philosophies I've tried. None produce the feelings and attitudes I am comfortable with in my classroom (by both teacher or student) than the one I've labeled the Mother Bunch Philosophy.

What all of this reminds me, is that no matter what else I pick apart about what I do or do not do, I am always heading in the right direction and self-correcting.

Please read this Mother Bunch in Action post I did. It reminds me that I am no hypocrite.

And now off to more tea and checking my pockets for strange things...today it was a rubberband, a bit of white crayon and a teensy tiny note with a rainbow on it from a pretty little girl I know.

Later this week, I'll be posting about our new storyline "World Cruise" - pretty exciting!

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above is one of my little children with a "wish flower" - we all went on a walk to find Wishes that day!!

My Father's Dragon - Theme

2010-11-29T19:43:00.000-08:00

So, here we go...this was probably my most favorite book unit I've ever done.

I found the book My Father's Dragon in with a bunch of other books in the school storage room, and was intrigued by the cover. I'd been looking for something different and interesting as a read aloud, and this seemed to fit the bill. As soon as I read the book, I knew I NEEDED to read it to the children.

To start with, we created "Jungle Flowers" to brighten up our room. I loved the flowers on the cover of the book, and I really wanted to get that Jungle feeling in our room.

This was a great - but loooooong - art project.

The first thing we did was to look at books about jungles and noticed that there were many different types of flowers - strange and interesting - growing there. So we used large shape templates and traced them into flower shapes - the shapes had to touch or could overlap. When a student was done drawing their shape-flower, I used a big black marker and drew around the outside edge so that it was clear where they should cut when they cut out their flowers.

On the opposite side (the side not written on), we used brushes and white glue and glued on flat, torn pieces of red, orange, yellow, fuschia, bright blue and lime green tissue paper. I had them overlap the pieces so that there were no white spaces. These came out wonderful, but literally took all of our activity time for a full day. They didn't dry until the next day.

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I wanted to find something really useful that would engage the students.

I found a website that has some really great projects that are all put into a "lapbook" - a lapbook is just a manila file folder that you've refolded. All the little activities are printed, cut out, colored and glued on. They were PERFECT for my little Kindergarteners...I didn't use all of the activities and I modified them to fit what my students were capable of.

Unfold a manila file folder and then refold it by folding the edges to the center, overlapping them just a bit.

As you can see we filled the inside with activities as well.

The main themes we focused on were: KINDNESS, Wild Animals - the difference between bad and dangerous - that wild animals aren't bad, only dangerous to humans, Lions and Tigers and their sameness/differences - we found out that Lions wouldn't really be living in a jungle as a Tiger would. The kids learned that Lions live in Africa on the grassy plains. We talked about carnivores as well. Besides all of that, we learned to read the map of the places Elmer went to in the book! We also used this opportunity to get a first look at North, South, East and West.

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The first day we glued a tiny color photocopy of the book's cover on the front flap. After the first chapter, we did the "Kindness" matchstick flap with the kitten on it. Inside it, the child would draw a picture of how Elmer was Kind to the kitten - most of the kids drew the kitten drinking milk, but others drew Elmer getting the kitty out of the rain.

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The next little activity we used was this accordion book with the turtles on it. On one page we wrote the word "turtle", and the next page the kids drew what the turtles thought Elmer was: a monkey with his grandma on his back. This caused so much laughing - it was a funny moment in the book!

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I added this activity on as I wanted the students to predict some of the events in the book. I made these tiny little books. Inside I would ask them to predict things like, "What did the cat see on Wild Island that made her cry so much?" They would make a guess by drawing a picture, and I would come around and write what they said in the book. We glued these on the inside.

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This little project was more to drive home the idea of how Elmer got to the Island of Tangerina.

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I color copied a picture I found online of the end page where there is a complete map of the travels Elmer went on. It is a darling little map that says things like "My father slept under this tree." We tracked his movements with a red crayon and used words like, "He went North, then South." The kids loved looking at the map!

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The backpack was probably the coolest, but hardest, activity the kids completed in here. I suggest starting with having them color the backpack while you read the chapter in which he loads his backpack. Then the cutting is fairly tricky. It is explained very well on the pdf. But, it helped that I only had 10 children to do this with - I would suggest having someone help you out on the day you do this one.

Cutting out each item and putting it into the backpack was time consuming, but so useful later when we had to predict what they'd be using the items for.

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This was a simple flip book. Inside the book they drew a picture of what made the lion upset: messy hair! The whole lapbook will help the students to retell the story.

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The tiger scene was such a wonderful part! The kids LOVED that part. This was a fun little activity - I'd be very careful about directions in cutting here. It could be easy for them to cut off the little flip pieces. In order to complete this activity, I drew 7 circles on the whiteboard and had them tell me how many eyes ONE tiger has, then we drew on each circle and counted them as we did it. That number we wrote under the correct flip page. We did the same for the legs and the snarling mouths. It was a fun math project.

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There was a simple activity with the rhinoceros and how he needed to brush his horn, however, I felt that the kids would loose the toothbrush right away, so instead, we cut out this paper into a simple fold-over. We folded it so that the blank side covered up the rhino (colored with a yellow horn), but left the question. It probably could be improved, but it was off the top of my head when I realized I didn't like the toothbrush idea.

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When we were studying tigers and lions, I decided to do a simple tissue paper craft, just like they did with the jungle flowers, except that instead of torn paper, they used cut paper strips. I drew the head on the paper, but the kids made the bodies, the tail and the four legs. This helped them with proportion.

Once the papers were dry (the next day), I had the students cut out their pieces. I used the sharp end of a compass to poke holes in the right places - which you'll see in the finished pages - the kids will then put their cats together with brads.

If a student has made a tiger, they can use a black crayon to make stripes, and the lion people will need to glue on brown strips for the mane.

Adorable, right?! Soo darn cute...

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We made Compass Roses one day for a craft as well. I had the students fold a small square of paper into fourths. then we cut out a little curve - which I drew on quickly for them. They cut it out and unfolded and found they'd made a circle. Then they cut out four triangles...by cutting diagonal on two orange rectangles. We glued them on at each crease. On the nice side we wrote N at the top, S at the bottom, E on the right and W on the left. We wrote over the pencil with glue and used blue glitter - woohoo, glitter! I have good luck with glitter when I use a cardboard tray, like the kind that come from trays of canned vegetables. They can shake the glitter inside the tray and then the glitter stays MOSTLY contained.

We used these to introduce the directions and what a compass rose is on a map. I also hung large N,S,E,W letters on the classroom walls so we now call them, "the East wall", etc.

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Luckily, I also have life-like wild animals that are fairly large, hard plastic. They are completely correct, and very WONDERFUL when it comes to helping students see traits of the animals. We used them often!

*the kids loved the book, and so did I*

My Father's Dragon

2010-11-28T21:33:00.000-08:00

It's been awhile, as I've just gotten over the flu (as has two of my children), and we've just, also, gotten over our first long break...that is all very very time consuming you know.

When I am in full force again, I'd love to share about this book! It is a MUST as a read-aloud with your Kindergarteners...just wait till you see what we did with it!

*and as always, what more I'd do next year*

Bat Unit

2010-11-06T22:26:00.000-07:00

We made these little bats recently, and the kids loved them!

They were such a simple little project. I used little black pieces of left over construction paper scraps, and folded them in half. I drew on a half a bat with white crayon, and then the kids only had to cut out half of the bat, then unfold it to reveal the whole bat.

We glued on google eyes, then I stapled on a piece of cardstock to the back

with the kids' names on the back. This was so that they could be little finger puppets!

a good tip: use a HUGE dot of glue for the eyes, they fall off very easy otherwise!

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We read BATS! by Janet VanCleave

and Stellaluna by Janell Cannon

then an cute little one called Hello, BumbleBee Bat by Darrin Lunde

Our main point was to learn about Nocturnal and Hibernating animals.

We'd just done a week about owls (nocturnal) and before that about chipmunks and squirrels (hibernating) so this was very cool to be able to combine the two...besides it was Halloween!

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Songs and Chants for learning about bats

(let the kids use the bats while you sing the songs):

Five Little Bats
One little bat was trying to behave.
He hung upside down from his feet in a cave.
Another bat flew in, and said, "How do you do?"
The second joined the first, and then there were 2!
2 little bats were trying to behave.
They hung upside down from their feet in a cave.
To help pass the time, they sang "Do re me"
Another bat joined the song, and then there were 3.
3 little bats were trying to behave
They hung upside down from their feet in a cave
From their cave perch, they looked down at the floor,
A new bat joined the game, and then there were 4.
4 little bats were trying to behave.
They hung upside down from their feet in a cave.
One little bat zoomed inside and did a dive.
He stayed to take a rest, and with him there were 5

This Old Bat

(To the tune of "This Old Man")

This old bat, slept all day (children should rest head on folded hands as if sleeping)

Night time's when he comes out to play (children should stretch as if waking up)

With a flap, flap, flap (children should flap arms as if flying)

And a snap, snap, CLAP! (children should snap fingers, then clap loud)

This old bat is a friendly chap! (children should shake hands with one another)

Bats Are Sleeping
(tune: Frere Jacques)

Bats are sleeping
Bats are sleeping
Upside down.
Upside down.
Sleeping in the morning sun.
Waiting for the night to come.
Then they'll fly all around.
Then they'll fly all around.

Nature Table

2010-11-04T21:54:00.000-07:00

I painted these little white labels with our local flora

so that as we gathered bits and pieces

we organized them in our tray (an antique letterpress tray)

and organized them with the labels! It not only works very nice,

it is truly beautiful.

Next Unit...

2010-11-01T18:33:00.000-07:00

I can't wait to do this with my Kindergarteners...of course, I need to bring it down a bit for these little who can't read yet!

http://www.homeschoolshare.com/my_fathers_dragon.php

http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/gannett/dragon/dragon.html

http://www.makingbooks.com/freeprojects.shtml

More to come on that!

Songs we use every day

2010-10-26T21:15:00.000-07:00

I have a dream of using some free time (hahahahaaaaa...that is crazy laughter) to make some of those big chart papers to write the songs on and have a big easel full of songs to flip through, with illustrations and all of that.

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We sing the "Clean-up" song every day, a few times a day:

Clean-up, clean-up

Everybody, everywhere

Clean-up, clean-up

Everybody do your share

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We sing this one every single day:

Days of the Week song (to the tune of The Adam's Family)

Days of the week (snap snap)

Days of the week, days of the week, days of the week (snap snap)

there's Sunday and there's Monday

There's Tuesday and there's Wednesday

there's Thursday and there's Friday

and then there's Saturday

Days of the week (snap snap)

Days of the week, days of the week, days of the week (snap snap)

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I think this one is perfect for beginning rhythms...those kids who can't snap can click their tongues or slap their thighs. You'll notice in the picture, the days of the week sentence strips just over the pocket chart for our center organization. I point to each word as we sing the song, then afterward, I ask them what day of the week it is that day. They know by now that it is the one withe date over the top of it, and now they've started paying attention when I point as we sing. It is good practice and makes our morning meeting times that much more fun.

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We've been singing this one other day or so, since we've started a 5 senses unit:

5 Senses (sung to the tune of BINGO)

We use five senses every day

To help us learn and play

See, Hear, Smell, Touch, Taste

We use these every day

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This one we've only really done in the AM class, as it seems to fit so well, and I remember this song as a little girl...my mama use to sing it to me in the mornings:

Good morning merry sunshine

What makes you rise so soon

You've frightened all the stars away

You've even scared the moon

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This Chant is our FAVORITE! The kids love when I give them a "bump", too :)

Hello Neighbor, What do you say?! (look around at friends and say it super happy)

It's gonna be a Happy Day (clap your hands on each word: Happy and Day)

So, greet your Neighbor (give a couple of high fives to neighbors)

and boogie on down (boogie down!)

Give em a bump (bump hips with neighbors)

and turn around (turn around)

Now sit down (we say this last one a bit soft and all sit criss cross applesauce after that)

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Super Manners (sung to "I'm a Little Teapot")

We have super manners, yes we do

We can say please and thank you, too

When we play with friends, we like to share

That is the way we show we care

we've used this one since day one to talk about how to treat each other - sometimes I'll just talk about how we've shown we care during the day and have each of us give an example of how they showed they cared. Some days I've told them each personally how they showed they cared that day...getting caught being good! They actually really love it when I do that. One little boy, after we'd sung the song, said, "Mrs. E, how did I show I cared today?"

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Painting the Months

2010-10-26T20:55:00.000-07:00

My mama always told me a story about one of her favorite teachers, that she had done watercolor pictures of each of the months that went around the top of the room. There suddenly arose the need for me to have the months around my room as well. I decided I needed the number of the month, the month itself named, and of course a picture of something that would help the students identify the month without being able to read.

I used watercolor pencils - my favorite quick art tool - and basically drew the pictures with the pencils and then used a wet paintbrush on the papers. I did this during class time when the kids were doing play centers, and soon, I had all of them around me watching as if I was doing magic with only my water and paintbrush. I really love how they came out, and can't wait to have time to laminate them so they'll last me forever.

I have this dream that I would be that teacher that a child has that would tell their kids, "I had a teacher once who made the neatest pictures of the months and put them up around the around the room. I'll never forget that."

I mean, I hope they remember me for more than that, but I am under no allusions...I pretend that Kindergarteners will remember all the details of their first year of school, but I do remember a few things about my Kindergarten year...so it is possible...

I do catch some of them playing "meeting time" when they have free time, and staring at the months and trying to get each other to guess the month.

I really rather like them a lot, and it makes me very happy that my little

Kindergarteners like them, too :)

Here's the one we're using this month...It makes me happy!

Painting with Rabbit Brush

2010-10-26T20:36:00.000-07:00

Do you ever have one of those moments in teaching where you go, "Oh yeah, I'm gooooood"?

Well, I had one of those this last week...

So my little Kindergarteners and I were on a nature walk, and I had them looking at a Rabbit Brush (plentiful in the High Desert), and we were noticing all its little details, so then I asked, "So, kids, what is this called again?" (you KNOW you've had those moments where you stand dumbfounded because you've just said the darn thing's name about 20 times) and this little girl raises her hand, and I call on her ready, ready to hear the correct answer and be so proud, and she says, "Paint Brush!"

"That's ri....uhhhh...nope...try again...but...uh...that's actually a pretty good idea...so, it's a Rabbit Brush, R A B B I T, but let's go ahead and paint with it!"

I picked each student a good sized Rabbit Brush stem and gave each group of 2 children a flat plastic bowl of red and yellow tempra, and minimal instructions (the biggest of which was NOT to fling around a painty Rabbit Brush) - I let the kids at it, and these are what they came up with.

I was so pleased with how they came out! the kids actually mixed the reds and yellows and made their own oranges, and we had some children stippling, and some children using a dry brush, and some had loads of paint...it was so interesting and fun! I ended up taping the brushes to the paintings as they were so beautiful...

an easy and exciting little art lesson!

5 Senses - "I See..." Class Book

2010-10-15T01:10:00.000-07:00

This was an easy Science Center, and the kids LOVE to read it. During every single R & R time, I've seen it being read, and kids waiting to get it. They just love to see that they are in a book...they don't care that it is just yellow copy paper stapled together, they are IN A BOOK!

This worked out perfectly, because for some reason I have a HUGE stack of 8 1/2 x 14 yellow copy paper in my room...random, but cool. And Yellow is the color of my Science centers, so VIOLA!

I took one piece for each student, slapped a cover on it and put it in a yellow tub for two weeks until each student had done a page in it! I included a bucket of crayons and a sentence strip that read "I see" (which happened to be two sight words as well, hehe.) This way, when a student had drawn a picture of something they had seen before, they could then write "I see" on the paper. When they'd gotten to this point, they had me come over to write on a skinny post-it the word they wanted to write. I would write the word and then let them at copying the word. I LOVE the book; the drawings are priceless.

I've never actually seeeeeen a sPibeR, but if I did, it would look exactly like this.

It gives me the heeby-jeebys just thinking about it.

Not sure if Bela ACTUALLY had ever seen a whirlpool, but if he had, there woulda been two of em, and they would be pink.

Before Ellie told me what this was, I had started writing "dragonfly" on my post-it. luckily, I only had gotten to the "d", so I was safe when I had to write "dog", instead.

I thought these chickens were pretty impressive...superbly done...but of course, this is MY daughter, and we own chickens, so she SHOULD do a good job on them. I had to take a second look at our chickens though and make sure they did indeed, actually have TWO feet. :)

Fall Crafts

2010-10-15T00:54:00.000-07:00

These were a couple of easy crafts to brighten our room lately. We had a few extra minutes one morning so I quickly made some leaf patterns from cardboard while the students were at centers (that is tricky of me, don't you think?), and simply laid out fall colors and let them go at them. As they cut out the leaves, I read a book called something about Fall Leaves (doesn't really matter what book it is, but something that gives them the idea about fall leaves and shows the leaf veins), to extend the project I had them draw veins on the leaves. Then I taped them all over our windows. They are so bright and wonderful!

The next project I came up with after we took down our glitter cowboy boots from the "CREATE" wall. I wanted to fill it back up right away, so as the students did Reading and Resting, I used our largest stack of color (happened to be turqoise blue, perfect!) and grabbed scraps of purples, reds, oranges, yellows and browns. I also grabbed each student a scrap of crumpled brown paperbag type paper and the silver glitter.

I instructed the students that we were going to create a fall tree with a bit of frost, just like the kinds of mornings we've been having. After a bit of instruction, the students glued down their trunks (they each did lots of tweaking to get them juuuuuust right), then they went about cutting the scraps into "leaves" - I literally had them just keep cutting the points off the paper, clip, clip clip, until they had a pile of mulitcolored leaves. While they did this, I put a tray of white glue and sponge brushes in the middle of their tables.

I instructed them about not getting glue all over the tables, but basically they put glue wherever they would want leaves, then used the leaf bits like glitter and dropped them on the glue. They kept shaking off the unstuck ones and reapplying. When that was done, they got a tiny pinch of silver to put on their tree. The glitter would stay on any extra glue that was between the leaves to show a little frost. These came out AWESOME! They are so bright and so individual, which is what I love about Kindergarten art. They are great mimickers, so I don't completely finish a project, only show them by example what I'd like them to do, then I put my example away so they don't remember it. This has been successful so far in getting them to make something unique.

Handwriting Center

2010-10-15T00:44:00.000-07:00

This one is easy and I plan on making loads more of them!!

I used some precut fancy sentence strips that I bought at the Dollar Tree before school began for this. I simply put a sticker on the end that had a simple object that started with the letter I wanted them to practice. For instance, I put a bear on the Upper and Lower Case "B" strips, a Mickey Mouse on the "M" and a cat on the "C". I then used a permanent marker to write one sample of the letter, then one tracer letter and finally put a beginning dot where I wanted each letter to start. Then I simply laminated them, cut them out, paired them with a wipe-off marker and a kleenex in the green bin for handwriting, and VIOLA! Instant Center...haha...that really wasn't that instant, but it wasn't hard either.

And my little lefties did a good job, too! Writing with wipe-off markers is hard for little lefties, but she did a really great job :)

Ghost Letters

2010-10-14T23:43:00.000-07:00

This is such a fun center. I wrote the upper and lower case alphabet letters on white cardstock and then placed them in a brown lunch sack. The students were to pick one out and place it under a sheet of white paper, then to rub a crayon over the paper and see what letter came up.

They did love it, and so did I, but at some point one of the students thought they should crayon on the card itself and that kinda messed things up. I saw an idea where you would write a sight word on the card stock and then put the card inside an envelope. The student would then crayon on the envelope to figure out what the word was. That would be a fun center, too...though sounds like you'd go through loads of envelopes!

oh my good lordy...

2010-10-13T18:50:00.000-07:00

You will NOT believe what I did today. Okay, so I had planned that after we'd read Little House in the Big Woods (they LOVE Laura, and ask me, right after snack, "Can we see what Laura is up to?" WOW!!), we would then get our stick horses and go for a proper romp...sweaty and sticky and perfect for today.

Luckily we had just gotten to the part where Pa tells the story about "Grandpa and the Panther" and they were all ears and eyes...and horrified about the horse getting eaten by the panther, of course...so, of course, we HAD to go on Kindergartener's-and-the-Panther romp today. But, wouldn't you know it...a parent showed up to help out. Oh boy, what do I do? I can't take these kids out and be so-so, or they'll hate it. Nope. Okay...

So, I just decided not to look back at her; if I could at all avoid eye contact, things would be perfect. Out the door to the grassy area behind our school, and over "canyons" and up "mountains" and a quick horse snack of clover, and we were there...la la la, cantering and galloping and then WOAH! Here comes the panther, run run run!!! They were shrieking and laughing and sweaty, and wouldn't you know it?! Our story turned out much happier than poor Grandpa's...our horses were saved!!

I chanced a look at the mom, and guess what? She was all eyes on her son and smiling and, I think, feeling very happy that he had a teacher who would risk her "maturity" to make her son happy. :) It made me feel good, but I'm still the Spaghetti Feed type.

the winter festival vs. Spaghetti feed

2010-10-12T22:45:00.001-07:00

So, tonight I just can't get to sleep until I get this off of my chest. It came to my attention today that an event I am planning for my families and students is called simply "Spaghetti dinner". It came to my attention when another teacher asks, "Do you guys do Winter Festivals?" To which a friend/parent says, "Welll, we do Spaghetti feeds. " All serious. I crack up and put my head down...yes, and how creative is that. So now the joke is what I could call the Spaghetti dinner: Spaghetti ball, Spaghetti festival, Shakespearean Spaghetti Dinner theater...anyway, you get the point. I am NOT a Winter Festival sort of person. I just am not.

When I get silly with my little kids, I don't like adults hanging on and watching me be a fool. Being a fool in front of the kids, YES. I'm all about it. Just today, I took my overweight, flappin' self on a "round-up" (not our first, or second) on our stick horses, and I KNOW it looked ridiculous. Here I was yelling "Giddyap!" and snortin' like a horse and making jumps over logs and rounding up cows with our invisible lassos. But, I would NOT have done it with an adult around. I just can't bring myself to explain...to explain...well, me.

Kindergarteners, little kids in general, accept that sort of play as normal, desired, admired even. They loved it, their little brains were running on high and there was not a laugh or a "how ridiculous you look Mrs. E" on their faces what so ever...so what do I need to remember: There are Winter Festival teachers and there are Spaghetti Feed teachers, and I am the latter. Oh well....but I can round up invisible cows with the best of em.

This N That

2010-10-10T14:48:00.000-07:00

If you do not have a subscription to the Kindergarten Mailbox Magazine, I HIGHLY recommend it right now...there are so many cool things to get online when you get a subscription. The best thing I find there are planning forms and attendance forms that you can fill out online and print out. They are sooo useful and amazing.

www.theeducationcenter.com

Also is this is probably the best thing I've found for planning your Kindergarten time:

http://www.education.ne.gov/ech/PlanK.pdf

Center organization

2010-10-05T22:50:00.000-07:00

I came up with a way to organize my centers. I have 7 children in my AM class, and 10 children in my PM class, so this works well with these numbers. I have 5 bin colors (yellow, blue, green, red, and white) and 10 children, so they work in groups of two, with two bins of each color. White bins contain "listening centers" - usually a book on tape, a way to tell a story to a friend, or curved white pipes that the kids use as "telephones" so they can quietly tell themselves a familiar story. The Green bins are usually the Theme bins, but have recently been the "Story-telling Bins" with stickers and white paper so they can tell amazing stories! Yellow is Science, Blue is math and Red is Reading and Writing.

I've organized the students on incentive charts I made myself, with the names of the colors of the centers on them. I am using one of those really great pocket charts that are supposed to be for the calendar. During our morning meeting time on Mondays, we go ever every single center and what to do at it. This makes center time last twice as long, but they don't seem to mind it at all! When students finish their assigned learning center for the day, they get a sticker for completing it. This way I've worked in some accountability for each student's learning. Before they put away the center, they must raise their hand and show me what they did to get their sticker. I help them finish or fix anything they need to do. For instance, one of the centers this week is a matching game of the upper and lower-case alphabet (using this - soo cool!). I check under each strawberry to check their work and talk about any that got in the wrong place and that also helps them reset the center as well.

I rotate the pairs of kids every two weeks, but rotate the centers every week, so that each child does one colored center bin each day, until they've rotated through all 5 centers. I LOVE making centers and watching/helping students through their centers every day. They really love them as well :)

You can also see that we practice the Spanish names of colors every day. Each color group also gets a job each day. Blue groups get to be the supply bucket helpers, Yellow groups are line-leaders and snack helpers. Red groups are P.E. helpers. Green groups are Meeting helpers and get to do the pointer for the word wall. White groups get to go to the loft during R&R time (more on that later). If a student is absent, I simply write "ab" in the open space rather than giving them a sticker that day. This way, we know that on Friday (our "Catchup" day) that student gets to do an extra center. For our "Catchup" day, I've made a big ketchup looking bottle out of foam board that says "Catchup" on the front. The kids know that when I hang that up, they must do all of the centers that they didn't do during the week if they missed any. It is fun!

Cowboy Unit

2010-10-03T18:10:00.000-07:00

My daughter :)

I began this Cowboy theme from day one, taking pictures of each student with a cowboy hat and a bandana on. Then I used my digital imaging software and made their pictures look grainy and sepia toned. I wrote their "cowboy name" on the bottom of the picture using this font, then I posted all the photos on our bulletin board with the brown paper cutouts of "WANTED" posted up. The kids loved to hear everyone's cowboy name; we have an "Eagle-Eye Emma", "Outlaw Olivia", "Boot-Scootin' Bela", "Hat-Bender Henry" and so on. I found many of my name ideas from looking at this site.

This is perhaps the first really cute craft I have made so far. We've been warming up in PE to a song called

"Walkin' Old Joe", which I found on Itunes. We love the part where it says "Mosey Old Joe" so, we call these horses our "Mosey Old Joes". The children traced their feet (in their shoes) on brown construction paper, then cut them out. They cut out triangle ears from the scraps, then we drew on the "blaze", the mane, the noses and mouth with crayons. I have eye stickers that they were able to choose from, to make them so great! I had precut the necks, which was really just one standard sheet of brown construction paper cut in half at an angle like this:

I've been sticking them out of the edges of shelves and around the door frames, the edges of windows, so the kids just love them, and so do I! The horse craft was an attempt to help them understand the basics of what a horse looks like: long neck, long face, placement of eyes and nose and ears.

I've taken my morning and afternoon classes, each to a local Horse Ranch, called O'neal Farms, which was a great experience for the kids, as they had the opportunity to brush some very docile ponies, and some were able to lead the ponies out of a stall! It was all very hands-on, and exciting.

Books I've read to them on Cowboys:

The Gingerbread Cowboy - I used this as the students had just finished a unit on the story about the gingerbread man. It was a perfect segue! We talked about what a cowboy wears in this one. The second day, I read it again, and this time I had 6 tiny black and white pictures of certain scenes in the book, then as a class we put those pictures on order and glued them in order to the correct numbers on a sheet of paper. They looked like this:

Where Horses Run Free - beautiful true story about wild horses a

nd the dangers of caging them, and the cowboy who set them free - got me teary.

If I were a Cowboy - perfect for the basics on what a cowboy does. We talked more in-depth about the cowboy here.

Ride Em' Cowboy - cute cute cute! This book's illustrations are made all from carved wooden objects that are painted. They were wonderful! The kids asked me to read this to them a few times.

Rodeo (by Roxie Monroe) - a lift-the-flap book - this was a book in the themed books section of our room, that the kids all seemed to fight over. They all talked about it with me later - very good and engaging.

_______________________

Our word wall now has "cowboy", "cow" and "horse" on it. My Kindergarteners can read these words by sight!!

_______________________

OH MY GOSH!! Cutest Craft Alert!!! We can't help but call these our "Mosey Old Joe's" now...our "Real Mosey Old Joe's" (I LOVE Kindergarteners!!!!) We made these Stick Horses from my son and husband's old socks!! haha! The kids didn't care a snit about old socks, they are just so excited to have their very own little horses! These were easy as pie:

1. Each student got an old sock. They were able to choose the size: pony, cowhorse or draft horse.

2. We stuffed these with old fabric and felt scraps.

3. We glued eyes on with Elmer's glue (I swear that white glue is AMAZING!) These are the biggest google eyes I ever saw and got them (8 in a package) at the Dollar Store.

4. The kids got a rectangle of felt (they chose the color) and then had

them draw a diagonal with a marker and cut on the diagonal - viola! Ears! These were glued on to the head - some were glued down, some glued up, some glued cross-ways. It doesn't matter, as long as they are in the "ear spot", they look as cute as they can be!

5. Students were offered white, black or brown paint and gave their horses blazes, or gave their whole face some color. How cute are they?!

6. After the horse heads dried over the weekend, I hot glued them to some very thick dowels (or in some cases, old sanded rake handles!)

7. Today, the kids got their horses out, and we tied some simple "reins" on them with macrame yarn. I simply tied a loop around their noses (the bit) and then tied the loose end at the other side of the loop, and viola! Reins :) These fit snugly, but can come off as they do on a real horse. I had them corral their horses up in laundry bins.

We sat with our horses in the meeting area and talked about how we don't want our horses to kick out their legs and hurt anybody, so we had to keep their "hooves" on the ground (the stick). We used all the discussion we've had about what it takes to make a good "cow horse", and if their horse was one. We named them, we talked about their personalities, and THEN, we went on a round-up. The week and a half before, the students had painted cows, bulls and calves based on some study we did about cattle. We carefully taped them up to our ranch, but the next day, the cattle was GONE! Why?! The students quickly realized that they hadn't made a fence or given their cattle any food. Probably they'd run away! We needed horses! So, we did a study on horses

and eventually created our Prize winning sweeties so we could go on a roundup.

I hid the cows around the gym, so when it was time, we went on a detailed imaginary trip up mountains, fording streams, jumping ravines, down into valleys and can

yons and exploring caves ( we went ALL over the school), until we made it into the gym. I left the lights off and told the kids it was finally sunset cowboys, I hope we find those cattle. Sure enough, the students found them hidden under equipment and in darkened corners. They were SO excited!!!! We rounded them all up, brought them back to the ranch and set about fixing it up.

One group made a fence. One group made a box of corn, another made a haystack, and another made a pond. When they were done, some of them made little cowboys and cowgirls to watch after the cattle so they wouldn't get out again. It was an amazing first experience for these kids in the Scottish Storyline method that I love so much.

Those twisted up brown things are Juniper trees of which we have in abundance in the High Desert of Oregon, so they HAD to be there, and of course some green netting as Sage brush. The kids also added some flowers along the bottom edge. Did you notice the barn? Quite nice, I think. So is the river and lake...that lake has the sun shining in it, can you see?

Nothing is as exceptional as children's art and conception about life. It is precious stuff that cannot be mimicked. Remarkable!

One of my groups didn't do such a bang-up job on the fence, so I think their cows will be getting out again tomorrow. Shhhhh :)

Today we made the invitations to our Spaghetti Feed & Open House so that my students (and me) can show off the Ranch Storyline we've created. The invitations were made with a printed sheet with the information for the dinner, and then I'd had these cowboy hat die-cuts and didn't know what to do with them! So, I had the kids turn them upside down as a bowl, then we glued orange yarn in them as spaghetti (just didn't have white, but that would've been cool) and red pompoms as meatballs! I luckily had some little bags that look like old west advertisements that we folded our invitations up into, and put a paper bow in the fronts that were printed with bandanna print. Ahhh...kismet. The paper bows are wired and were found at the local thrift store for .10 cents for a brand new roll! I use red for all things "PM Kindergarten" and blue for all things "AM Kindergarten", and won't you guess?! I found the paper ribbon in both blue and red!!! WOW!

soon

2010-09-30T23:22:00.000-07:00

This is going to be a REAL working site pretty soon...once I get all these colors right, I'm going to be adding in some fun stuff for Kindergarten Teachers - ideas and templates, crafts and center ideas...things like that. Woohoo!

my new job

2010-08-19T23:37:00.000-07:00

I finally get to teach.

I feel like I'm living some sort of dream. Everyday I've felt like things are all so new... I find myself crying while I'm driving...in thanks...

Is it dangerous to love something so much?

Maybe, Probably...but this is how I'm made.

This new job expects the most of me, and I find myself making my way to the edge of it.

It is scary and thrilling all at once...

I have become a Kindergarten teacher.

Kindergarten matters

2010-08-01T00:02:00.000-07:00

http://www.kinderthemes.com/thekissinghand.html

http://www.kinderthemes.com

http://www.kindergarten-lessons.com

especially for art lessons and social studies themes

I never imagined myself...today I'm imagining it.

Classroom Setup

2010-07-27T10:27:00.001-07:00

This is pretty cool to play with!!

http://teacher.scholastic.com/tools/class_setup/

Best Read Alouds

2010-05-13T22:30:00.000-07:00

This story begins with the promise of a wooden egg...later it hatches and out pops "Barkbelly." It is an interesting combination of "unsafe and fascinating" that we love. When bad things happen, they are bad things (i.e. someone gets bit "down to the bone" and has to have his leg amputated). It is utterly fascinating and keeps all four of us wondering what in the world will happen next. It made a permanent place in my heart for these lines:

"But those eyes...Beautiful though they were, they were full of sadness. And just for a moment Barkbelly had a vision of a forest. Of trees and snow. Secret, silent spaces. Wild freedom. And suddenly he knew what the urchin had lost, because it was something he had lost too. But until that moment he hadn't known he had lost it."

This is amazing, heart-wrenching...my son even shed some tears over poor Edward Tulane's happy ending...Kate DiCamillo (Winn-Dixie and The Tale of Desperaux - we've read those, too!!) wrote this sweetest story. It was so touching, it made my FAVORITES list right away.

This is CLASSIC! My mama read it to my brother and I when we were little, and some scenes have stuck with me through my life (falling through the ice, getting his own little calves, wrecking the house while mom and dad were away, getting ice for the ice house...etc) My kids still remember these scenes, too! Gotta love Little House on the Prairie...right??!!

I found this book about 3 years ago for my kids. It is absolutely essential, to my way of thinking. It is from the perspective of a little boy talking to his grandpa.

Grandpa is very wise and tells his grandson about all the different belief systems that have a version of the Golden Rule and why that is really the only law that counts...it is beautifully illustrated as well. Like I said, ESSENTIAL!!

Old Turtle and the Broken Truth was given to me by a good friend. I was taken aback by the ending and broke out in tears. It is so beautiful. I had to read it three times to let it sink in and then we had such a good discussion with the kids about tolerance and understanding and love.BEAUTIFUL MESSAGE, timeless and again, ESSENTIAL!!!

WOW...can I just say...WOW. This book is like nothing you've ever seen. The illustrations are wordless pages in the story. You HAVE to interpret/look at the illustrations to go along in the story. They are not just illustrating what was already written. Fascinating, different, enchanting...absolutely fabulous. It can go as deep as you'd like. My 4 and 7 year old LOVED it. They demanded I read it to them on a long camping trip. We were sad when it was done. It's a MUST READ, for sure. I'm going to read this one to my middle school kids...they'll LOVE it!

I read this to my son, and he really loved it, but I made the decision not to read anymore so he could read them when he had the skills. Harry Potter books are instant classics, fabulously imaginative, beautifully detailed...fascinating...they hit that secret part of me that wants to be looking for magical creatures and chanting spells and waving wands...reading this to him was really unforgettable. It was one of the best read aloud times we've ever had.

Maniac Magee is on my list of books that are entitled "If you ever read only 10 books in your whole life, make it one of these"...just kidding, I don't have a list like that, but I pretend I do. Maniac is a wonderful character who does not have the ability to see "black" or "white" and in fact says of his friends on the East End, that they were "gingersnap and light fudge and dark fudge and acorn and butter rum and cinnamon and burnt orange. But never licorice, which, to him, was real black." He also saw himself as "at least seven shades of color right on his own skin not one of them being what he would call white (except for his eyeballs, which weren't any whiter than the eyeballs of the kids in the East End).

Amen to books like this one...beautiful beautiful books that tell a story so rich and so insightful that it can't help but pull the readers and listeners in...bravo to those writers who can do that...bravo!

A Soft Answer

2010-04-29T22:35:00.000-07:00

Working in a Behavior Room for teenagers, I come in contact, every single day, with at least 10 students throughout the day for two or more periods per day, who are extremely hard to deal with - that is on a slow day. When I say "extremely hard to deal with", what I'm really saying is, "Wouldn't it be nice to boot-kick this kid out the door and never see them again?" Know what I mean? These kids have a colorful array of tools that they have honed that they like to use, such as wanting to call me/peers terrible names, yell obscenities, pull chairs out from under each other, completely ignore me, look like they might punch me/peers in the face, try to kick me, kick me, throw/break pencils, throw/rip papers, leave, become utterly defiant, or, did I mention throwing/breaking already...yes, that too.

I'm totally ASTONISHED at what subtlety does in there. Are you astonished at hearing it?! If you work in a room like this, you aren't probably astonished, but I am...astonished, that is. I wasn't trained to work with these sorts of kids. I haven't read the latest research, gone to any classes, or read any books on their special cases. I was literally thrown in here about 6 months ago, and I'm astonished. (yes, it's true)

Here's what I mean: When I first came to this room, I, of course, figured I should exert my authority right-quick. I came down hard. I screamed back. I sent kids to the office. I didn't want to hear it, I said NO. I thought to myself, "Hey, this is tough, but I can do it." I'm looking back on that now, thinking to myself, "Whaaaaateeeeever...get over yourself already."

This is what I learned: A soft answer turneth away wrath. Yup. I totally mean it. When a student yells at me (i.e. f***in' b****), I know to sit down quietly across from them, look them in the eye (maybe), gently touch their hand (or not) and say, "Hey, what's goin' on today?" Probably 9 times out of 10 that kid will calm down. Probably 8 times out of 10 they'll answer back quieter. Probably 7 times out of 10 they might actually want to tell me (i.e. "I didn't get breakfast." "My sister ran away last night." " My uncle went to jail." "I don't know.") I didn't learn that the easy way. I just kept (keep on) going toward what seems to work.

I just finally cared enough to create a relationship with these kids.

I FINALLY CARED ABOUT THE ROOT CAUSE ENOUGH TO ASK THEM, QUIETLY.

Frickin' ASTONISHING.

So today, I didn't do that.

Today I demanded an already edgy kid spell "Asia" correctly...I completely lost him within 3 minutes of sitting down with him. He wanted it spelled "asha"...whatever me. whaaaat eeeeeeveeeeerrrrr. Why could I not have said, "Alright then, I won't fight you on that, let's go on to number 2 then." I probably could've gotten the entire thing finished with him, instead I sent him to the office to "think about his bad behavior"

Okay, okay...it was 6th period, I was d-o-n-e and had had it up to "here" with the backtalk, the name-calling, the insubordination, the No's, so I pushed too hard and picked a loosing battle.

I'm not being hard on myself, I try. 6 months isn't long to learn this trick, much less perfect it.

It is so hard to know just how much to push and challenge these kids, and just how much to give space and back off. It is a tender balancing act. When it works completely, it is a truly magical unbelievable moment...like if all the planets align and we have a blue moon kind of moment. It rarely lasts for a few hours, but that is a long time for an emotionally disturbed child to be calm and compliant and able to learn! I'll take that, quietly.

Besides, I figure Mother Bunch is not a yeller. I figure she asks questions and then actually listens.

Do as I say...not as I do?!

2010-04-20T17:24:00.000-07:00

You know the Golden Rule, right? You know..."Treat others the way you'd like to be treated." How often do we actually EMPLOY that with children? Why do I hear teachers tell kids to treat others kindly, but then don't have the time of day to listen to their silly little stories? I have a theory. I have a theory that we think (oh YES, I'm included here) that:

we are actually too busy to pay attention to our students...

Did you hear that?

As a person who has chosen to dedicate her or his life to the wellbeing and education of these precious pieces of our future generation, we feel too busy to listen to them.

Did you take a pause? Did you sigh at yourself?

...yes...me too.

How would you feel if you came into the staff room and you said something like, "You won't believe what a strange day I'm having..." and no one looked up, but suddenly got real busy with their tuna on ryes and shuffling through their lunch bags. So you try again, "Hey Chuck, did I tell you about my morning?" To which Chuck gets up and begins washing the staff dishes (who washes staff dishes?!) and says, "You know I'd like to listen to you, Katie, but I'm real busy with these dishes here." I'd feel devalued. I'd feel a bit devastated. I'd feel like I didn't trust Chuck with these sorts of things anymore, and most of all, I'd wonder why the dishes are so important at that moment.

Don't get me wrong. I've got the mile-a-minute talkers/badgerers/hanger-oners, too. But truly I always give them some time. Afterall, it is also my job to teach them math and writing and we've got to get at least one page read of their novel. I've been practicing giving them one full minute of my attention. This is not when I'm shuffling papers or looking elsewhere. I sit down with them and stare them in the eye and listen and comment honestly with them. Then I've begun looking at the clock and saying, "I'm so sorry to interrupt you, but we only have about X minutes to get that math done. Do you want to have lunch with me and talk about your motorcycle some more?" I've never had a taker for a lunch talk, but I'd be open to it.

I figure that my first job is to let them understand that I'm truly there for them, that I want to know them as people, and that I'm interested in their excitements. A student that is constantly rebuffed will loose their faith in you. Gradually, they won't talk to you anymore about themselves. I know that from experience, and it is one of my saddest most regretful things I've done as a teacher.

You remember Abraham Maslow, right? Maslow had a triangle that expressed a heirarchy of needs we all must have have. We must have the one before we can have another. At the base is Physiological needs, such as food, shelter, clothing (which I need to talk about one day soon). Once you do not have to worry about these basic needs, you are looking for safety. You must feel BODILY and MENTALLY safe in order to get to the next level. Guess what is just after that? Yup...belonging/connectedness/friendship. If you do not get this, you can't go on to the next level, which is self-esteem/achievement/confidence...this is where teachers are really at in the scheme of things. This is the level at which most of our students and ourselves are working at. If we take out any of those things below, ain't nothing gonna move on forward.

Let's say our student has all basic needs met, and feels safe at home and at school, but doesn't feel connected to you in any way. Do you really think that they are going to gain confidence in themselves? Are they going to care about achieving anything you've set before them? What about their self-esteem? Nope. Nada.

If our goal is to help these children to make it to the top level of the pyramid (self-awareness, creativity, meaning, inner potential), why oh why can't we take a minute to sit and listen to them talk? Why is it so important to grade that test or shuffle those papers? None of that will mean anything if we don't remember why we are there in the first place: to make a difference in the life of a child.

Here's my two-cents for today:

Connect with the children at your school.

Get to know them as people,

as interesting human beings who contribute to the world.

Be their guide.

Dirty Magic

2010-04-13T21:24:00.000-07:00

Gardening is Dirty Magic.

I've seen it untie the scary twists in a soul.

One of my students will do just about anything to get to the greenhouse...even translating a polygon over a coordinate graph "real quick" so she can get out there.

She marches ahead of me, sure I am not fast enough.

I unlock and swing wide the door, but before we are really over the threshold, her hands are wrist-deep in a wheelbarrow full of rich, dark potting soil.

A very loud sigh resonates through the warmth, and that makes me so happy for her.

She uncoils. She stretches. She softens.

She tells me the tallest tales, and I pretend to believe them.

"I lived on a farm and had 65 cows and 32 horses and I had to take care of them all."

"Unbelievably hard work, I would think."

"Yes, I'm use to hard work, " she says, "Horses love me. I'm pretty much a horse-whisperer."

Without another word, she grabs the nearest empty hanging basket and begins a silent task...a task that she creates. Work that she has ordered. Seeds that she has raised, very lovingly and slowly planted weeks before, are now ready to transplant. I see her gentle intentions, taking these vulnerable children out of their pots and seeing them safely replanted in the soil that she has turned and watered. She takes her time.

From my humid corner, organizing tools and sweeping up messes, I hear her say, "This whole thing is gonna be purple. Just purple. A whole pot of purple." She says this quietly, as she works.

The wonder of it comes in knowing how her day is spent in anger and resentment, loud cursing and hitting, unreal accusations and a special brand of task-avoidance that I've not seen the like of before.

I have a quick daydream of making this her all-day sanctuary school. I would be effortlessly teaching her how to balance a checkbook when we bought more plants and seeds and dirt, and we would measure the growth of our little beauties. We'd talk about profit and loss when we had plant sales, then we'd write gardening memoirs and how-to essays. We'd make our lunch from what we'd grown. We'd learn about famous naturalists and gardeners and copy their methods and try their experiments. We'd try crossing varieties and learn how to garden organically. We'd have hammocks for that time of day when she loves to curl up and read.

Of course there'd be one magical little bluebird that constantly tweets above our heads as well.

aaaaaand End Scene...

Of course, schools don't have the resources to pay one teacher to dedicate her entire career to just one troubled student...in a perfect world this would be normal.

I'm so sorry these kinds of things get laughed at. I'm so sorry that we all feel that this is a pipe dream, right off the bat. I'm so sorry that I know it isn't possible right now. Mostly, I'm sorry that she can't at least come to school to be untangled every single day, all day long...instead she sees this Dirty Magic as one promising little window in her day.

I just took a big sigh and realized this:

We bring in the Magic whenever and wherever we are able, and that is all we can do.

I don't have the means, the mode or the opportunity to give her my little day dream, but I do have 55 minutes once a day. That is the most I can do.

The "Mother Bunch" Philosophy

2010-04-06T17:46:00.000-07:00

Okay...you'll have to just go with me on this, but I've come up with something that I am calling the "Mother Bunch" Philosophy. I would call it the pedagogy by which I ascribe.

In the 18th century (my favorite time period!!), there were stories told by a Mother Bunch. When we first hear of Mother Bunch (late 16th and then the 17th centuries), she was a lewd brothel keeper who poured a good mug of ale and knew coarse jokes. Many different kinds of limericks and anecdotes are attributed to her. Think of a naughty Mother Goose.

As the years went by, however, she luckily evolved into a wise old country woman. There were many little chapbooks in which she teaches charms and magical recipes. In 1777, we find Mother Bunch's Fairy Tales in which Mother Bunch is a morally upstanding storyteller, suited for children even. Just guess who she became in later years? That's right...Mother Goose.

I prefer the less safe, more real old country woman sharing her stories and magical wisdom. I prefer the chubby, comfy lap of Mother Bunch. I prefer the crooked smile and the knowing eyes. I imagine coming upon her little cottage in a bright wood full of ravens and hares. I imagine her homespun linen apron pockets are full of pretty bits of ribbon, old letters, a tiny leather ledger with margins full of stories, a bit of fresh mint for chewing on and a rusty old key to unlock who-knows-what.

Mother Bunch is a woman who makes no apologies for who she is. She is confident in her power and doesn't listen to naysayers. She is authentic, and this makes her happy beyond all reason. She is easy to laugh and quick to warm up your tea. I love this woman, don't you?

So, the "Mother Bunch" philosophy of teaching: invite children in by being excited, confident, friendly, comforting and honest; teach children through story; teach children through experiences; help children keep their magic.

I think it should be required curriculum for aspiring educators. It'd be called "Mother Bunch 432 - teaching strategies to last a lifetime"

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fondly, Katie