The Importance of Mentors

I think mentors are very important. Not even just for someone new at a job, but for everyone. I would love to have a mentor. If I ran the world :) or at least a school, I would assign every teacher a partner so they could mentor each other throughout the year. Maybe give them time once a month to share ideas or lessons with each other. I konw there are a lot of people who would probably roll their eyes at that idea but there are so many times I have an idea for an activity and I just don't have anyone to ask for an opinion of how to implement it, etc. Or sometimes a sensitive situation comes up and you could just use some advice on how to handle it. 

My mentor my first year of teaching was not very open to collaboration. As a matter of fact, whenever we were required to do an activity together, she'd just hand it to me and tell me to fill it out. I have not had much luck being a mentor either. I've been assigned 3 times and was super-excited. Well, two of those people quit before pre-service ended (I don't think that had anything to do with me, simply mistaken expectations of how easy teaching would be). And the other just wasn't open to any kind of collaboration. Oh well, we do what we can. And luckily I have fellow bloggers that I consider to be mentors.:)

Anyway, I bring this up because one of our Pre-K classes generously offered to allow my students to come read to their students each Friday. I think this is good for both groups. The younger students are hearing stories being read the way they aim to read someday. And my kiddos are given an opportunity to practice those reading chops. During the week they pick out books "I think my buddy might like this one" or "do you think this is too long to read to my buddy?". It's heartwarming to see them get so excited about a literary activity.

Then I have my Student Council group. The students this year suggested we have a mentor program where the older representatives are mentoring the younger ones. I was so impressed that they would come up with an idea like that I ran to my principal who also approved. One day a week after school the 1st Graders came and played some games and heard some stories that the older kids brought to share with them. I really hope it's something that we can do next year on a bigger level-maybe giving the "mentors" some leadership classes and having a year-long relationship with a younger student.

I think the mentor process can be good for everyone involved!

Don't Stop Believin'

So I am reading Because of Winn-Dixie to my students as our chapter read-aloud now. One of the most touching parts is when Opal asks her father to tell her 10 things about her mother who left them years before, and he lists them. I asked the students to make their own decalogues--10 things you believe in. I was so floored by what they came up with, I wanted to share them with you. These are 6 and 7 year olds! Not only did they come up with some incredibly thoughtful things (I believe in liberty, justice, being kind, etc.) but it really took stamina for them to write that and there were barely any complaints.

I believe I can do it and I believe you can do it too! :)

"Parents should go fishing more"-maybe people would be more patient if that happened! :)

I believe I can make my Dad smile. :)

New Use For Bluebonnets

It's rodeo season here! So in the spirit of the season we were talking about how Bluebonnets were the official flower of Texas. Here are my mom's puppies (Lily and Gracie) enjoying the bluebonnets.

So I asked the kids to come up with a new use for bluebonnets. For some reason this was a tough one for them.

As a light stick

as a brush

to make a marker

decorations for the trees on the 4th of July

smell repellent

play-doh

a bow-to make her hair smell good

to write

to make her parents restroom smell good :)

tricking her cousin into eating one

Advocating for Our Kinder Babies

I try not to get up on my soapbox very often here. But I read this article posted on Twitter: The Disturbing Transformation of Kindergarten  and if you were in my house you could have heard me talking to it repeatedly as I read it "Amen!". So I thought I would share.

Here in Texas we don't subscribe to Common Core, so I can't speak to that aspect of it. But I can say that every year more and more standards are pushed down to Kindergarten. Well, they are having trouble with regrouping in 2nd Grade, so we will start introducing it in Kinder. They are having trouble with high frequency words in 1st Grade, so we need to not only teach our Kinder kids more words but spend an enormous amount of time testing and re-testing them individually every 2 weeks so we can discuss their progress with hfw's. We no longer have objectives in our curriculum for fine motor skills (that used to be a main focus). So if an administrator walks in and my students are playing with clothespins and beading-I have no way to officially justify it. Guess what, year after year their handwriting gets worse! Probably because we are putting writing utensils in it before they have properly developed those skills.

This year money was included in our K curriculum. Money! Do you know how hard it is to teach money (a very abstract concept) to kids who have not yet mastered number sense? I can attest to the fact that I taught it in Kinder and to the same kids in 1st Grade and they are still having difficulty with it. Sure they can memorize the coins and amounts, but they don't really have a clear understanding of it; so they are unable to apply it. And guess what, the following year they have retained nothing of it. Guess I'm not doing my job very well.

I think we need to advocate for our Kinder classrooms! I fought to keep my housekeeping center and the dollhouse I have used for years. Why? I think there is nothing better to allow students to practice their speaking skills and vocabulary-which guess what, carries over to reading and writing skills. I hear them comparing family stories, using their imagination to create family stories-even my very shy, uncommunicative students communicate in that center. It's their favorite one!

They need to learn how to associate with each other. When kids enter Kinder they will spend 20 minutes arguing over who is the red piece in a game. I very often hear "he's cheating!" and when I question "how is he cheating" the response is "well, he's winning". They don't play games with people anymore. Most students that I talk to only play games online or on an ipad-by themselves. Now, more than ever, we need to make sure they are getting social skills. Tell me they didn't learn something from working together to build this? What objective does it meet-I can't name one, but I still think it's a valuable experience.

Now, if you read my blog regularly at all, you know I believe in high expectations. I teach creativity and critical thinking explicitly in my classroom every single day. I believe in rigor and in challenging the students. Rigor is not teaching more. Rigor is going deeper into their curricular objectives. There is a difference between challenging them on their developmentally appropriate objectives and teaching them things they are in no way ready for. I could teach multiplication in Kindergarten-they could memorize the math facts of 5 x 5=25, but they don't understand the why of it. They can't apply it in any kind of problem solving situations. So what's the purpose of taking time on that which could be used for something more valuable.

Yes, reading is important. But we could teach reading 8 hours a day for 180 days and some students still wouldn't be able to read. That light bulb hasn't gone off yet. They look at letters and it looks like gobblety-gook to them. And do not get me started on standardized testing! We not only take a standardized test in Kinder (supposed to be used to identify GT students) we are required to teach to that test. Our team was once told that we were not to teach writing until after testing was over-because that's not a subject that's tested. Do you know how long it takes Kinder kids to learn how to write? You can't just do it in a few months-not successfully anyway.

So if I have to sneak in art, music, science and social studies--I do just that! I am always ready to explain the benefit of movement activities and songs. I can put up objectives to justify housekeeping stations and sensory tables-it may be a stretch-but I can do it. We have to keep learning fun for these babies! That's how they learn at this age.

Fortunately, the Milk

I've always been a fan of scary stories. When I was a teenager my dad would always get me a copy of the latest Stephen King book (actually he still does that sometimes! :). I used to read books like "Stories to Read With the Lights On" (I mean, who doesn't do that), but they were suspenseful.

Maybe because of that I think Neil Gaiman is an incredible writer. He writes both children's (Coraline) and adult books (The Ocean At the End of the Lane)-which I think is a feat in itself. And they are always entertaining. I think I came across this one as a suggested book on Amazon (they get me with that all the time!). It's:

The story is about a man who goes out to get some milk for his children's breakfast and takes a very long time to return. His explanation why includes aliens, pirates, vampires and time-traveling dinosaurs-just to name a few. As the story goes on the kids comment (weren't there any ponies?) and you can tell they are very skeptical. The ending is downright reminiscient of Keysor Soze (Usual Suspects....Kevin Spacey breakout movie). The illustrations are masterful. The story is entertaining. I usually read a chapter a day of a book to my students-well, there are no chapters, it just goes straight through. It seems like something my father would have tried to pull when we little, maybe that's why I like it so much! :)

Well, why not discuss the ethics of him telling such a story. At first, my little moral 1st Graders were convinced that all lying was wrong. Then I reminded them of how they just read with their Pre-K buddies and told them how they read the story so well--was that 100% true? Or what about when your mom gets her hair cut and it makes her look like Annie? When she says "what do you think?" do you tell her the truth? That discussion lead to their answers to the question: Do you think the Dad was right or wrong to tell such a make-believe story to the kids leading them to believe it was the truth?