Celebrating the Kiddos

In these last few days we have left for our school year, we have had many little celebrations. Today we made a snack and little books with our Pre-K reading buddies. Didn't exactly come out the way I had envisioned, but they certainly didn't care. I forgot I had my party hat on when we went to lunch though-everyone was wishing me a happy birthday!

Our awards program is on Monday (yes, we are going to school on Monday, make-up day for our wintry weather). In addition to the awards that the school provides (I had 9 students with perfect attendance for the year-I think that's a new record!)--I made each student one of these "The Top 10 Things We Love About.....".

I make a slideshow every year and this year decided to do it with group pics/friends and then 3 slides showcasing each child. I listened to tons of different songs (seriously, just choosing the music took me like 2 hours!) and ended up with this one. I think it's perfect for my little dreamers! They sing along with wild abandon.

After reading so many articles on how to promote summer reading I broke down and spent too much money at Scholastic's Dollar sale. I bought each student at least 2 books on their level and wrote them a note telling them how proud I was of their effort this year.

And lastly, I have taken a day to take each table of students outside to eat with them at lunch. Do you know how lunch usually flies by? It doesn't so much when you are sitting outside, listening to the birds and enjoying conversations about the Frozen movie or sibling rivalry. Teachers will walk by and ask "oooh, what did you do to earn lunch with the teacher?" and the kids will just look at me. We are doing it "just because". I want to enjoy these last few days with them. It's a tradition I want to start next year, maybe every Friday, at random, including everyone. Today one of them asked me why I wasn't married and I had to laugh! I said I hadn't met my Prince Charming yet. And the reply was "well, Miss Trayers you better hurry up, aren't you always saying that you're old!"---LOL!  We have had some very interesting conversations! :)

It has been a very enjoyable week with them. Next week we are doing a dinosaur unit where I get to do fun activities with them which are not necessary curriculum based, but just because-looking forward to that too. :)

Feedback

One of the hardest lessons for me to learn as a teacher was that you can't please everyone. Parents all come in with different expectations, then you have the kids who definitely have differences in how they want to learn and then add admins to the mix. Try as you might, it's hard to sometimes to keep everyone happy. My best example of this is what happened to a colleague of mine. In our old building we could control the AC (central controls now). A parent was helping out in the room and complained to the administration that the room was too hot-her son couldn't work in that environment. Teacher was told to lower the AC, so this poor teacher was walking around all day in a jacket. The following week 2 parents were in the office complaining that it was too cold. My friend said she felt like Goldilocks looking for that "just right". I very much appreciate feedback from parents. I am a people pleaser and would love to please everyone-however, like I learned early on, that's not always possible.

That leads me to my question: do any of you do parent surveys for feedback at the end of the year? I'm looking for maybe a better way to do it. I create a survey through the SurveyMonkey site and post it on our class webpage, of course letting them know it's there. I don't get many responses though. I've done this every year for the past 4 years and only have at most received 3 (some years zero-I took it myself to make sure it worked). Uusally the complaints are about something that's school policy-I have no say in it and couldn't fix that if I wanted to. I want it to be anonymous or I'd do one on paper. If you have found a better way, please let me know.

In addition to asking for feedback from parents I also ask my students. This always makes me laugh! I can't wait until this becomes part of our evaluation because I know that's coming. Even though I encourage them to be honest, that this will help future kids-most won't lodge any kind of complaint. I literally just threw something together last minute (did I mention we only have 5 more days with the kiddos-haven't even started packing anything yet!). But here are some of their responses:

What would you change: get a relaxing day for Miss Trayers! :)

That pesky drama!

What would you change: big tables and big chairs--they do have little chairs!

Of course, the favorite part is recess!

Ruby is my dog-so no, that is not happening! :)

"Make everyone good"---Where's that magic wand again?

Awww-favorite part was meeting me and you would give me a break. I sense a trend. :)

The last one named a student-that's why I cut it out. I'm glad she liked the activities and chapter books--I do try! :)

I actually like the fun homework suggestion. I'm actually not a fan of homework period and might take her idea and run with that next year.

See, they like choice! I'm with you on the spelling tests honey, I don't like those either. Do you think anyone would notice if I just stopped giving them?

Cupcakes do make everything better, don't they? :)

And of course, lollipops! :) I am absolutely not one to use food as rewards-maybe I need to rethink that policy too! :)

Well I always tell my kiddos, don't ask the question if you don't want to hear the answer! I asked and they responded.

I Do Believe We Make a Difference....

I received this letter from a former student today. I taught her when she was in Kindergarten and now she just finished 5th Grade and will be moving on to middle school. I am not a very emotional person but it brought tears to my eyes:

"I'll remember you as the one that inspired me, accepted me and loved me with all your heart....you have impacted my life by bringing the wonders of reading to me. Because of that one small little book, I decided from that day on, to become an author". *sob*  Is that the sweetest thing?!? 

Teaching little ones, you hear it from them all the time-you're the best teacher ever and I always think, well, I'm the only teacher you've had so far, I'm sure next year's teacher will earn the same moniker. But the lessons you teach them do matter-whether they express it or not, I truly believe that they do.

Summer Reading

This is something I think many schools are still trying to figure out. I know we always send something out last minute and it's never followed-up on-so guess how successful that is. We had a meeting last year debating the book list of recommended reading to go home and the way the kids had to document what they read. I fought for an honor system and just trusting them with a list of books read-but I was outvoted. They would be required to write basically book reports on each book. I don't know of any students who ended up doing it. I wish school libraries could be open in the summer-I understand why they are not, but in an ideal world..... I know there are public libraries, however many of our population don't have transportation or sometimes fear the legal documents necessary to get a library card.

So what do we do? We know kids who read over the summer do better in the fall. I think my kids are still passionate about reading. They still go ga-ga over the books I bring them weekly from the public library. This is my plan:

1) I did buy them some books from the Scholastic sale and my library's charity (50 cents per book!). I will send those home hoping they don't end up under a bed somewhere. They are on their level and there are about 3 per child. That should get them started!

2) We use Kidblog and I will encourage the kids to log in and give updates/reviews of what they are reading. On a good day I have about 30% of my kiddos who use it during the school year though.

3) I am asking parents to send me pics of the kids reading in crazy places-I will post those on our class website and they can see each other reading.

4) I'm still waiting for approval-but I really want to meet up with them at a library one Saturday this summer and do a book "club" meeting to discuss what we've read. I have never tried to meet up with them off-campus before, so I need to run that by my admins.

5) We are using the Scholastic Summer Reading Challenge site. The logins it generates for them are really long and hard to remember/spell, but they are excited about the competition aspect of it. I'll have a prize for the top 5 readers. (I know that's controversial-but my thought is whatever works-if they won't read on their own and need that motivation....)

6) We do have a district contest that despite the fact we only have 8 days with the students, have not received information on how that's going to work. :(

For myself, I am excited. This is the first year in about 12 years straight that I decided not to teach summer school. I'm tired. From Sept-March I stay after school for student clubs and from Jan-Spring Break I was even working Saturdays. I'm a little scared that I'll get bored-but I have a daily plan! And I also have these piles of books. It's actually pretty amazing considering just 3 years ago-I didn't read for fun at all! This is my assigned summer reading because I have to read the books on my student book club list:

And yes, I have never read Harry Potter books before! :)

This is my pile for fun:

I'm actually excited to just veg out a little bit. My dog and I will go walk in the park every day, signed up for a billion PD sessions. I plan to do some work on the house. I even want to start on my book! (shhh!) But I am also going to do what I ask my kiddos to do and read!read! read! 

Are you doing anything exciting to encourage summer reading?

Why I Teach

This time of year I believe is all about reflection. What did we do that worked? What could I have done better? I am one of those people who starts planning over the summer for the next group and these things are important, I believe, for me to consider.

In a lot of ways it's a scary time for education right now. If you follow it politically, there could be a lot of changes coming depending on how elections go. If you watch your local news you will see all the horrible things teachers are doing these days.Not to mention how the standards we need to reach just keep climbing higher and higher-do you know that by November in Kinder our students are expected to identify the value of money and use punctuation/capitalization!!! November report cards!!

 So why continue to teach?

For me, it's things like this:

beginning of 1st Grade

last month

This is the same kid beginning of the year to the end. He used to write in all capital letters, much more invented spelling. That is progress!

Beginning of 1st Grade

May

And that's just writing! I've had fluency jumps from a frustrational level to 40 wpm (I know that our goal is 60 by the end of 1st Grade, but I still think that's huge progress). Many of my kids went from about 40 to 90 or beyond-especially the GT ones. I have some reading 120 wpm now.

We had our Field Day on Friday and our class did really well-do you know why I think that is? We didn't practice the skills, we didn't have a lot of athletes, and we certainly didn't cheat as others would contend! We do a lot of cooperative group and classroom community activities together. We are used to working together-cheering each other on.

I think it's so rewarding to see the growth they make. Others may not see it because you can't measure it with a standardized test and you're not in the class every day to see the metamorphosis-but I am and I do. And that's one of the many reasons I hope I have the opportunity to ALWAYS be a teacher! :)

This is totally me:

Class Symbols

So my beloved camera broke :(. I've had it forever so it was probably just a matter of time-but what bad timing. We had a field trip to a science museum and Field Day last week! I bought a new one that I have to get used to now. I tell you this also because these pics were taken with my cell phone-so I know the quality is not as good.

I've been with many of my kiddos for 2 years now because I looped up with them. It makes these last few weeks hard on all of us. I know they will be in good hands next year, but still-saying good-bye will be hard. I asked them to come up with a symbol that could stand for our class. I think it's a challenging activity because it's abstract. Here's what they came up with:

A bell because we are noisy.

working together

a monkey because we are rambunctious sometimes

Share-because we always share

a heart because we should always be kind

Pants-because they are smart (smarty-pants :)

No explanation of why, but I like it!

Dogs and cats because they explore and we explore learning

A T for thank you and for test. (we just got done with our week of standardized testing)

working together

That's me! :)

Flora and Ulysses

I haven't posted anything since Friday, that's not like me. However, with a whole week of testing over we are just trying to get back in the swing of things. Officially 13 days left for the kiddos-2 of those days are field trips, one field day (we might need to add a boating competition-lots of rain!), an awards day and end-of-year party. Still, of course, lots we can learn but I don't know how serious the kids are about that these days.

We had a Teacher Appreciation Program yesterday and are supposed to dress up. I have a child in my class who is the son of a teacher at our school. He walked in yesterday and said "that's what you're wearing?!?"-you gotta love 'em. I guess he thought I was underdressed! I wear skirts/dresses all the time so I guess wearing one of my regular outfits was not good enough for him. :)

I got my book list for the student book clubs I facilitate for and am very proud of myself for already beginning to read some of the titles. I really liked this one:

I think it would make a great read-aloud for young kiddos. It's about a girl kind of obsessed with a superhero comic who inadvertantly comes across a squirrel with super-powers. It has really great vocabulary opportunities thrown in like "Holy unanticipated consequences"-but overall is an easy read. It's fun! I really don't know where Kate DiCamillo comes up with her ideas-you know she wrote Because of Winn-Dixie and The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane (one of my all-time favorites) among others.

I hope everyone is enjoying their final weeks with their kiddos. I know it will go by fast. I'll really miss this group-they are really sweet kids! It's hard to say good-bye when you've spent 2 years with them. I did find out I get to go back to Kinder next year-so that I am thankful for that.