A Case for Housekeeping Centers

There is no doubt that early childhood education has become more stringent in it's academic expectations in the past 10 years or so. We always tested high frequency words in 1st and 2nd Grade as a promotion standard-now we have a required Kindergarten list. Our students are expected to go from zero to 40 words per minute in 9 months time. I was in a training this week where we were encouraged to start testing them on math facts. We are actually teaching money and place value concepts now. They take monthly benchmarks in multiple choice, bubble in format several times per year. My evaluation is based on their growth on those tets. Forget about Kinder being the foundation of skill-building anymore.

Anyway, one point of contention is always kitchen centers. I've worked with teachers who just stuck it in a corner, or got rid of it entirely. I have fought to keep mine. You know I truly believe in challenging kids and in rigor. There is nothing rigorous about housekeeping centers, however, they do serve a vital purpose. The kids are practicing their oral language skills and vocabulary. They are practicing to be future moms and dads. And selfishly, I love to watch them play there! They use the old cell phones to tell their husbands how late they are for dinner. The scold the dolls for rolling their eyes. They cook me lunch! :) We had our Meet-and-Greet last week and where did all the kids go to play? You guessed it.

I got the cutest little wok set this year-bok choy that comes apart and all. I also got a toaster set that I probably shouldn't admit, but I think I bought it for the little wooden honey bear--how cute is that!

So as the powers-that-be make our jobs harder, I will hang on to those artifacts of the olden days when the main objective of Kindergarten was polishing social and fine motor skills. Call me crazy, but I think Kindergarten should still be fun! 

Finally Done!

My classroom is finally done! Well, as done as you can be. I still have to get a few little things like book boxes (we have a new leveled library and the books they provided go from levels A-N--more boxes than I thought I'd need!). But I was happy with how it came out, especially considering I moved classrooms so had to unpack everything!

We had Meet-the-Teacher last night and all but 3 of my families came by to meet me. I have them fill out a little inventory that includes 3 adjectives to describe their child and what they wish for them this year. I loved reading them last night. Lots of big wishes to work towards.

S.C.A.M.P.E.R. for Nursery Rhymes

S.C.A.M.P.E.R. is a great way to challenge kiddos to think critically and creatively. I use nursery rhymes in my whole group reading activties because I think they are great for discussions about rhymes and rhythm. Not to mention playing with the words and sentences can be fun!

 

 

S-Substitute:you can substitute new words and find new rhymes or just see if it changes the meaning. "Little Boy Blue, come blow your....bubble" (instead of horn). How would that change the meaning of the rhyme.

 

C.-Combine:combine 2 rhymes together-Little Miss Muffet and Little Bo Peep-what would the result be?

 

A.-Adapt: Adapt a nursery rhyme for a different purpose, what if they were used by scientists? What if they were used for elderly people? You could also adapt them for different habitats-pretend Little Bo Peep lived in Alaska, for example.

 

M. Modify: How could you make nursery rhymes more realistic?

 

P. Put to Another Use-what else could we use them for? Right now moms use them with their kids or teachers--what other professions could benefit from nursery rhymes.

 

E.Elimate the rhymes and see if it is the same. What would happen in a specific rhyme if you took away a part? What if Little Miss Muffet never saw a spider?

 

R.I've always seen this as rearrange-so you can change up the words or phrases and see if you can still keep the meaning. But I also just read an example where this stood for reverse. So reverse the lines of the nursery rhyme and read it through. Discuss how it changes.

 

 

Just some thoughts. I'm waiting for the parents on Meet the Teacher Night and I think I'm actually ready for them! :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

"The Dot"-Themed Classroom

Yes, I am one of those teachers who uses a theme to drive my class decorations--and I do not apologize for that! :) I like to use literature or places as my themes, this year I chose one of my favorite books: The Dot, by Peter Reynolds. It's all about being creative and taking risks, which are traits I'd like for all my Kinder students to learn.

Now, I am not one of those super-creative, Pinterest-addicted people. Most of my bulletin boards are blank because I will post student work or anchor charts or things that come up as we go along throughout the year. And I am not done yet-I still have many, many things to do, but I wanted to share what I've done so far.

My main bulletin board as you walk in and my theme for this year! :)

I'm not quite happy with this library (please ignore the printer in the corner, it won't be there for very long)-but loved the "dot"-shaped cushions.

My Word Wall! I always make it interactive so the kids can take down the words and use them in their writing.

My math board, I still have to put up my calendar.

Even found an alphabet with dots! :)

What do you think? I was going to say I'll be glad when it's finished, but we know we are never finished, right?! :)

Classroom Philosophy

So my to-do list is like 3 pages long and I'm sitting her playing with Tagxedo! http://www.tagxedo.com/

If you aren't familiar, it's like Wordle, but you can make the words into cool shapes. This is my classroom philosophy that I'm including in my Open House packet.

Every day in my class we:

It's supposed to be a handprint, but I see a turkey! :) That must be the early childhood educator in me. Just wanted to share!

Putting Yourself Out There

I am big on teaching my students how to be risk-takers. I am trying to do a better job of that myself in the classroom! Usually, I am completely willing to try new ideas or learn about new strategies. But often times it's harder for me to put myself out there and share ideas with colleagues. First of all I can't hide the anxiety when it comes to public speaking-even in front of people I know. (I heard the other day that public speaking is the #1 fear of Americans, #2 is death.) Secondly, I always worry too much about what other people will think of what I am sharing. I am the first one to admit that I don't know what I'm doing half the time and I'm sure there are people I work with who have already figured that out for themselves! :)

So this summer I met with my principal with some ideas of how we can better use technology to collaborate and to challenge the kiddos. One of my new pet peeves is the fact that we have an expensive laptop cart, an ipad cart and all it is ever used for is our reading and math programs. So she picked a few of my suggestions and put me on the schedule to present during our pre-service training weeks. The kids are now expected to read independently every day (kind of a combination of regular workstations and Daily 5) and keep reading logs. So I showed them how the students could use blogs or a restricted group on Goodreads to discuss and evaluate what they are reading. I talked about doing listening stations with mp3 players. I showed them how to do digital portfolios and they had an opportunity to play with that a little bit on those laptops. We also discussed doing a book club reading the Book Whisperer and then moving on to fiction and maybe discussing a new book every 6 weeks or so-being the passionate readers we want our kiddos to be! I've wanted to do that for a long time now and I thought with 15 new teachers being added to our staff this year, maybe there would be some interest.

I was actually very proud of myself for stepping out of my comfort zone a little bit. You always wish you had some kind of feedback. No takers for a book club either. But that's ok. I took the risk. And I know my students would be proud of me too! :)

Higher Level Questions for Back-To-School Read Alouds

I know the first week of Kindergarten you're just trying to get through the day and not lose anybody.

I do try to start laying the foundation though, for what I am going to expect from them throughout the year and that is higher-level thinking. Will they get it the first week? In many cases no, often they haven't been asked to think like that before. But I want to start getting into that routine anyway. These are a few stories that I use the first week of school and some higher level questions that might help them start thinking more deeply.

Since we introduce so many rules the 1st week, a way to explain why they are important, and a great book about teamwork as well.

1) How did Officer's Buckle's rules compare to the rules in our class? Are any the same?

2) Would the story have been different if Gloria was a cat?

3) What would the world be like if we didn't have any rules?

4) When have you worked with someone else and made a good team? What helped make it a good team?

5) Was it right for Gloria to act out the parts without Officer Buckle knowing about it?

6) How did the speeches change over time, how will his new speeches look?

I love this book! It's about a little boy telling the farm animals he's going to Kindergarten and they hypothesize about what that is because they haven't heard of it before.

1) What other things that the boy does daily do you think confuse the animals?

2) How was the boy's 1st day of Kinder like yours? Different?

3) If you were the boy, how would you explain what Kindergarten was?

4) Do you think he did a good job of explaining to the animals?

5) When the boy goes to 1st Grade, will the animals be confused again?

6) How would the story have been different if the boy was just going to the store?

1) Why do you think Victoria made fun of Chrysanthemum's name?

2) How did the parents make her feel better? What do your parents do for you when you are sad?

3) How would you handle it if someone was making fun of your name?

4) How do you think parents decide what to name their child?

5) Was Chrysanthemum right in the way she responded to Victoria?

6) What would you do if you heard someone making fun of another kid's name?

7) Create a new ending for the story.

8) If the main character's name was "Jane", how would the details of the story have changed?

9) Were there any patterns in the story?

10) How did Chrysanthemum change over the course of the story? Will she still like her name as she grows up? What do you think she'll name her child?