3 Sides of Life (oh I mean 4)

This year has left me a bit scattered.  I have 3 jobs combined into 1, classroom teacher, homeschool coordinator and working with our pre-k teachers.  Then there is family.  This blog kind of represents that scattered feeling. One day I write about knitting, the next about teaching art in the classroom.  Who am I today.

Today we are hunkering indoors as the little guy tries life without a diaper.  I have a late potty trainer, which is no surprise to me since he spent the first 18 months of his life lying on his back in an orphanage.  He is very excited about the big boy underwear he is wearing today.  I am using a timer to remind me to check in and have him sit on the potty.

I am also planning for next week in the classroom.  We do have school on Monday which is Martin Luther King Day.  It allows me the opportunity to do a one day mini theme on this amazing man.  I recently discovered Teachers Pay Teachers.  It is a great place for both teachers and homeschool moms to find mini units.  I am going to use the ideas from this Martin Luther King Activity Packet tomorrow.  Many of the resources have fees, but for me, as a classroom teacher, I can use this for years to come.  I will post some photos of the results.  I have an amazing K-2 this year filled with peace makers.

My art class is moving forward with the book Drawing With Children.  Art was put on the back burner as we prepared for the holiday program so we are back at it once again.  This is another lesson on using different types of lines, circles, and dots in drawing.  I am finding the 3-5th far more confident than the highschoolers.  I did not expect that.

Spiders and Quilting

Five busy spiders jumped across the floor.......  We have been studying spiders in our K-2 classroom.  Creepy, cool, hairy spiders are appearing all over the room.  Bendaroos are perfect to make spiders with because they are sticky.

I might be seeing spiders in my sleep tonight.

Last year I started a log cabin quilt.  I took a class, but really was just so crazy with life that I never finished it.  In fact when I took it out again this fall I laughed because some of the squares were sewn out of order.  I decided to not fix it out of lazyness and  as a testament to how crazy busy I was a year ago.  I am retaking the class, starting from where I left off.

 I think I will be able to finish it this time. I am determined, and life although still crazy is a bit calmer than last year.

Rebuilding

I spent 7 years teaching the multiage K-3 class in the school I work in.  Just like any teacher I dropped a lot of cash creating a creative environment.  I had plants I loved, cute baskets, special books, and lots of resources.  When I left the classroom last year I thought I would be out of the classroom for a few years so I left many things there to stay with the class.  Good bye Amaryllis that blooms an amazing amount of times in one year.

Now I am back in a huge room without all my old comfort items.  It is kind of nice for someone like me who has a gift of "inquiry".  Seriously I took a strength finder test and that was one of my strenghts.  People who have a strenght in inquiry like to collect things that might be used in the future.  The exact translation for this might be "clutter".  Goodbye clutter.

Our classroom is pretty sparce this year.  It will slowly become more comfortable, but for now it is big and sparce.  I am kind of liking it.  All the cool  items I ordered in the past now sit in the 3rd grade room (my old room).  Darn those were some good resources.  As we rebuild our classroom I am loving watching what the students are coming up with.  Oh by the way... did I mention I only have 4 students right now... soon to grow to the huge size of 6.

American flag built out of City Blocks.

So Much to Do So Little Time To Do It

Oh the times they are changing....

I have been missing in action due to lots of fun travel.  We went to a wedding celebration, to our land in Homer, and then to teaching inservice.    I found out the last week of August that I was heading back into the classroom.  We had to hustle to recreate our family schedule.  Now I have the funny combination of teaching part time in a classroom and part time as a homeschool coordinator.  I thought it would be an odd mix, but after 1 week I am really liking the combination.  They both fit well together and the in classroom time keeps me fresh and excited about how young children learn.

Our school was renovated this summer, well I should say, it is still under construction.  I was able to get into my classroom the day before school started, and had to hustle to get things moved back in.

Here is a photo of my clean slate.  The windows were not even installed yet.

The room used to be a highschool room and now it is my multiage K-2 room.  All the bulletin boards and white boards are too high for the kids to reach.  That is a bummer, and even more so since the construction crew rehung everything without asking for our opinions as to height etc... I am going to make some stepping stools so the kiddos can reach.

We are kicking off the year with a David Shannon Author Study. I love incorporating author studies into our day.  It is such a great way to learn how to analyze books.  I am amazed at the level of analysis that even the youngest child can do when they compare books by the same author.  David Shannon has some hysterical (well K-3 hysterical) books.  My students are loving them already.

This is one of my favorite books to use for author studies.

Current Favorites

Here are some books that my son is currenly loving.  We read lots and lots of books in our house.  Some are winners, some are not.  I am starting a practice I use in my classroom of reading books on a theme.  This month we have read lots of books that include fish.  Here are some current favorites from my son.

The Deep Blue Sea by Audrey Wood (sorry not a link) is a definite hit in our house.  So much so that I now need to purchase it because I can not renew it any more.  I love this book because it is really easy for a young child to "read".  It is patterned and repetitive.  My son who is 3 is picking out the words "of" and "the" when he sees them due to this book.  He even saw the word asleep in another book and said "deep".

Another favorite is by the same author.  Ten Little Fish by Audrey Woods taught my son to count to 10.  Again, very repetitive and includes fish.  I don't know why the photo is so small.

My favorite of our fish books has been Hooray for Fish by Lucy Cousins.  I like this book because of the illustrations, which are very colorful and at time comical.  It really lends itself to an art tie in.

Lucy Cousins is of course the author of the Maisy books which are always a big hit with young children.
This book is a great book to develop language.  The fish in the book look like what they are called.  There is an eye fish that look like an eye, and hairy fish that look hairy.  Lots of fun inside this one.

Happy reading to all of you.

Preschool

My son qualified for a speech communications classroom with our school district.  We thought it would be a good idea because he is speech delayed and a speech communication classroom sounded like a good place for a speech delayed child.

We were mistaken.  I find that being a teacher and sending your child to school is difficult.  Well, maybe that is making an assumption that is not true.  Maybe any parent, teacher or not has a difficult time sending their child to school.  The reason it is difficult for me is that I have expectations.  Not overally rigid expectations, but expectations.

The little guy started mid January, and it was just not a good fit.  He had just turned 3 and is what I consider a young 3.  His teacher, who I am sure has good qualities, just did not bond with him.  Every day we were met with a negative, and the negatives were kind of comical after awhile.  The lastest was during my parent teacher conference.  She said I really needed to work on my son touching other children.  I asked what kind of touch she was referring to and she said he was coming up to the kids and putting his hand on their chest.  I said "Well do you think that since this is a speech communications classroom that he might be trying to communicate and that maybe you could teach him a sign or words to use when he wants to communicate with the other children."  She then told me they had a no touching policy in the classroom. Not that the teacher could not touch the children, but that the children could not touch each other. I could not help it, I laughed.   I am all for hands are for hugging, and helping not hurting, but no touch among preschool children at all is just so sad.

My son's first interactions with other children outside of the orphanage were difficult.  He was frightened of them. We then got to where he was intereseted in them, and recently he has been starting to engage with them, always gentle.  To accomplish all this and then be in an environment where it is discouraged and "problomatic" breaks my heart.  Needless to say..... he won't be returning to that classroom.  I want our son to know he is wonderful.  I am always open to hearing areas for improvement, but if a teacher can not find the beauty in a child, then it is not really the child's fault.  Even children who have given my eye twitches (true story) steal my heart at times.

My charming, amazing son had his first ski day today.  We made it down the kiddie hill two times before he decided that being inside the lodge sounded like more fun.  So funny that when we were young there were no ski helmets, seat belts, bike helmets, and now everyone is protected.

Preschool Curriculum

I have spent the last 3 days sitting in a windowless conference room looking at preschool language arts programs.  So challenging on so many levels.  A room without windows is not the room for me.  A preschool curriculum challenges what I believe in for teaching 3-5 year olds, and then there is the agreeing with 7 other educators who have different organizing styles and different beliefs on how to teach young children.  More to come.....

Early Childhood Conference

I spent the past three days at the Alaska Association for the Education of Young Children Conference.  I attended a few inspiring workshops and a few not so inspiring ones.  One of the speakers that I really enjoyed was Clarissa Willis, PhD.  She is a very energetic speaker with a wonderful outlook on working with the special needs child.  My favorite quote from her was "kindergarten teachers would rather you send them a child who can monitor their behavior than a child who can read."  I can totally relate to this having spent 9 years as a multi-age K-3 teacher.  Clarissa also talked about the idea that unwanted behavior from a child falls into two categories, avoid/escape behavior and gain access behavior.  I like the idea of keeping it simple so you can understand what the child's goal is with the behavior.

Right now there is a firework show going on at the resort that I can see from my couch.  It is making our small A-Frame shake with each boom!  I never tire of fireworks, but as soon as they are over I am off to bed. This is my second 6 day work week.  I need to be well rested tomorrow so that I can make up for lost time with the little guy.

Great Perfect Toy Ideas

Thank you for your wonderful toy ideas.  Every toy suggested is a perfect toy.  Just what I envisioned.  Moms are so much wiser than the toy stores.  If we could just weed out the not so perfect toys we would have a much easier time.

Country Sister and City Sister suggested this toy.  I agree this is a perfect toy. My son had this toy when he was learning to stand and it was so much fun to watch him work all the parts. It is a Parent toy that you can find here

Three Little Birds the best kindergarten teacher in the world suggested this toy.  I am ordering this for the little guy this week. It seems like a creative next step toy for him.

City Hippy Farm Girl suggested this cool toy from here.  I love this idea and saw a few similar plastic versions that were not so perfect.  Very flimsy. This looks nice and sturdy.  I am putting this on the list too.  

Thanks moms for putting in some time for my son.  All three of the blogs are on my list of blogs I love so go and check them out when you have time.

Art Exploraton

My little guy taught me a fun lesson which might be well known, but not in our house.  If you draw on a sliding glass door or window.

It wipes off with a wet sponge.

When I walked down the stairs and saw the artwork on our window I said "draw on paper", but then I recalled reading that a child drawing with marker on his belly is not the child being naughty, but the child learning about his body and about his world.  I have two people who sit on my shoulder, the parent, and the Early Childhood Educator.  At times they agree, and at times they disagree.  I am glad both sides came to terms with this fun activity.

Easy Drawing Box

I received a new computer from work a few months ago.  I kept the box for some odd reason.  Really I kept it because I thought it would be fun for a homeschooler to make a project with.  The curse of a teacher, collect, collect......

It was headed out the door in our monthly purge when I realized that it was actually a perfect size to tuck a pice of copy paper in.  Voila a travelling, or not travelling art box.  It has everything that you need.  A built in handle for carying and placing in every possible spot to step on, and it self contains the runaway marker while drawing.  You can store the paper inside and the crayons/markers too.  All this for the price of free, well if your work supplies you with the computer anyway.

Education Podcasts

Part of my job is to find Education Resources for our teachers and homeschool parents.  I recently came upon two great resources for education Podcasts


Harvard just launched  Harvard EdCasts, a weekly series of 15-20 minute conversations on education.  That is a perfect amount of time to listen while doing the dishes or some other multitasking activity.


For those of you interested in Early Childhood Resources the National Association for the Education of Young Children offeres free radio programs.


Titles in clude;

• Developmentally Appropriate Math for Young Children
• Creating a Safe Social Emotional Climate for Children
• Can Digital Media Enhance Learning
• Why Playful Learning is More Effective
• Encouraging Creativity in Children

The downloads are free, but in order to listen you need to have ITunes.   Under Blogcast Archives click on subscrive via ITunes.  If you scroll down you can find other ITune pages that relate to education.

 Happy listening!

First snowman.  I just love this guy, my son that is not the snowman.

Learning Environments

I am working on a presentation for our early childhood teachers in my school district on learning environments.  I was revisiting one of my books that I love on what to look for in a learning environment, but was feeling like the text was just not as exciting as the message it was sending. There were no photos.

I then stumbled upon the book Designs for Living and Learning, by Deb Curtis and Margie Carter.  It is such a beautiful book filled with magical learning spaces.  The majority of the photos are from classrooms, but the ideas could easily inspire learning spaces in the home. I am already thinking about how to redesign my son's play area.  

You can check at your library to see if they have it, but if not, try your local Universities library, you never know.  I prefer this route because our small, small house just can't take any more books.

The environment that you learn in whether you are a child or an adult has an effect on your experience.  This book is inspired from many different approaches including Waldorf, Montessori, Reggio, Greenman, Prescott, and Olds (not sure who that is).  I am just starting to read the text after looking at the beautiful photos for the past 4 days.

Having been a classroom teacher for the past 11 years I have come to the conclusion that pulling what you love from many different places is a good thing.  There is no one answer to education, it is what works for the child, and you as a parent that mattters.   I love that this book went to many different programs and found beauty, not just one program.  I am in love with beautiful learning environments.