good night, hot dog

Things I really love about my kids:

When they're mad, the way they'll say "I don't like that!" to the kid who hurt their feelings, regardless of if they're paying attention

At nap time, I'll make them into hot dogs. Aka, have them lie on half the blanket and use the other half to fold them up (like a hot dog bun). Then I ask what they want on it and they'll say "mustard!" or "ketchup!" or something else. Some of the kids with big imaginations have been asking to be made into cars, police cars, castles, and popcorn. After I've covered them up, I'll say, "Good night, hot dog." It's suuuuper cute.

Sooooo many of the 3 year olds can identify letters - not just first letter of their name, but of their friend's names and my name and in general. It's really, really cool.

When a kid really enjoys a game, I try to make it a little bit harder each time. For some reason, they really like when I hide letters under little paper cups and they have to find them. You know, like in gambling or board walk games? With one boy, it moved from me writing the letters on a white board and him matching them, me saying the letters and him finding them, to him writing the letters and me finding them. I was very impressed and excited about his rapid movement in making the game more difficult for him.

One of the rooms I work in just got a new girl. I've only played literacy games with her a little bit, but I think she's ahead of the game in terms of letter knowledge. Very exciting!

The Boy Who Chooses Not To Talk said something yesterday! Not just said something, but responded to a question. His little brother came into the room for awhile and at one point was toddling off away from the adults. I wanted to call him back over so I asked The Boy what his brother's name was. Surprisingly, he answered. One of the teachers was talking about feelings and he nodded yes when asked if he was a little scared about talking again. I'm wondering if it might be useful to make something (jar, box, etc) that he can talk into to practice. I'll probably ask my co-worker (who has more experience in early childhood education) if she thinks it's a good idea or not. I just like the idea of practicing when no one can hear.

Things I don't like about my kids:

One of them gave me a cold. Jerk.

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In other news, I was passed over by Teaching Program and am now looking into other ways to get my teaching license. My undergrad has a MA in Teaching program that might work, especially since I have all the content credits in English done already. I'm disappointed that I won't be in my own classroom in the fall, but we'll get there somehow. After sitting in on Sarah's classes last Friday, I'm fairly certain I want to teach high school. I suppose none of them will need to be tucked in and called hot dogs, though.

payment plans

My morning:

A girl play acted talking on her phone. Not super unusual, but at one point she "got a call" from her husband. She looked at me and said, "Ugh, my husband is on the other line. Can you hold on for a second?" The girl then walked to a different part of the empty room and stood over there, having a pretend argument (with a lot of attitude) with her pretend husband. Sometimes the way children play astounds me. This is learned behavior and I'm saddened that a 4 year old thinks playing includes fighting with yoru husband on the phone. She also said something about someone being on the line for a payment plan. Kids don't make up these phrases by themselves; they learn them somewhere.

Some of my kids learned "holy shit." As in "Holy shit, I found a card!" I think it's pretty funny but obviously can't show them that. I just ignore it because making a big deal out of it will make it ... well, a big deal. But inwardly I giggle.

My boy who chooses not to speak at school mouthed the word "fall" while we were walking down the steps. I put rhyming words on the stairs so they can step on the rhyme and say it at the same time, which is good reinforcement. Then as we were walking down the hall, he said a few things (which, sadly, I couldn't quite make out) but I knew they were words. It figures he chooses to speak during times when it's loud and you can't quite hear him. He also mouthed "good night" to me as I was covering him up for nap. I'm so close to getting this kid to talk... just a little bit more. I think the biggest deterrant is the other teachers. They make a big deal out of it and send the kid back into his nonverbal shell. He's not going to start talking because he was harassed into it.

I've been doing round 2 of the official benchmarking for kindergarten. Over all the kids have made some great progress - 4 kids weren't getting rhyming enough to even be able to score on the rhyming test in the fall; now all of them have moved beyond that and one girl even scored on target for kindergarten (she moved from none to 12). Letter naming has generally gone up as well; one girl scored 20 in the fall and 10 in the winter, but I think it's not that she stopped learning, just that the test is boring her. We'll see how the rest of them go. I'd like to recommend some changes for the classroom I work in for the next few months, mostly in terms of letter knowledge.

I'm going to be busy for the next few weekends: Erich and Katie come to visit this weeked; I go to Green Bay next weekend; Mom and Harry visit the weekend after that for my birthday. There will probably be some pictures at some point in the future... or not. It'll just be pictures of food.

beer and sex dishes

It is December and that means finals. There are endless facebook updates on the status of one's semester, including pages written, pages to go, tests down, etc. Kari had her last day of classes today and has been writing papers upstairs. And for the first time in six years, I haven't a thing to do with it. I guess you could even say 18 years.

It's a little weird. Somewhat relieving, but at the same time, I miss it.

Well, let me clarify. I don't miss the stress of schoolwork. I do miss having something to do on Sunday afternoons. Do you know how much time I wasted on the internet this weekend? A LOT. At least before I knew I had something else I should be doing.

I miss academic rigor. I miss having a thoughtful debate with someone on a regular basis, even if that someone is speaking through the pages of a book. I miss coming up with original arguments and thinking about it enough to argue persuasively one way or the other. And as nice as it has been, I even miss reading with a pencil in my hand.

My brain needed the break. I needed time to extract myself from academia and now, I realize that I just want to spend my days in a classroom. I suppose that's why I'm aiming to teach middle and high school as opposed to the PreK kids I have now (which I love). They're really great and fun, but maybe I need to be challenged right along with my students. Sorry, but I'm not challenged over the difference between a peach and an apple. Critically analyzing material with a group of people is something I really enjoy, oddly enough.

I also miss writing about film. I suppose I have to figure how to include that stimuli in my future careers. I just need to find time and motivation besides my longing, I suppose.

Today in PreK world: We read Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs yesterday. Today I wrote a mad libs about my kids which included food raining from the sky. They liked it, especially when it ends up snowing turkey ears. Tomorrow we're drawing pictures of our stories.

When I asked a girl to name a type of liquid or drink, she said, "Beer."
I rephrased, "What's your favorite thing to drink?"
She thought a second, then said, "Beer."
"Something else," I asked.
"Juice!"

Finally.

I also started assisting in a ESL class at the learning center down the street from the Y. Tuesdays I assist in an intermediate class and Wednesdays I'll be leading a conversation class. More on that later, but today in the intermediate class we talked about food. To the question "How many vegetarian dishes are there on the menu?," one student answered, "sex dishes" (six dishes). Not the usual answer I'd get from my PreK kids, but after the beer this morning .... maybe not.