halpey1's Open Salon Blog

Food!

Sun, 4 Nov 2012 17:11:27 -0500

At my new school, food in the classroom is welcomed, celebrated, even loved. With zero allergies in my class this year (woo-hoo!), I’m exploring theme based snacks like never before.

To be clear, I’m not super crafty or handy in the kitchen, but thanks to the internet and Pinterest, I’ve found some amazing ‘Crafty Food’ ideas I’ve been sharing with my class. Most have been healthy, but I did bake twenty plus butterfly sugar cookies and let them decorate them… with icing… and sprinkles. Folks said I was crazy to let them do it, but I figured, why not? I had one little girl tell me she’d never eaten a home baked cookie. Her comment alone made the hassle worth it.

I also cut out leaves from cheese, cucumbers, and peppers for fall trees. Never have I done that before and I’m not sure I’ll be doing it again anytime soon… at least not until next fall. It wasn’t particularly fun for me, but the kids loved making and eating their fall trees.

The other kindergarten teacher at my school (yes, there is only one other and I love it that way) suggested apple faces. I had never made apple faces before… I guess I had a neglected depraved childhood void of McDonald’s and apple faces. Seriously, they were so easy and fun to eat. Some were smiling and some were sad, but they were all tasty just the same.

Do you have special snacks in your class? Anything wonderful I should try with my sprouts? Please comment and link away! I’m becoming a kindergarten chef!

Hidden treasure.

Sat, 3 Nov 2012 12:11:13 -0400

As any of you know who have taken over a room from someone else, there is often hidden treasure lurking around every corner. The room I took over at my new school was from a teacher moving schools and changing grades. She took most of her belongings, but left quite a bit too. I tried to go through it and get rid of whatever I didn’t think I would use, but more often than not, I kept many things. I also had very little time to setup my room before school began and many drawers and shelves never really got looked at.

Well yesterday afternoon, as I was bringing out giant floor puzzles for Center Time, I found one way in the back of the shelf I had neglected to see. For the record, my boys this year are puzzle whizzes. They will pick puzzles over almost any other Center – even Lego’s and that’s saying something.

This particular puzzle was a number train. After putting the puzzle together, the boys asked me if they could use some of my pointers to point and read the numbers. Duh? Of course!

We are working on learning the tricky teen numbers and this puzzle was a perfect way to reinforce the concept. I just love it when my sprouts have fun learning.

Perspective.

Thu, 1 Nov 2012 18:11:01 -0400

Oh how I love a teachable moment. They pop up all the time with kindergarteners – often because of the unique gems they blurt out. Well today, I created one all on my own. Yay me!

A few weeks ago I noticed my Quiet Time after lunch and recess was bombing. Turns out, my group this year mostly didn’t nap so asking them sit quietly for ten to fifteen minutes was brutal. On the suggestion of a friend, I decided to show stories read aloud on my Smart Board instead. The lights were still off, we were still quiet, but we watched the story together. It has been very successful and actually a nice way to start our afternoons together.

Well today, I decided to use a DVD from Scholastic with stories on it. As I put it in and was selecting a story from the menu, I noticed this particular DVD had a story in Spanish. Hmmmmm.

I have four ELL students this year and two of them speak almost no English. I should clarify, they came to school with no English and have slowly began to pick some up. I realize how difficult, frustrating, and tiring spending an entire day submersed in a foreign language must be… I realize it, but I doubt most five-year-olds do. So I played the story in Spanish.

It was a story called Monty. My Spanish is weak, but it was something about some animals needing a ride from an alligator who got tired and took a vacation. Something along those lines… My two Spanish speaking friends love it. They laughed, giggled, and enjoyed every second of it. The other kids were distracted, got up to use the bathroom, and chatted until I told them to be quiet. It was brutal for them and it was only six minutes long.

When the video ended, I turned the lights on and asked the group, “Did you understand the story?”

Lots of heads shaking no, a few mumbles about not knowing Spanish.

Finally Edward offered, “I was confused.”

“Well imagine how frustrating it must be to spend the entire day hearing your teacher and friends speaking a language you don’t know very well,” I asked.

I think they finally got it. My hope is they have a little more patience and understanding for their friends.

Buddies.

Sun, 28 Oct 2012 08:10:31 -0400

A few weeks ago, I attended an afternoon of professional development with some teachers from my school. It was lead by our amazing literacy leader and all about flexible grouping. Like most, I thought flexible grouping was all about putting the low kids in a group, the high kids in a group, etc. Boy, was I wrong.

After learning some amazingly varied ways to group kids I decided to try one of them out in my own classroom. Calling them ‘Learning Buddies’ I paired sprouts up with each other based on a very specific criteria. In the past, I usually matched a very low child with a very high one so the more advanced learner could help the other. Sometimes I’d match closely related levels so they could challenge each other.

This new methodology was to pair up children who weren’t exactly on the same level as each other, but close. One is a little higher than the other (depending on the skill) but the gap isn’t so huge that one does all the heavy lifting. A simple way to setup buddies is to number your class from 1-20 (or however many sprouts you have) with 1 being your lowest child and 20 your highest. Then you pair them up with about a 4 span gap – so 20 with 16; 19 with 15, and so on.

I presented the Learning Buddy idea to my class by really pumping up their readiness to help each other. We modeled and role-played ways to help and interact with your Learning Buddy. And then, I paired them up.

Now it wasn’t all rosy and perfect. There were a few buddies that needed talking to, reminded of, and for some – reassignment, but for the most part, I was blown away at the patience and guidance they showed each other.

While working on a counting book (they had to read the number on each page, color the correct number of cubes, and finally draw that number of ‘things’) I overhead Brian helping his buddy Carla, who is only just beginning to learn English.

“That number is four Carla, look – (using his fingers) uno, dos, tres, quatro – four!” Brian instructed.

I’d never heard him speak Spanish before. To be honest, I didn’t know he had it in him. The patience or the Spanish.

I spotted another pair of buddies holding hands as we walked down to the cafeteria. This was a boy and girl that as far as I could tell, hadn’t given each other the time of day before I’d assigned them to be Learning Buddies.

For some activities, I have kids sit with their Learning Buddy. When hands shoot up (and they always do), I now can say, “Check with your buddy first.”

We always have someone to share our ideas, predictions, and writing with too. I don’t know why I never thought of this before… but that’s what good professional development with amazing peers can do for you – change up the status quo for the better.

Have you ever used Learning Buddies? What was your experience with them?

Heaven.

Sat, 27 Oct 2012 08:10:37 -0400

Yesterday was a day. Before a single child arrived, I felt defeated, deflated, and discouraged. Without going into details (I don’t want to seem unprofessional), I just felt as if the chips were stacked against me.

It was a long day. Everything that could possibly go wrong seemed to happen. By lunch, I was too exhausted to eat. That never happens to me. I had some popcorn as I tried to steady myself for the afternoon. We barreled through introducing a new writing program (Being a Writer) and they actually did better than I anticipated.

By the time I was talking to a defiant child during Reading Buddies (not from my class) about how horrible her home life was and that’s why she was so angry all the time – an enlightening conversation, but not one I should be having with a kindergartner… I was ready for dismissal.

As I handed each child their folder to pack up, they each hugged me. Each and every one of them. It was Friday and no matter what kind of day we had, we wouldn’t be seeing each other for two whole days. Hugs were needed.

Twenty hugs can inspire you and I decided to fire up Pandora radio as we waited for the buses to be called. The kids were not sitting in their seats anyway, I might as well try to wrangle their energy into something constructive… dancing!

I have many, many stations on Pandora as my music taste is varied and often random. Unfortunately, much of it isn’t appropriate for kindergarten ears. Seeing a quick out – I selected the 80′s Pop station. As I’ve previously noted, kindergarten can be a lot like an 80′s song, so I figured the fates would be with me.

Clearly, they were. The first song up? Heaven is a Place on Earth by Ms. Belinda Carlisle. Like moths to a flame, the kids came over and began dancing around me. Carla, a little girl who speaks almost no English but clearly speaks the international language of ‘the dance’ – instinctively took my hands and had me twirl her around. Yes, even the boys were dancing.

As my bus friends left and I called for my walkers to line up, the song faded. Belinda’s message repeating over and over to remind us:

Ooh, baby, do you know what that’s worth?
Ooh, heaven is a place on earth.
They say in heaven love comes first.
We’ll make heaven a place on earth.
Ooh, heaven is a place on earth.

She’s right you know. Kindergarten is probably the closest to achieving a little heaven on earth.