I've Been to the Zoo!!

I'm exhausted, so this will be a short one today.
The Triumph:  Another successful lesson taught today on writing.  I have been working on my think-alouds to students, and I think this skill really needs to be practiced more!  It's more difficult than I thought to tell students what my thinking process is, especially when they are a bunch of 5 year olds who just want to join in and help tell my story!

The Struggle:  There are a few students in my class that I have no idea how to motivate to start writing.  So many kids have such great ideas, know their letter sounds, and come up with sentences that go along with their pictures.  Yet, there are only a small handful of kids that will add words to their books, and even fewer who will add full sentences!

The Ludicrousness:  There were many points throughout the day today where I found myself laughing quietly (and hiding my face from the children), including during my writing lesson to the Kinders.  As I write my story to them, I am always reminding them that "it is my story, so it is my turn to talk" and that they will have a chance to share their own stories in their books.  That having been said to them (several times, of course) I still saw many small excited hands waving in the air at me.  So I still include them in my story by making statements like "If you like to have green peppers on your pizza, tap your nose and if you don't like green peppers tap your knee."  Well, for some kids that just isn't enough and they feel like they HAVE to share a statement with me.  One boy in particular is always extremely excited to share and as I was telling them my story of how I got pizza with another intern, he patiently raised his hand.  I talked about the crust, the sauce, the peppers, the mushrooms, the tomatoes.  I reminded students that it was my story so I wouldn't be calling on them, but this one boy still had his hand raised the entire time.  Finally, I asked him if he had something that he needed to tell me.  He said yes, so I asked if it was about my story.  He said no.  So I told him he had to wait, save it in his head and tell me when we were done in a few minutes.
Well, he just couldn't wait anymore!  "But Miss Castleton, I LOVE CHEESE PIZZA! AND PEPPERONI TOO!"  Well, I do too, friend!  And that was the first of several excited outbursts from that student today!  I'm ready to hear what he has to share on Friday!

*"I've been to the zoo" was another outburst from this student during a story about a fish! One of my favorites so far from him!

The Greatness of Student Sharing and Positive Reinforcement

The Triumph:  Today we set up a bulletin board in the hallway for the Kindergarten open house.  We created some spring art for our hallway and I went in to the hall to start putting our wall together.  A student that I have been struggling with decided to come in the hallway with me and was an awesome helper.  He ended up taking charge and designing a majority of the wall!  I was so impressed with his involvement, and the positiveness that he showed me through that experience.  This student needs so many experiences with positive reinforcement and I was glad to have such a great experience with him where he could take charge.

The Struggle: I was shown by the full time Kindergarten intern today the amount of snacks that her class brought in after a note was sent home to families.  The inequity between our two classrooms is immense. The other Kinder classroom at our school is a full-time program, where families pay money to send their students to school all day everyday ( and yes this is a cheaper alternative to daycare!).  It is crazy to think that my kindergarteners and the full-time kindergarteners will be going into the same 1st grade classrooms.  At this point my students have had half the amount of time that full-time students have been to school, and that difference will exist when they are joined in the same classroom.

The Ludicrousness:  This is so kindergarten.  During our writing time we have been making books.  I taught a writing lesson today about adding details and talked about how writers add details to their pictures and their words to make their books more interesting and exciting to the reader.  Well, during sharing I had each student share one detail that was added or included to show a detail.  One student in particular started his sharing about his book that he started today.  A book about war.  A book about, as he quoted "the war between his people (the U.S. and the Nazi's."  WHAT?!?!  I could not even believe that he knew what a Nazi was.  What is this kid watching at home?!  And boy did he keep on sharing about the Nazi's and how the soldiers in his country fought against them.  I tried as hard as I could to keep a straight face and to get him to move on so the next student could share.  Sometimes I really wonder what these kids do at home and what types of things they can watch on T.V.!!!!!