The Choice is Yours

In my last post I admitted to having Choice Time most days. This happens after lunch and it is a beloved time. Research shows that young children develop socially and emotionally during classroom activities that are NOT teacher directed. They need time to interact without me telling them what to think or do. They need autonomy and a feeling of environmental control and we gain these all these things during Choice Time.

This chart is about 300 years old and some of these labels date to my first years of teaching. I have many many more and depending on the class I use about a third each year. Not pictured: things like sand, rice table, water, beads, take apart, magnetic letters, science, art center, junk art, music center and every kind of block known to man. The children simply put their name cards next to the choice they prefer and are held accountable for being there. The rule is four people per choice unless otherwise indicated. Sometimes for very popular choices I ring the bell halfway and declare "time to switch"; I was recently reminded of the all - important Waiting List which I have also tried in the distant past (a clipboard nearby the choice for people to sign up if they are waiting for a turn). There is no such thing as "no choice" and I encourage the languishers to choose Library so they can just have some nice chilled out down time with a book and a big pillow.

I got this Ryan's World dollhouse from our annual fundraising auction about six years ago. I was always a lover of dollhouses and I wanted Small Cowgirl to be also. I spent several hundred dollars on all the furniture, accessories, people, pets, even the barn and a couple horses. About one hundred dollars for every two minutes she played with it. So I brought it to school and it is lovingly trashed enjoyed by both boys and girls. Small Cowgirl, it seems, prefers to play in the dirt.

A parent last year gave me this ginormous box of Legos. It is beyond a doubt the best assortment I have ever seen. Does anyone remember Legos when you just got a box of pieces and had to use your imagination to assemble things you thought of yourself? Ahem. Anyway there are sooooo many Legos that after cleanup time and the Little Darlin's have left if I find any Lego pieces on the floor I throw them away. Yes you read that right. And I actually told my students that I do that, and guess what? They clean up MUCH better now. This also prevents hiding special projects that they don't want to destroy by throwing into the box with all the rest of the pieces. Because, heartless as I am, I throw away those too. Its enough to give a five year old Lego addict nightmares I tell you. Best to just toss it in, son.

I didn't really know if my buckaroos would "get" Lincoln Logs but as the Kindergarten Cowgirl they are dear to my heart, so I threw them in the mix this year. They love them! However they do like them best if I allow them to have the animal basket alongside. Makes perfect sense I suppose, what's a barn without animals? Regardless of the fact there are not a lot of pieces left in this box (see the Lego section above) they still have a good old timey time with these.

And just in case you think I'm off my developmental rocker my principal is reading this, I have recently introduced journal writing BEFORE we go to Choice each day. This gives the Little Darlin's an incentive after they've shed blood, sweat and tears to get something somewhat decodable down under their sweet little pictures. And then we can have our choice, guilt free.

Cookies and Classrooms

Is it bad that I made an big pan of lemon bars yesterday.... and this morning they are almost all gone?! Granted my teenager is home this weekend but I must admit here that I have a hard time moderating when it comes to sweets, especially really good cookies. And let me tell you those lemon bars were good. Hmn maybe I'll have that last one for breakfast.

Just for a comparison, here are some pictures of the regular Kindergarten that was right next door to the TK I observed last week. Again the class was small (under 20) and I must say seemed just a little more lively than the littler ones.

The first thing I notice is they had the rug that I need. I NEED THIS RUG! It has my groups'COLORS!! How incredibly awesome. And the squares are nice and big and there are THIRTY of them. The heartbreak came when I told my co worker about it and she said there had been the exact rug left on the stage at the beginning of the year (do all schools use the stage as a dumping area? Maybe because the curtain can hide all the mess??) and because it was really really dirty she was pretty sure they had thrown it out. At which point I went home and cried into my pillow.

Now please forgive me if this looks like your room but I think this is too much. I'm all for a print rich environment but there seems like a lot going on here with calendar, centers chart, language arts, math and rules all mixed up on one section of the wall. Maybe some rolling pocket charts would help this situation? I have two and I use both sides of both.

At the teacher directed center they were using magnets to form cvc words. I like the way she made squares on the cookie sheets for this. I do this right on the table with my buckaroos because I am lazy. I think since you are working flat anyway you could make a laminated mat of some sort with the squares. But then again the squares could complicate things if you are doing longer "challenge" words at the end of the lesson like I do. Hmn.

I love this alphabet that is made with stuff that begins with each letter! I did this long ago and each student made their own. A perfect beginning of the year project.

This school requires teachers to post the standards used next to projects on their bulletin boards. Mine doesn't. Does yours?

Here there are dots on the letters to show where to start! Genius.

Here all the writing stuff is isolated to one spot. Again with the standards posted. I always like to see what other teachers are using to get the kids writing. Helps me remember how behind I am this year. Dang.

So basically the regular Kindergarten had way more print in the room. The centers were more structured but I did notice they still had a dramatic play area. I didn't see any building stuff but maybe it just wasn't obvious. The noise level was higher and there seemed to be more "happening" in the thirty minutes that I observed than in the TK.

The lovely woman who conducted the tour was very professional and had answers for every question. The main difference, she kept repeating, was that Transitional Kindergarten was based on developmental needs ESPECIALLY social and emotional needs. Evidently in her opinion all the emotional and social development was going to happen in TK and then when they went on to regular K there would be less need for discipline. Hmn. The only question that stumped her was when I brought up the idea of a combination TK / regular K class, which is what I am anticipating. We have a teeny tiny district (just two schools) and nowhere near enough Little Darlin's with a September - or - up birthday to qualify for an entire TK class. The lovely professional woman kind of shifted and rolled her eyes around and hmned and hawed and said er, yeah that would be hard.

*sigh*

Again I feel like HEY I've been teaching these young kids all along and YEAH I think all Kindergarteners need emotional and social development, even those a few months older than the others. That's why I have Choice Time most days. So more thinking needed. Any opinions??

Though now I think we better start journal writing before Choice. Hmn.

Transitional Kindergarten

Last Thursday I went to observe a Transitional Kindergarten model about on hour from my school. This district was selected to pilot the program and has done a great job of promoting it. They received a grant from Packard to fund it. I arrived with several other teachers from a district near mine and we were led through a formal meeting and observation complete with handouts and a question - answer session. I was mainly interested in comparing the TK classroom with the regular Kindergarten next door. The TK I observed had 18 nicely behaved students. I noticed there were wayyyyy more boys than girls. The teacher had come out of retirement to head up this class. What an angel. No doubt she was excited about teaching Kindergarten in a way she was most familiar with - developmentally!

Here are some highlights of the room:

This simple reading corner did not see any action during my visit. They had some wireless headsets for listening. Jealous.

Here's the daily schedule. I like how she has used actual pictures of the class for each section of the day. Lots of visuals in this room.

Super simple word wall with just pictures of the kids holding their own names. Notice: no words! The teacher did do some shared writing while I was there and the focus was mainly on beginning sounds. She also did Dr. Jean's "Who Let the Letters Out?" and it reminded me to do it with my class the next day... they loved it.

Building Center with lots of blocks etc. I've got these in my room too (though not so nicely labeled) It seems this teacher had to post expectations and explanations next to everything. That must have been exhausting! And frustrating when you would have rather been doing other more creative things.

I played this game with a couple of the kids. They were so sweet and friendly. Several of them had chosen this activity for Centers which were very loose; I didn't see any formal kind of chart, they just knew what their choices were and wandered over to where they wanted to be in pairs. Computers were the most popular of course.

I liked this My Family project that was hanging over the Dramatic Play area. Under the faces there were actual pictures of each family, so cute and I'm sure made these little students feel at home.

Sand and water play! Out of this picture to the left were troughs for water and eye droppers, funnels etc. Enough to give my Big Boss a heart attack right here.

Elaborate hands - on Science table! I wish.

Books, all nicely organized by theme. Far out of reach of the children I noticed.

Well that wraps up the Open House. Tomorrow I'll show you a little of the regular Kindergarten room and do a little compare / contrast.

Does the Transitional Kindergarten look anything like your room? What do you see the same / different?

More Kindergarten Art

Today I actually got a break from the Little Darlin's and got to observe at another school. Dang, I needed that!

We are researching the Transitional Kindergarten model and I was sent to check out a class about an hour from my school. I observed and snapped lots of pictures at the TK and then got to compare it with the regular K room right next door.

I have mixed feelings about TK. It's wonderful that they are creating this model to serve the "in-between" students in a more developmental way. But frankly I've been teaching these kids all along and if my school makes TK a "combo" class with regular Kindergarten then I can't figure out how the program is going to look all that different.

I do jump at the chance to get on my Developmental Soap Box though, and look forward to showing you all the hands - on, play - based activities I saw evidence of today.

And of course we just can't get enough Kinder Art now can we! BTW most of these projects came out of the book Art Really Teaches.

Looks like rainy day recess tomorrow. Dang.

Centers Today

Inspired by this post. My centers are *not* as cute and inspired as Cindy's, but I'm working on it!

Also working on taking pictures with the iPhone that are NOT blurry.

I run five LA centers on Mondays and Wednesdays. This requires three parents. The parents here are VERY helpful and involved. Kindergarten parents are especially enthusiastic! But I have to train them intensively.

Five centers, 15 minutes each. No downtime for transitions, get up and move it on down the trail. This class can NOT sit around waiting for things to happen.

With me, we read a A Snowy Day. A good book for California kinders since at the end she finds out there is no snow... all melted lol I like to cut up the sentences and have them re - constuct them on the pocket chart. This is a Scholastic Seasonal Mini Books item. There are little books to color and practice independently.

For our independent center, good old sight words on a chalkboard. I used to give them donated mismatched socks to use as chalkboard erasers but no matter how clean or new they looked, I would always get "EEEEWWWWWW" like they were old and stinky so now I give them squares of felt. Um yeah. This will go into my book entitled Typical yet Unanticipated Reactions of Five Year Olds.

Stamping capital letters to match lower case. A freebie from Fran that I must have pulled off of Pinterest. Thanks Fran : ) I'm gonna get me a copy of Pete the Cat reeeeeal soon.

Number writing practice. We did this after completing a little book from our Math series, 5 Birds. OK confession: I cut and pasted this worksheet. So very, very much to learn in the technology area people. BUT please keep in mind that in college I wrote all my term papers on a typewriter.

And a little writing for MLK. A simple little worksheet about our personal dreams for the world. For after all let us not forget we are teaching the future.

Bless those little nose pickers.