Confiscated During Carpet Time

My 4k-ers think they are sneaky. And for a (very) short period of time, they are. They hide "cool" things in their pockets during the put-folders-and-coats away period and take those cool things out again when they sit down at the carpet for calendar time. I give them the "you should put that in your backpack so it stays safe" spiel, which they do 99% of the time, and then move on with the day. Every once in a while, they try to trick me and walk over to their backpack only to come back to the carpet with the cool thing back in their pocket. If that happens, their cool thing goes on my desk and stays there until the end of the day. Sometimes they secretly try to take the cool thing out of their backpack at other points during the day and it ends up on my desk that way too. This week, I ended up with lots of cool things on my desk for the day.

This ring made its way to my desk after going from a finger, to a friend, to the floor, to a mouth. 

I was okay with this bracelet until the girl kept stretching it. I warned her that it could snap if she kept pulling on it. And it did all over the carpet. There were tears. I found those tiny beads all day long. 

It was just too cool to keep in his backpack.  :) 

One kid taught all the other kids how to make fans. Now I find them in random places of our classroom. I have been given a multitude of them as gifts from kids. This one made its way out of a pocket and blew a gentle breeze on my face as I was reading a book to the class.

He just couldn't wait until choice time to show his friends. It is a pretty cool coloring book. 

The same kid who took out the coloring book also took out this paper airplane.
He just wanted to show us. He didn't want to throw it. He promised.
Until it casually flew out of his hand. :)

This girl takes out and loses her earrings every single day. I'm lucky if I find both of them. Her mom gets a little plastic bag of earrings every day.

Chapstick and lipgloss are the worst. I find them all over the place. I usually end up throwing them away because I don't know who they belong to and no one ever mentions if theirs is missing.  

One of boys was playing with this during a large group activity. He was fidgeting with it and it was keeping his hands busy, so I was okay with it. And then he started stabbing his neighbor.

A girl put this in her ear. 

One of the girls told her mom she had to bring these to school because it was show and tell day.
We have never had a show and tell day this year at all.

Things Kids Said on a Wednesday

Every day I ask a question as part of our attendance taking procedure like: What's your last name? or Who's name rhymes with Wuh-my-uh? (Trick question- I have 3 girls in one class who's name could rhyme with that!) Today I asked them how old they are. One girl said, "I'm four cuz I keep eatin' junk food." (She really is four) I asked her when she will turn five. Her response, "I have to stop eatin' junk food so I can grow and have my birthday." 

One of my girls was started freaking out (tears, yelling, marker thrown) because she was writing the alphabet and couldn't remember what came after "D". I told her to sing the ABC's and think about it. I said I knew she would figure it out because she's a smart person. She yelled, " I am not smart! I don't even speak Spanish!!!"   :) 

One of my boys asked a goofy question- he was being silly and I can't remember what the question was- and I answered it. He asked in a teasing way, "how do you know?" and I told him it's because I'm smart. Then another boy chimed in, "Yeah! You went to high school." I said, "and college". Then everyone started chiming in "You eat your greens!" "You're a grown up" ""You eat protein!" 

A boy in the afternoon class said he wanted to be a spy. I got super serious and said, "Everyone needs to be super quiet. I just got a secret message saying our class has to go on a mission." Everyone got super quiet, so I whispered "Put on your spy goggles and spy clothes." They did (pretend ones, of course). "If you're ready, tiptoe to line up at the door. Remember, we are spies and don't want the bad guys to see us." The line was SO quiet. We tiptoed out the door and then I pretended like I heard something. I had everybody freeze. "I just got a secret message that we have to use our spy goggles to find as many R's in the school as we can" I led them down the hall and the very quietly (and excitedly) scurried around looking for and pointing at R's. It was awesome. 

During calendar time (specifically weather) I asked the kids if it was hot, warm, chilly, or cold so I could move the thermometer on the smartboard. Everyone said "COLD!!!" A little boy very angrily said, "MissElwee. Why do you keep saying it's cold? Just tell us it's hot already." If only it was that easy :) 

I needed everyone to calm down right after snack time, so I let a kid pick a book for me to read. A girl chose Come on, Rain! by Karen Hesse. As I was reading, everyone seemed so relaxed. At the end of the story a girl said, "That was a really long book, Ms. McElwee. But it was good." These kids can be so busy and challenging somedays but I just love them so much. 

Sore Throat Remedy

I woke up with a sore throat on Sunday. It wasn't too bad this morning, but after a day full of talking and singing to loud 4k-ers, my throat was ready for a break. 

I've been making what I like to call hot-honey-lemon-water (catchy name, I know) since I was old enough to boil water. My dad would make it for me before then. It's my go-to sore throat treatment and it works wonders. It's super easy to make and you only need three (with an optional fourth) ingredients. 

I start by squeezing a little fresh lemon juice (between a tablespoon and two) into a mug and add about the same amount of honey (I probably add a little more honey than lemon). Once my kettle it whistling, I pour the hot water over the lemon and honey, stir it, and it's pretty much ready to go! 

The honey coats and soothes the throat. I haven't done much research on this, but I've heard things about honey being antibacterial too. The lemon helps cut mucus (gross, but helpful). The warm water helps relax throat muscles and water is just good for your body all around. Plus, this combo just tastes good! If you want to take this delicious, time-tested, home remedy to the next level, add a splash of whiskey. It might just be a placebo effect, but a splash of whiskey seems to make this work even a little better :) 

Weekend Goodness

She wants to snuggle. All. The. Time. 

A burger from a little restaurant called Fred's. It's only a few blocks from where we live but this was the first time I've been there. It was delish. 

Anyone need a gurney? There's one for sale at Restore. Weird.

Dan and I did a lot of thrift shopping this weekend. This was one of the gems we found. 

Finally some good thrift store finds- I found a few sweaters. 

A jerky store just opened by our house. Yes, a store that sells (almost) only jerky. I'm not sure how long a store that sells only jerky will last, but for now I will be a happy beef jerky eating girl.

Peppermint mocha. Sunny day. This American Life on the radio.

Maybe spring will slowly start to appear.
I did see a robin in my school's parking lot a couple days ago.

Belated Valentine's Party

One of the Valentine's I made for my 4Kers. I found such cute socks to attach.
Get it? Toe-tally awesome!

The party was great! About half of my families came (which is a record!). The kids were SO excited.

I hung up streamers and hearts to make it festive.

I didn't have time to take pictures of all of the treats families brought in, but here is a before picture of the drink and snack stations. 

Valentine Bags

Friends, family, food, and a crafty thing or two is all you need for a good party! Happy Valentine's (a week late) everyone! 

Things Kids Said on a Wednesday

One of my 4Kers was wearing blue pants today and so was I. When she noticed that our pants were very similar she pointed her toe out so I would look at her pants and said, "twinsies!" 

One of the boys said he likes when his dad cooks pig for dinner. Not pork, pig. And sometimes he likes when he makes cow too. 

Two girls were arguing during choice time. One girl was teasing another about her grandpa being dead. I asked the girl if she knew what it meant when someone died and she didn't. I said that when someone dies, you don't get to see them in real life anymore. The girl doing the teasing looked like she felt bad and then said, "I know! How bout we all sit on the carpet and then go around the circle and say if we know someone who died. And if we do, then we will go dig them up!" - I'm glad you are trying to make your friend feel better, but I don't think it works that way :) 

During pick up time for the morning kids, I said "Where are all of your parents? They are taking a long time today." A girl responded, "They're probably all hangin out at the beach! All the snow is melting." 40 degrees might feel warm, but it's not beach weather warm yet :)  

We're more than halfway through February and we talk about what month it is every day. We sang our month song and, as usual, I asked the kids what month it is. Three kids shouted "October!" 

Remember the girl who brought the banana in her plastic hello kitty purse? Today she brought a skirt in the purse. She just wanted to show me. 

We talk a lot about why we need to leave our shoes on at school- the most compelling reason is that if we have a fire drill, your feet would be very cold and wet because we have to go outside so quickly that we wouldn't have time to put shoes back on.  Sometimes I forget how new school is and how only very basic things (and sometimes, not even that) are common sense. We had a conversation about why we can't put our coats on, get our folders, put them in our backpacks, and put our backpacks on if we have a fire drill. One boy suggested that if we ask the fire to run around in a circle for a little while, we would have time to get our things together before it burns the school. 

A girl told me she was going to bring me a Thanksgiving card for our Valentine's party. 

We are having a belated Valentine's party on Friday for a family friday event. We had a professional development day on the 14th, so we had to postpone until this week. I love holidays and am secretly happy the party had to be a week late because the festivities get to be stretched out now.  As long as the weather cooperates (which I'm not sure if it is supposed to. . . we might have an ice storm or blizzard or something), there should be a good sized crowd. I'll let you know how it goes :) 

All Monday's Should be Half Days

I was kind of dreading the drive home from school today- impending snowstorms don't help long drives go faster. And I don't know if "cold and snowy" is trendy right now in the nature department, but someone needs to tell Mother Nature to jump off that bandwagon. It's time to start a "sunshine" trend.

I was in the midst of explaining a class book we were going to make when we heard a voice over the loudspeaker say, "Due to inclement weather, the PM 4K session is cancelled. All after school activities are cancelled. Students will be released at 1 PM."  Yessssss

A couple of my favorite pictures of pets.

This is my absolute favorite pet picture- Batman :)

I ended up leaving once all of the AM 4K-ers were picked up and even though it was only slightly snowing at that point, I spotted five accidents on the highway. 

I spent my afternoon learning more things I can do to be a better teacher for children who are oppositional and defiant. 

I'll take a bloody mary and a book any day :)

We had fish tacos for dinner. I don't know why I don't make these more often. They are super easy, quick, and (most importantly) delicious. I marinated the fish for maybe 15 minutes in the juice from one lime, about a 1/4 of a teaspoon of cumin, 1/4 teaspoon chile powder, and a 1/4 teaspoon of paprika before I cooked it. Add the fish, some avocado, cilantro, and an extra dash of cumin to a corn tortilla and you'll have one happy (and no longer hungry) person!

 

Weekend Goodness

Dan and I talked a lot about happiness this weekend. He's been feeling stressed and frustrated about some things lately and his happiness hasn't been where it should be. Then, when we were driving home from my parent's house, this came on. The timing couldn't have been more perfect.

Valentine's Day Flowers :)

Playtime with my parent's dogs

I found currants in the grocery store! A perfect Valentine's treat for myself :) 

There's a Lamb in School. . Oh No! What are we Going to Do?

The sunrises have been BEAUTIFUL this week. Just gorgeous. They make the long drive to school a thousand times more enjoyable.

I think Thursday was the busiest day we've had all school year.

At the start of each class, we had a presenter from Stop Child Abuse and Neglect (SCAN) come to talk about being safe and not letting anyone take pictures of or touch your private areas. She also talked about how no one should hurt you. They learned that if any of that happens, they need to stop and go tell a different grown up.

After the SCAN presentation, we went to visit a lamb. Yes, a real live lamb. One of the the second grade teachers fosters sheep that are neglected/rejected by their moms. This little lamb was three weeks old and adorable. She was so soft and snuggly! The kids loved her. And I was singing the song from the handwriting without tears CD "There's a dog in school" (but replaced dog with sheep) all day!

Then we made hand print valentine's cards before snack time.

We had a little free choice time before another presenter came to our classroom. The school nurse organized dental presentations for all of the classrooms (if they wanted) and I had the "dentists" (I'm not sure if that's what they really were, but that's what my kids called them, and I went with it) present for both my classes. I started the day feeling bummed about my terrible observation and was glad to have something out of the ordinary happening. After the morning presentation, the "dentists" told me how great my class was. The dentists said they were the most polite, best listeners out of all of the classes that morning. They wondered how I did it :) They told the school nurse over and over how awesome the 4Kers were. When they came back for the afternoon class, they again were amazed at how well behaved the kids were. They said the 4K classes were the best classes they presented to all day long :) They were in the classroom for about 10 minutes before each presentation, so they got to see me and the kids in action. Two strangers got to see how my classroom really runs. I was so proud of those kids :)

The morning class got ready to go home after the dental presentation. We had a surprise fire drill after the afternoon class's presentation- what a busy day!

The drive home was golden and lovely. I think Dan is making a tasty dinner for Valentine's day before he leaves to go fishing for the weekend- Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

Post-Observation Meeting Blues

You know that observation I had yesterday? The one where the kids were not their usual calm selves and instead were bouncing off the walls? Well I had my post observation meeting today and it did not go well.

So how this works is three times a year, my supervisor comes into my classroom during a planned time to watch me teach. We meet before the observation and talk about what I want her to focus on while observing. During the observation, she takes notes on what is happening and then we talk about how it went afterwards. My last observation went pretty well, but because I chose a time during AM 4K, it was stressful. The morning class is a tough one. This time, I thought I would take some pressure off of myself and schedule the observation in the afternoon. The afternoon 4K-ers are talkative and silly, but they are easily redirected and except for a couple kids, are pretty mellow. Yesterday, they were everything but mellow. I mean there were kids rolling around on the floor, getting up, laying in random parts of the classroom, blurting out unrelated comments with absolutely no connection, and one girl who has always been kind was hitting a boy in the head repeatedly. It was a weird day.

At the start of the observation meeting, my supervisor asked how I think things went and I was kind of giggling about how crazy the kids were being. She agreed that they were a little nuts and then we moved on to talking about specifics. One of the sections I wanted her to focus on while observing me was classroom management- specifically transitions. I've always been good at transitions and chose this because the other area I wanted her to focus on was making sure I state what the students will learn. I forget to explicitly state what the goal of the lesson is and have been working on it. During this conversation, I needed to rate myself on how did. The ratings are: Unsatisfactory (which to me is like an F), Basic (this is a C in my mind), Satisfactory (a B), and Proficient (an A). Based on what happened during the lesson and what the rubric said, I had to give myself a C in the transition category.

I'm not a C person. Through out elementary, middle, high school, and college, I got some B's with an A average. There were a few C's and D's on small assignments that I didn't put enough effort into, but overall, I was an A and B kind of student. My supervisor talked about how I  could have tried different things to get them engaged. We sang, we danced, we sat criss-cross, we lay on our bellies, we played simon says, we moved around the classroom, I gave compliments, I moved names from the green road to the yellow road, we jumped, we made predictions (they love to make predictions), I waited, we whispered, we talked in silly voices. Some of these things we do a lot and they love, and the novelty of the other things we don't do often is almost always guaranteed to grab their attention. What other things did she want me to do? Oh. A scavenger hunt. (That actually is a fun idea that I will probably try, but it wasn't in the cards that day. I really don't think it would have worked even if I had thought of it.) So now I have a C.

I feel really bummed about it. The only time I get C's is when I don't try my best and that was not the case here. I tried really hard. I want to be awesome at what I do. I know I won't be to the level of awesome that I want to be at for a while- I have lots of learning to do. But a C? Getting a C makes me feel like I'm ruining the start of 32 kids' educations. It makes me feel like I'm not good at what I do. I don't do C work. It's frustrating.

After the meeting, my afternoon class (the one that was observed) came in. They were back to their usual selves today. I wanted to yell "SEE?! Observe me now! My transitions are GREAT!" Good thing I have one more observation to go- everyone better be on their best behavior when ever that happens.

WPR was on my radio on the way home from school. One of the segments was about playing games. I was lost in my thoughts and wasn't really paying attention until I heard the guy on the radio talking about learning from frustration. He said something like, "you can't grow until you have felt very frustrated." It was something good for me to hear. Frustration was a strong feeling today but I'm still growing.

One of my 4Kers handed me this tiny folded up piece of paper and said, " I made this for you. Open it after school."
Even if I get a C in transitions (this time), I know I'm doing some things right :) 

Random Tuesday Things

1. I was sitting at my desk, getting a smartboard lesson ready before the bell rang, when on of my 4kers walked in. I said hi to her and she said, "Ms McElwee. . .  something happened." She sounded concerned, so I said, "Oh no- what happened?" She pulled out this plastic, see through, hello kitty purse from her backpack and said, "This." and walked out of the room. There was a banana in the purse. 

2. During math time, one of my 4kers turned around, looked out the window, and blurted out, "Does the sky look greenish-blue to you, or is it just me?" 

3. A girl in the afternoon class told me she was coming to a Valentine's day party at my house and she was going to bring me a Thanksgiving card. 

4. I overheard a girl tell a boy that he can only be Buzz Lightyear if they can get married when they are grown ups. He responded by saying, "To infinity and beyond!" 

5. One of my kids brought be a chocolate rose because she saw it at the store and thought I would like it. She was right. It was dark chocolate and tasty. 

6. I had a formal observation today. I picked a lesson that is usually really engaging and I chose for my observation to happen during my afternoon class, which is usually pretty mellow. They were super wiggly, talkative, and defiant- the only mellow kid was the one who was practically falling asleep on the floor. I had to stop what was planned and talk about how their day is effected and how we can't get to "choice time" (where they get to pick centers to play in) if they talk and interrupt so much. I feel like it went horribly. I have my post-observation meeting scheduled for tomorrow, so we'll see. 

7. I made eggs benedict for dinner. I have only had it two other time- once when Dan ordered it at a restaurant and I tasted it and another time when I ordered it at a restaurant. I've never poached an egg before. It didn't look as pretty as restaurant poached eggs, but I think it turned out pretty good for my first try! Hollandaise sauce isn't that hard to make either. 

Weekend Goodness

Birthday cupcake on of my 4K-ers big sisters gave me as I was getting ready to leave on Friday. 

One of the people that makes me happy. 

I'm getting tired of this whole extra cold thing, but the snow this weekend was just so pretty. 

Tea and caramel delights- what could be better?

Birthday dog! She turned one on the 9th. I still love when the dogs rest their paws on the arm of the chair. 

Gettin a little shaggy...

Happy birthday, Alli! 

I made cinnamon suger and glazed donuts for a family brunch. Mmmmm! 

Avocado + lemon juice + salt +pepper = a delish snack



When weekends are this good, I wish they would last just a little bit longer :)