Singalullaby

Welcome!

Grab A Button ~ My Teaching Blog

 

 Click the button to find my kindergarten corner of the blogosphere!

Tom Hanks Spoofs Toddlers & Tiaras

HAHAHALOLOL!!!!!

 

Look Over Here

Looking for me?  I'm knee-deep in kindergarten fun!  Check it out at 

ReadWriteSing

Keep Calm-o-matic poster generation

Keep Calm-o-matic poster generation.  My creation says "Keep Calm and Remember To Sing".  Click the link to check it out and make your own!

11 For '11

Call them what you like--resolutions, goals, plans--, a list for 2011 just seems like a good idea.  

Here I go......
1.  Goodbye, 'garnet/sand color combo' in the bedroom.  I'm liking chocolate/sand/frost; fortunately, this change does not involve repainting the walls!

2.   A tossing day for the myriad of mugs, plates, and whatnots that fill the kitchen cabinets, tentatively scheduled for my first day off.

3.  Check to see if the treadmill still works.  If so, I will JUST DO IT!

4.  Write a letter, to BigBro & MidBro, each month.  And save them until the boys leave for college. 
Or, later, whatever seems prudent.  Because, I cannot seem to communicate my love, fears, dreams, and memories to them without some eye-rolling taking place.  On all our parts :-)

5.  Make Sunday night dinner a sacred time.  Everyone present and accounted for.

6.  Start another scripture journal.  I did this in 2007 and the process helped me to grow in my walk with God.  

7.  Sing more.  Even if this means that I spend a bit of $$ to update my iPod component (I use a
Shuffle.  There isn't a speaker dock for the silly thing!).

8.  Organize the closets in the classroom one more time.  And may it be the last.

9.  Create the memory book for the kindergarten class.  I planned to do this over the holidays, but Shutterfly is s l o w and I didn't finish before leaving town.  Maybe I can combine #2 and #9 .....HaHaHaHA!

10.  Remember that tomato juice counts as a serving of vegetables.  And edamame is a protein.

11.  Breathe.  Ferris Bueller is still quoteworthy:  "Life moves pretty fast.  If you don't stop and
look around once in awhile, you could miss it." 

 

Thankfulness Abounds

Patchwork pumpkins, rolling down the hill......do you get to play with paper and glue at your job?  The best part of this lesson was the lead-in literature, one of my fav books, The Runaway Pumpkin.  The text is rhythmic and builds in speed, as the pumpkin's journey takes on epic proportions.

I love to teach with/from/around/through books.  In my wildest dreams, I am a successful author and illustrator of children's books; I get to visit classrooms of five- and six-year-olds, taking them on a 45 minute journey of imagination.  In reality, I have the privilege of guiding and nurturing a group of children through all aspects of learning, five days a week.  I LOVE my job.  Truly, the only thing better about my wildest dream is probably the pay.  :-)

Thankfulness is on most of our minds this week.  Today, I realized that I am smack in the middle of exactly where I want to be.  If I were doing anything else, I'd be pondering how to get to where I now am, in the heart of kindergarten.  It is the absolute center of gravity, the top of the mountain, for me.  

Thanksgiving, 2010....I thank God for introducing me to the amazing children in Room K.

(Also, "Thanks!" to Michaele Sommerville for sharing the patchwork pumpkin idea!)

When the mirror tells a different story

Children like to use cameras.  I have a digital camera in my classroom and one of our daily jobs is "reporter".  I usually follow the reporter and later, secretly, retake his/her photo for clarity's sake!  Although some pics are priceless as they are:  three pairs of shoes, a face looking through a magnifying glass, the glue bottle spillage. 

When I downloaded pictures from this week, I found a few of me.....oh....my.  When did my face turn to melted wax?  Have I lost that much hair?  And, why is it turning red/ish?!  Weren't my teeth straightened long ago and why are they looking a bit crooked?  Do my clothes take on a different shape when I leave the house each morning?

The bottom line is that my internal mirror is not matching the camera's lens.  If you want to know why my Facebook pic hasn't changed for awhile, it's because I haven't taken a decent picture since 2008.  Maybe, possibly, a student's parent has a good shot of me with their child.  For sure, the five-year-old reporters need a few lessons in placement and perspective --please, children, do not point up at me from the floor :-).

Christmas Wish #1:  thermage chin tightening treatment
Followed by Wish #2:  a hairstyle that hides saggy chin and thinning locks
And may I have Wish #3:  enough money to buy the perfect pair of eyeglasses
And, oh, add Wish #4:  a bit of teeth whitening

My paycheck won't cover any of that, not if my children expect gifts of their own.
Maybe I'll avoid the mirror for awhile.....

 

 

C is for conferences

To all of my friends who are teaching in the public schools, navigating the space with 22+ students---

I may have a very manageable class of eleven, but I bet most of your conferences didn't each last 45 minutes!

Next time, I will attempt to pace myself better.  :-)

Senior Guys At Powderpuff

It was even better LIVE! Class of 2011, you rock!

Teaching is...time consuming!

Since starting the private blog for my Kindergarten class, I have neglected this little corner of my world.  That fact alone is a marker of what life is like at the moment!  Awake at 5:30am, at work by 7:10, I breathe the crayon-scented air of a busy classroom for 9 hours/day.

80% of my students are the youngest members of their families.  They like to talk and expect undivided attention!  S L O W L Y, they are learning to raise their hands and wait to be recognized.  But even I can admit that some of our funniest moments have sprung from unsolicited dialogue!  J. spontaneously bursts into a Michael Jacks*n montage, V. wants to know if Abraham liked water from a well, C. shares that the Bible people didn't even have toilets, and A. asks M. why "she be cryin' all the time".  (Good question!)  One child is reading at a second-grade level and another is cutting like a two-year-old. 

This week we will study apples and take a field trip.  I can't wait to hear their observations of the farmer's market!  Let's just hope the toilet is open for public use.  ;-)