Gin to Juiceboxes

Archive for 2011

Aug
2

Teacherly Advice on Naming your Newborn

The end of every Summer vacation brings two exciting events for me:
One, I finally catch up on unread facebook posts and realized that EVERYONE in the world (except me) is having a baby right now.
Two, I’m getting nervous and excited for a new year of my own freshly ready-for-school little ones and daily scanning the school website to see my growing list of kiddos. What do these two events have in common? Names.

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Mar
19

Happy Mardi Gras, Rainbow Punch!

So, it’s Spring! And the way Spring is visible in my classroom is that kids start bringing in Easter candy, Mardi Gras beads, and you know, a bunch of crap that takes their attention away from school. But, we are all ready for Spring break – the kids and me, so I sort of just tell them, you can wear that plastic necklace/ring you got from the top of a cupcake/shamrock pin/etc. as long as I don’t see you or someone else playing with it during lessons.
Now, for most kids, this becomes to difficult after about 10 seconds and I take it from them until the end of the day (or forever because half the time the kids don’t even remember they had this can’t-live-without-it treasure, and I certainly have other things on my mind at the end of the day rather than redistributing plastic junk).

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19

What do Saber Tooth Cats Eat?

I have a lot of really quick-learning kids in my class this year. Some of the kids came in at the beginning of the year already reading, and even more of them are just really good thinkers – really evaluating things they read and learn. Sometimes you just get a class one year that’s really low or really high as a group, and it has been kind of an exciting experience to work with these little geniuses this year. The funny thing is, some of the kids are reading really high level stuff (like 1st or 2nd grade reading level) but their opinions and interests are still normal 5-year-old ones, so some of their reading abilities sort of outstrip their level of world experience, which can be pretty funny.

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Mar
8

Weebles wobble, but they don’t laugh in your face. Meet Rainbow Punch.

I have a student with social/emotional issues. Lets just say she (Rainbow Punch) started the year unable to communicate her feelings with words. If she didn’t want to work, or didn’t want to sit by other kids, or just didn’t want to do whatever we were doing she would choose randomly from the following list: run away (man she is faster than she looks), scream (sometimes words, sometimes just scream), hit another kid, hide under the table, throw herself on the floor, put her head down and fake cry, laugh in a creepy not-happy way, or just plant herself in the nearest chair and not move for anything. There was never any telling what would set her off or which fun item from her repertoire she would choose.

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8

I am Sarcastic – Deal with it.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: I am not the typical early elementary school teacher. I look down the hall in my own school and there are all varieties of “teacher types.” We have all the basics represented: the teacher who plays guitar as her students enter in the morning; the vegan-hippie-free spirit who wears hemp shoes and loves everyone, but especially kids; the new teacher who is always flitting from copier to lesson plans and back and forth – you can sometimes recognize the new teacher as the one still wearing heels; the veteran teacher who seems to breeze in 15 minutes before the kids but still seems relaxed; the cranky teacher who has no business being with children in general; and of course, the one whose room is so decorated with gingham and teddy bears that it looks like the build-a-bear workshop threw up in there.

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