30: Process Over Product

So much of early childhood education is about process,

if not all of ECE.

It's nice to have things to send home

or put up on a bulletin board,

but for me,

the best part of being an ETK teacher

is observing and listening to my students while

they engage in hands on activities.

I learn so much. 

29: Toes and Teacher Portraits

Conversations with M are always entertaining.

He is super smart and creative

and today we spent time discussing how many toes

are on his foot.

It started with 3.

Then he settled for 4.

Of course I asked him to find evidence of 4 toes.

He didn't want to take his socks and shoes off

so S and I took off our shoes to let him count.

Like I said,

He's super creative,

so ...

Then he decided to do a portrait of me.

He added glasses...

and gave me 3 fingers...

then a mustache. 

He was pretty happy with his creation.

Striking imagine huh?

28: He Eats!

He eat lunch for the first time on Day 27.

I didn't make a big deal,

but I noticed.

Today, 

he lined up with his friends,

and picked up a lunch again.

Small steps,

but huge for him!

#makinggains

Can you write the first letter to your name?

That was our initial goal after recognizing 

your name from a list.

Step 2 is to write some letters in your name.

So excited about all the growth I have seen!

27: Mental Monday

 This week is dedicated to Mental Health Awareness (MHA).

We kicked off the week wearing green in support of MHA.

Mental Health is an important part of our health.

I want my students to be able to identify their feelings

and learn coping skills when they need them.

Our family knows all too well that coping skills are essential for survival sometimes.

We do a daily check in.

Every person in our classroom is heard.

So far students are usually happy and feel good.

But every once in awhile you will get an, "I feel sad today."

I love the opportunity to lead class discussion on strategies we can do to help when we have those not so good feelings.

During our Morning Meeting today shared what makes us happy.

26: Let's Read!

It was learning to read Friday!

I modeled early reading skills the day before,

writing and reading in front of the students.

Today, I had the students try reading on their own with peers observing.

In small group time,

each child had their own copy of the simple text

so they could practice 1 to 1 correspondence 

and share it with their families.

Oh, I found Reading Fingers at Target!

Fun witches fingers to help students focus on each word.

25: Keeping it Simple

I'm a believer that it's all about the process

and not the product.

It's great to have student work at the end of a lesson

or activity,

but it's NOT necessary.

Most learning occurs by just doing.

Simple, but effective.

We are developing number fluency.

I want students to have a solid understanding in what numbers are, mean, look like, and how we use them.

Our current goal is to identify small quantities without counting.

To get there,

we need to count

and understand.

It's never too early to ask children to check their work

or explain their thinking.

Four year olds can learn to monitor and self correct.

I used the same materials working with 4 different groups of learners.

We worked with numbers 0 - 6.

Meet them where they need to go.

I learned a lot.

24: Creating Resources

One of my goals this year was to limit pre-made decorations or class resources.

I wanted the students to see themselves on every wall and

to take part in creating our environment.

Our color board will be added as we focus on different colors throughout the year. 

Painting circles is a good ECE skill to work on.

BEFORE: a blue painting.

AFTER: It now serves as the blue square for our shape board.

It was Sports Day today.

I had to stop D and take a selfie with him.

My Dodger shirt was an end of the year teacher gift.

He was very observant!

#GoDodgers

23: One Activity Can Fit All

I'm always looking to create small group activities that fit the needs of all my students.

Well, maybe not the activity, 

more like using the same material.

Students get to work with different groups throughout the day,

but last week,

we started focused, small group instruction,

which means that students are grouped according to needs.

LETTER PLATES: Paper plates with letters written on them- 2 identical sets. Right now I have uppercase letters written on plates. Each plate has a matching letter plate. When they are ready, I will add a set of lowercase plates.

Tier 3: For students that need more support, I only placed 6-8 letter plates faced up. Their task was to match the plate I give them to one on the floor. This group was learning the concept of what a letter is and looks like.  The objective for them was to work on visual discrimination and finding letters that are the same. Simple, but effective.

Tier 2: For students that have more concept of print (some letter knowledge), I placed all the letters of the alphabet faced up on the floor. Matching plates where divided among them. They took turns to find a match, and grabbed the pair.

Tier 1: For students with the most letter knowledge, I made it more challenging. They played a game of letter concentration. I placed  pairs of letters faced down. This group of students had to not only find matching pairs of letters, but had to remember where letters were placed.

They will move from direct matching to upper/lower case matching and then move on to sound and letter match. 

Simple material (only plates and a marker), but possibilities are endless. 

 

22: Grateful

Today our two new water and sand table arrived.

Thanks to my amazing friends and family,

my students will get to play and have sensory learning experiences.

They replaced our two, duct taped, gorilla glued, and sun damaged ones.

How lucky are my students?!

Pretty lucky!

21: Small Moments

I get to witness a lot of small, meaningful moments in ETK.

On Friday, M lead the class good morning song.

She started the year close to me, quiet, shy, 

and did not really play with others.

In the past few weeks, 

she has made friends, 

taken on more responsibilities, 

and volunteered to stand and lead.

This was huge Friday...

R finally recognized his name and even said it!

Little steps, but we are moving forward!

On Friday, I realized that I was a living contradiction.

When A told me that E had hugged him,

I said, "Did you tell him thank you, but remind him that we can't hug right now."

Later outside, M came up to me and asked,

"Can I have a hug?"

Yes, I am a living contradiction.

20: Day 20

Today, Zero left a bag of jumbo Fruit Loops.

So we made bracelets while counting to 10.

-counting

-1to1 correspondence

-color ID

-fine motor skills

and eventually... subtraction (You get it right?)

We have a growing flower rubric in class.

I think I made it about 20 years ago

when I did a lot of self assessing and rubrics in class.

I didn't take a picture of it because it has pictures all over it.

Basically, the students all start out as seeds (I know my name: as in will respond to it when called.)

Then they sprout (I can find my name), and grow a stem (I can write the first letter of my name), the stem grows higher (I can write some letters in my name). 

Then at the top is a flower (I can write my name). 

We did a quick informal assessment with the students today.

All the kids can find their names now!

Well, my two G's can if they are the only G names shown.

Next, to find out who can write the first letter of their names?

This may not look like much to you, but it's HUGE for them and us! I see a lot of first letters where I didn't on the first day of school. 

20 days.

I can't wait to see where they will be in another 20 days!

19: What I Miss

One of the things I miss most this year is reading aloud.

I still read to students,

But it's not quite the same.

The students can't see my facial expressions,

and hear my character voices as well as they could without a mask.

It is what it is

and I am still keeping my Book A Day wall.

The best part of today was hearing S picture read.

I had to capture it,

and she caught me,

even so, best part of day!

18: ELPAC

Spent a large portion of my day testing my English Learners.

ELPAC initial assessment times.

Six down, 2 to go.

I did get to spend lunch in the classroom

and was greeted with M's whiteboard picture and story.

This is me with a broken leg.

(See his broken leg?)

I ran and fell down.

See this (look closely).

That's my .... 

Yup, he knows his body parts well,

Later he added clothing! 

Love their imagination!

17: Math Stories

We started using our Math Journals for Math Story Problems.

I start off simple and adjust when I need to.

Math story problems will continue throughout their K-6 experience

so I want to expose my kiddos early.

It's not graded formally right now,

but it provides wonderful data 

that gives me a sense of where my students are in their math thinking.

I thought he drew 3 yellow balloons, but mommy has her own.

He initially drew 2 yellow, but the red crayon got a hold of it!

He drew 5 balloons and counted them. I read the story again and did draw 1 red and 2 yellows, but once again the red crayon needed to be used!

He heard balloons. He knew there was red and yellow in the story.

He was able to explain what he did.

I love that I have these work samples,

it will provide a nice baseline for families and students of where they started.

16: Thursday Routine

Covid-Testing is now part of our weekly routines.

What a crazy world we live in these days. 

The small price to pay for being a preschooler in schools today.

And now back to more important things...

Dramatic Play... 

And construction play!

15: Goals

One goal I have for my students this month is to recognize the first letter in their name.

I had 3 students recognize their names (or at least the first letter) on the first day of school.

Today, all but 3 recognized their names (or at least the first letter).

We will get there!

Blending letter recognition with fine motor skills.

One personal goal I have for myself

is to find the perfect teaching mask for all day.

I'm on mask type 3 today.

I don't think there will be a perfect mask.

But I'll keep trying.

Wish they didn't come in packs of 25-50!

14: Sensory Matters

 I know everyone is in a hurry to make up for

"Learning Loss," 

but I want to make sure that my kiddos

don't lose out on learning experiences.

Kids need sensory play.

So this year,

I am making a conscious effort to focus more on providing

time and experiences to sensory learning

before we move them to the abstract.

They need to touch, smell, taste, hear, and observe.

It was our culminating project day for red circles,

so we made red pancakes.

Even my new friend (see Day 3) ate one.

He told me he didn't want to eat a pancake before the cooking center,

but I guess it was too tempting.

Today, I noticed my new friend finally

got up during our morning dance and song.

This week,

my new friend moved from the corner chair (that he chose to sit at during class meetings),

to the mat with the rest of his peers.

It was huge!

But I didn't say anything.

I saw him start to wiggle (and dance)

and it made my heart happy.

During outdoor play,

I noticed he began to play with others

rather than play alone.

Huge steps this week for my new friend.

So proud of him.

13: Take the Lead

One of the core paradigms for the Leader In Me

is that Everyone Can Lead.

So this year, I started letting go earlier.

Last week M became our morning greeter.

I love greeting each child at the door, 

but M is capable too,

and besides, 

I check in with them daily first thing so it's a Win-Win!

This week I started asking for volunteer leaders to lead

our different songs during morning check in.

I guess I don't need to lead Ms. Linky's good morning song anymore.