Are you ready for school the new school year?

Yes...says the parents!
No...says the teacher...
Yes and no says the teacher who is a parent...

Without a shadow of doubt, there are mixed feelings about this question...
Parents are ready to get their children back on a daily schedule and out of the house.
Teachers are clinging to the last few weeks of summer like a cowboy riding s bull and the parents that are also teachers ate inbetween.

So how can we all get ready without stirring up too much fuss with 3-4 weeks of summer still left?

I am glad you asked...
Parents:
Start school shopping! For school clothes, uniforms, supplies, and essentials. Talk to your children NOW about the new school year beginning soon and the changes in the house it will bring such as earlier bed times, de-summarizing their rooms/the house (more details below) and getting up earlier in preparation for school.

Teachers, the same applies for you...start school shopping for clothes, any essentials that you will need that your school doesn't provide. Like posters and classroom decorations. I always thought it to be funny that some places like the dollar store sales better teaching materials in summer than all school year long...hummmm. Also talk to your family about the start of the new school year and how busy and crazy it makes you. Also have a list of ways they can help... Start de-summarizing your house to prepare you for the start of the school year...

Both groups should begin a 20 day count down to the beginning of school. Calendars should go up in a visible section of your home that can be seen by all members and "to do list" should begin being used in regards to school things to be done. De-summerizing your home includes putting your alarm clocks back into use, organizing all things school related so that you can find them when you need them, get back in the habit of updating the family calendar, get grocery lists back in order which include healthy breakfast items as well as healthy snack items for children and adults alike. This is my advice but it comes with a warning... WARNING...Please do not stop your summertime activities. You will find yourself and your children clinging to those fun activities during those last days before the wild rumpus starts all over again... Happy last few weeks of summer!,

30 day blog challenge

I will be blogging for the following 30 days all thing children, teaching, preparing for the new school year and parenting... I can do it!

Believe it or not but I am trying to convince myself, not you!!!

Please comment with questions you may have. I will come up with topics on my own but questions help the conversation go deeper...chat with you soon...

Summer planning, resting and safety...

"Summer summer summer-time"... the words of a well known song that expresses the anticipation of summertime and the excitement once it arrives. But what will you do with your child(ren) to give them the summertime experience that you deem appropriate?
Here are a few tips to help you decide...
1. Planning
Plan for your children to have a fun and happy environment to enjoy for the summer. Yes, having a week or so home sounds like a promising vacation or down time for you the adult but for the children, especially the younger children, they need and crave stimulation...the kind that can't always be provided at home...so plan fun activities outside the home that can be fun for the children. Parents don't feel guilty, this is recharge time for you. Yes you love your babies BUT, vacation used to be time for you to recharge and it should still be time for recharging still. Hopefully mom and dad will get some much needed down time while the children are enjoying some much needed stimulation...
Also plan for down time. If your child still naps, plan a nap time in your day or at least an hour of quiet reading just for a moment of quiet time for both parents and children...

Safety...looking at any news report, no matter where you live, you can hear reports of children and their accidents, unfortunately fatal yet preventable accidents. So here are my safety tips that can be started this summer and practiced all year long.
1. Water safety: pool and bathtub
A. Talk about water safety with your children. Sit near the bathtub or pool and tell the what your rules are and that you expect them to follow them.
B. Explain to them why your rules are so important. What could happen to them if they went intõ water unsupervised. Don't hide the truth even if its ugly or scary. Hopefully this could save their lives.
C. Talk about stranger danger...again, don't assume that your child knows these safety tips. My motto is A a parent is their child's first teacher...so teach them what you want them to know.
Have a great summer!

Lessons From the Animals!!!

January so cold and not really fun makes us be creative with everything! And what better way to be creative than to take our lessons from animals???
Starting with bears as teachers, we learned about Hibernation, animals that hibernate and the difference between Winter and Spring. We pretended to be bears by building caves inside the classroom, we searched for foods in our classroom/forest (last year this year we had a food allergy) and we pretended to hibernate...

Next ground hogs were our teachers. We learned about our shadows, the effects of light, shadow, shade and lack of light. We watched as the world watched waiting for the groundhog to come out if its hole to predict the weather.
We also explored our own shadows by shadow dancing, going out at various times of the day to find our shadow-or NOT!

Almost half way through...

So December is an important time of year. Aside from the Christmas celebrations, this month just about marks the half way point in our school year. This always puts me in a reflective state of mind, the 2 week break allows for time for reflecting but I am ahead of schedule this year.

From August to December has been measurably better than last year in many ways. As last year was my first year in a new school with a new curriculum, things were challenging and even tough at times but they were never BAD! However, this year, I am acclimated to the curriculum, we saved a lot of things from last year and we were significantly better prepared than we were last year.

So with that said, here is what we have been up to:
End of August:
#Welcome to school- The introduction of school: routines, learning areas, new friends and fun materials that we would be using in school.
September:
#Continued Welcome to school-with same idea of introducing routines, learning areas, new friends and different and fun materials while teaching the children how to behave in different school situations.

#Getting to know each other- The introduction of activities to learn about themselves and one another; learning about their families and themselves which includes family tree and parts of the body.

October:
#Fall-Activities that introduce the learning of seasons, the changes that fall brings

#Colors- The learning and exploration of colors: Primary and Secondary

November:
#Continued Fall learning-observing the changes happening outside, continued color exploration with color mixing

#Learning about the first Thanksgiving

December:
#Revisit the subject of seasons- preparing for winter

#Introduce the real story of Christmas and prep Christmas gifts

It's been a busy four months...and though we have gone over many more subjects than I have listed here there shall be many more to come. Because I am ahead of schedule with reflecting, I can spend some of my winter break planning-instead of reflecting then planning.

Work for a teacher is never done and very rarely takes a FULL vacation. I am also reflecting on my teaching skills and abilities. The main area that I want to improve on is planning- in details and executing that plan.

Will keep posting!
(Pics coming soon!)

Some Parents Just Don't Understand...

The Background: As a reflective piece, my assistant teacher thought it would be great to provide parents with a sort of "Customer Service Survey". I think it would be a great idea. So to get the ball rolling, I asked a parent that I've had in my class for two years "whada ya think" after one of the traditions at our school...

The Situation: As a tradition, my school brings all of the preschool families together to make a Feast for Thanksgiving. The parents provide the food; they set up and join their children for a lunchtime feast. In all honesty, it was chaotic last year. It wasn’t very organized, there wasn’t enough food and it was overwhelming for my children and their parents who are new to the school... So this year, it was organized better, there was enough food and it was cute for our children and their parents. Lots of planning on the teacher’s part made sure that this was enjoyable for everyone.

The Answer: So after this activity, the question was put to this parent "What did you think of the Feast" They were here for both years and I just wanted a simple comparison... Well that is not what I got... He though that there is no reason for us to do this type of activity. As a parent he feels that we "require" them to show up for too many activities and if he didn’t have a flexible schedule he doesn’t know what he would do. He also thought that it was un-necessary for this activity because it went over the children’s head and they have no idea what we were trying to get them to understand.

This is how I think he doesn’t understand:
1. In asking his opinion, we asked a simple and direct question and he never really gave us an answer too it.
2. The reason behind this "type" of activity is to bring the parents and children together for a time of fun, food and "fellowship". Also at three and four years old children learn by doing. They are visual and hands on learners and this activity helped them understand it a little bit more.
3. If you don’t want to come then you don’t have to come. All of our activities are voluntary. I don’t like it when parents come to participate in activities and instead of being there and enjoying the moment they stand back with a grumpy face judging and criticizing and that isn’t fun for anyone (except that parent).

Here is what I learned:
1. You can’t please everyone. No matter what you do there is always the possibility that somebody isn’t going to like it or will be unsatisfied and that’s ok!
2. When you open yourself up to criticism that is exactly what you will get and not necessarily about what you are asking; there could be something that has been on a persons mind for quite a long time and they unleash it on you, the person asking. There is a reason why people don’t offer customer service surveys and that is precisely why. The customers are obviously satisfied enough to continue using the service, so don’t push it!
3. Parents aren’t teachers and if you really want them to understand, you have to teach them too! It’s a lotta work on the teacher, but maybe it will produce great results in the end.

Teacher vs. Pediatrician-who wins?/who's advice do you take?

As a Teacher I know the wealth of knowledge that I have and I trust in the wealth of knowledge that my team has. However being a parent you have no choice but to entrust your child, their care and their learning into what you expect to be and just plain old hope to be "capable hands" on a day to day basis. However, for a doctor/pediatrician you entrust your childs care to them on a appointment basis. And with both you expect that they will give you and your child exactly what he/she needs or what you think they need. There are so many differences and yet very little (but one or two) similarities. So with two capable people giving you two different opinions on the same subject matter, who do you listen to?

Feeling that your child may be different in any way is difficult to process and to handle. However, if you feel that your child is different in any way seek help immediately! Please don't wait. There can only be two senarios. 1. You were worried about nothing because there were test and nothing came of it. OR 2. Your worries were correct, something was found and now your child is on the road to receiving help to correct or to recover what went wrong.
BUT IF YOU WAIT only one thing can come of that: the child misses the opportunity to correct it, you continue to wonder and now someone else has to point it it because it is interfering with learning.

This blog post is in honor of a family that trusted a pediatrician that encouraged mom to wait. The child is in my care so naturally I had to bring it up and try to deprogram the parents about getting their child help. This child had never been in school so mom only had the pediatrician to listen too. I am sorry that this happened. The parents now have the info to get some help and prayfully soon mom will contact them and they will be on the road to getting the help that this child needs.