Eden's Wanderings and Wonderings

It is science project time. A parent and a 5th grader were surveying a group of morning kindergarten students regarding the identification of candy and medicine (glued to index cards). I must admit, it is a high thinking 5th grader who thinks of a science project like this.

Approximately 30 pieces of candies and medicines were glued to index cards. Examples: tic tac, ExLax, lozenge, MandM, etc. The parent was recording the research results and taking pictures as the 5th grader asked the kindergarten student.

Being the cautious teacher that I am, I talked to the 5th grader's parent if permission slips have been used in this survey of 5 year olds. When I found permission slips in my mailbox in the faculty room I thoguht I'd talked the principal before I send out this project involving 5 year olds. Lo and behold, my prinicpal knew nothing of the project. A class has already been surveyed!

Being a doctoral student who is also involved in research at this moment, I am very aware of the sensitivity of using live subjects in research, esp. children or minors... ok, even it it is a science project! The permission slip indicated that the survey will involve 30 minutes per student. That is 30 minutes of instructional time each student will miss out! The 5th grader will also miss out on (30 minutes X 20 students per class) instructional time. Am I wrong to think this through?

I may have started something. The teacher who let the 5th grader used her class as research subjects is now mad at me. She told the parent of the 5th grader that there were 3 people in a tizzy (me, the other PM kinder teacher, and the principal). The parent is now also upset with the three of us! Oh my elementary school DRAMA! And I thought I was just following research procedures!

Sometimes being cautious and knowing about something can get one into trouble with others... Well after thinking about the situation, I really did not care that much about the morning Kindergarten teacher and the parent getting upset with me. I feel that I am advocating for the 5 year olds, in general...

Ok.. those are my thoughts for today.

As some of you may know, I am once again in the classroom - teaching kindergarten. Years ago, I taught first grade. It seems like there are higher and higher expectations of these youngsters with each year that passes.What I used to do in first grade, I am now doing and more in kindergarten.

We had our first spelling test last Friday. It was only a list of 10 words but 10 words for 5 year olds!!! The class got another 10 words today. Some were expressing some anxiety if they were getting another spelling test soon... poor kids...

It is report card time in a couple of weeks - so it is crunch time... testing and more testing. The children only get 20 minutes of recess each day. That is 10 minutes for snack and 10 minutes for play... and back to grind... did I say poor kids already?

By May, my school district expect my kindergarteners to write 3 descriptive sentences. The sentences have to be different from each other. They should have at least 5 words each, correct punctuation is of course expected, spelling, all the mechanics...etc. In the past few years, a picture prompt was provided for the children during the Writing Assessement. I liked that because the children had some sort of a starting ground from which their writing took off.

This school year, my school district decided to take out the picture prompt because the "brains" there said that the picture "inhibited the children's abstract thinking"... Get serious! Abstract thinking and 5 year olds!

I wonder if I am instrumental in turning some education-anxiety ridden kids into the world... hmmm, scary thought actually-

With all the budget cuts and heavy academic focus, Art classes have been delegated to the back burner. Today, however, my school district revisited Art Education and made a commitment to fund Arts for at least 5 years!

Today we celebrated Children's Art! My kindergarteners' artwork are on display at the district office. I am so proud of their work. My class' work are the only kindergarten samples from the 28 elementary school in the district. How cool is that?

I have this problem with students tattle-telling on each other throughout the day. I found a solution!

I told my kindergarten students that when I am teaching, I should not be interrupted unless it is very, very important because their disruption will be their way of "not allowing their friends to learn".

They can talk to the "ear". So, I cut an over-sized ear out of construction paper. I mounted the big ear on to another construction paper.It looks like a poster. I taped this "poster" in the very front of the classroom. When the students feel an urge to tattle on someone, they can raise their hand and ask to talk to the "ear".

In the beginning, there was a stream of students wanting to talk to the "ear". Now, one might need to talk to the "ear" once a week.

No tattling in my class anymore.

I thought about this when Jill first posted this on her blog and once again after Deborah posted it in one of the forums. I am not the most original or creative one, so I thought about what it would be for me...

Here are two that I have been toying with ... not my original thoughts, of course, but I thought these fit me... I teach students who are children of newly immigrated families. So my classroom is pretty diverse culturally and language-wise. I thought the six word sentence below is appropriate for my work. It also carries over to travels - when I step into lands where the language is "foreign" to me... Examples Japan and France... hmmm ... smiles go a long way -

Everyone smiles in the same language

or

To teach is to learn twice

The sentence above is very appropriate in the work that I do and in my life goals... I am always a learner - pursuing something all the time...

As we approach the end of another school year, testing, testing, and more testing seem to go into overdrive. We have been assessing students' learning. We are checking what skills they have mastered this school year. With all the testing that we do, you won't be able to guess that enrolling and attending Kindergarten is NOT mandatory in the state of California.

Kindergarteners and First Graders took the district writing assessments these past couple of days. Yesterday, one of the kindergarteners in the other classroom said that she was "too stressed" as the writing assessment was administered. As the test progressed and more directions were given the 6 year old child became more agitated. Eventually, she threw a "fit", or had a breakdown, and started throwing things including her test packet or materials.

I worry when a 5 or 6 year old display serious test anxiety this early in their educational journey. I wonder if we are asking too much from the children. Granting that she is the only one who had a break down and could not handle the testing pressures, it still bothered me that that happened.

Here is the test: the kindergarten students were asked to draw a picture according to a given prompt. After 10 minutes of drawing, they had to stop. The class then braistormed about their pictures. Words were listed on a chart paper. Then students were directed to write as many descriptive sentences that they can. They may use the words on the brainstorm list.

First grade tests were more involved, of course. I do not even want to go there....

Teachers were instructed not to provide any other assistance... no reminders about capitalizations, correct spelling, or punctuation marks. Students are only reminded to review their work and make sure every writing "mechanics" are done right.

I hope that we do not turn our students off to learning. I am a life-long learner and I love going to school. But as far as I can remember, I was not asked to write paragraphs when I was 6 years old. I did not know what a graphic organizer was...I did not know what a word web was... I do not think that I knew how to organize my thoughts to put together some coherent paragraph.

I wonder what other standards we will have next year. I wonder what we will expect of our students so we can say they have reached some benchmarks...

I hope that I am not a teacher who is expcting too little of my students but one who just wants some activities that are developmentally appropriate for their age....

Three of my colleagues called me up last minute and asked if I wanted to go wine tasting in the Livermore Valley. I have done these ages ago when the wineries were few and novel to the area. Some 15 years later, many wineries have cropped up and some produce wines tasting real good to my amateurish taste.

Here's our office staff, Sylvia and Georgia.

We started at Deer Ridge Vineyards. Tried and enjoyed some Viognier and various reds. The owner of the winery took us around his property which gave the tour a personal touch. He shared his plans with us on what he was going to do to make the place an event center. He even has a two-berdoom + place on the property that can be used by clients who want to stay close by during an event. This could make a nice little get-away too at $275 per night.

The group proceeded to Charles R Vineyards, a small family-owned and operated winery tucked away on some dirt road. Fun thing about these small places is that you get to meet the wine makers and enjoy their stories. The hometown atmosphere was so prevalent that we got to overhear soon-to-be exes discuss their divorce proceedings development. :)

Jordan, wanted to make her sharing time special. She decided to bring her favorite basketball player to share with the class yesterday. Jordan's dad coaches a basketball team at a local college. Here is Ring, Jordan's favorite player.

Ok, he is almost two feet taller than I am ... I stand a five feet, 6 inches.

I have been so behind in my blogging.... I thought PhotoHunt post will be a good way to get back in the groove... Bags... easy... :) Bags, bags, bags

I bagged these for my 30 kindergarteners... Each bag contained, a Halloween pencil, some erasers, candies, and some hokey toy. 5-year olds are so easy to please...

One student came in with more fancy bags.... not sure what the bags contained but they sure looked spiffy.

These bags I bought and brought home from the trip to the Philippines, Singapore, and Hong Kong... Not even sure when I would be able to use ALL of them... so far, I am using one and Tracey uses one ... :)

Birds- The month of November brings "birds" into my Kindergarten classroom. On November 1st, I take this bird out of my overstuffed classroom storage and put him on display... (I can not even recall where I found him, but it is a good prop for a kindergarten classroom, yeah?)

The children learn about this type of bird... that the young ones are called poult, that they can change colors when they are agitated or mad, that they roost, and one smart aleck 5 year old said, they can also be roast.... :), etc.

Then the children make their own rendition of the bird....

One parent made these "bird" cookies for the students....

But one of my favorite birds is this - one that can take me places. :)

Oh my goodness! I really need to learn how to say "NO". Even to something as cute as this. Ok, it is not that cute. It is massive. It is about 7 inches long!

Before the winter break, one of my students (and family) had to move and relocate... victims of hard economic times in the Bay Area. So the family asked if I can keep the family's pet fish as they are unable to take the pet with them. Not wanting to learn later that their pet was sent to Fish Heaven (via porcelain bowl and tubes), I said "Oh yes, sure. The children will love it."

Ok, it's entertaining for the children. I am sure they are going to learn something science related about this some day (soon).... but

It is a lot of work, keeping the tank clean and remembering to feed the darn thing!

I started this post weeks ago, before I went back to school after winter break and never posted it. So here goes.... For the class Christmas party, we had a Rudolph theme.

We read the story of Rudolph, the Red Nosed Reindeer.

We made Rudolph sandwiches for our party. Of course, we needed directions for everyone to follow... :)

Then the children put their peanut butter and jelly on...

Close the slices of bread and viola! Rudolph, yeah?

Big nose, but Santa needed all the light through the fog...