Final photo blast

Click here for Andy's beautiful photos of our last days together, and click here for my slightly-less-fabulous photo set including graduation.

The graduates

We did it!

And just like that, our five weeks of Kindergarten Kickstart have come and gone. This past week ended up being a difficult one for a few reasons: one, the classroom atmosphere (and our level of control over behavior) changed when Taylor left, and two, we were trying to cram all of the activities we had planned before the session was over. Now we know just how important our 1:3 teacher-student ratio is, and I'm inclined to think that our cramming is just proof that we need more time. 19 days is great, but eight weeks would obviously be even better.

On Thursday morning, we practiced our songs for graduation and then visited the Main St. fire station. We saw the kitchen and bedroom, watched a firefighter slide down a pole and don a uniform, and walked through the fire truck. When we returned, the kids were WILD, so we had a quick snack and played outside until lunch time and quiet time.

I realized during the week that we might have been doing quiet time wrong. We've been very insistent that kids stay on their cots and read quietly if they aren't sleeping, but I think maybe we should have tried to help them all sleep. I found that rubbing A's back for five minutes put her right to sleep, and her afternoons went so much more smoothly when she had slept.

After quiet time, we welcomed Anna's friends from Duffy Elementary in West Hartford, who set up a school-supply-shopping activity in the FRC. The kids each got ten "dollars" to purchase supplies for their new backpacks.

Then, we gathered in the shade outside for a lovely little graduation with speeches from Anna and Jon, songs performed by the kids, and presentations of diplomas, backpacks, and Macdonough School t-shirts.

I, for one, can't contain my pride for all that the kids have accomplished in the past five weeks. They've improved number and letter skills, learned appropriate classroom behavior, practiced bucket-filling and sharing, tried dozens of fruits and vegetables, written their names successfully, increased gross motor skills and coordination from yoga and dancing, memorized entire songs, read dozens of books, and exercised their imaginations. I and my fellow Kickstart teachers have grown to love these kids, and we miss them already. Kindergarten Kickstart has been a magical summer and we can't wait to see our kids become exceptional kindergarten students at Macdonough School in just a few short weeks.

Tuesday and Wednesday

I can't express how proud I am of our munchkins. We've had a few visitors this week, and I've been reminded of how far the kids have come. Julie has finished post-testing the kids (and she even stayed to make ice cream with us yesterday afternoon!) and she was so impressed at the improvement they have shown.

We've been cramming in all of the fun activities that we ran out of time to do earlier in the summer. Today, we made grass seed caterpillars that the kids can take home to (hopefully) watch grass grow. We also had our very last sign language lesson today with Sim and Sam. We sang Wheels on the Bus and learned signs for "bus," "wheels," "town," "mom" and "dad," "door," and "baby."

Tomorrow is our graduation. All are invited to join us at Macdonough School at 2 pm to celebrate with our kindergarteners!

The Last Monday

This morning, after a breakfast of Cheerios and mangoes (success!), we sat down to circle time to talk about our community. We were joined by new full-time addition Andy and our friend Julie from the first week of Kickstart. We read Is Your Mama A Llama? and talked about different animal families. The kids were pretty engaged for a Monday morning with the exception of a very sleepy Q, who, as usual, brightened over the course of the day. Calendar time and Weather Watchers went quickly (another sunny day - our chart is almost full!) and we transitioned to a discussion about community. Who lives in our community? What places can we visit in our community? How do we stay safe in our community? Who can we trust? We made a list of community words: mom, dad, houses, police, firepeople, schools, parks, restaurants, pets, etc.

It was a gorgeous day outside, and we played a pretty intense game of tag (which the kids call "get ME!"). In the afternoon, Rani Arbo joined us for a lovely sing-a-long.

Click here for Andy's photos!

Official Week Four Update

Sorry to keep y'all waiting. Here's your re-cap of our second to last week (yelp!) of Kickstart.

On Tuesday, we had our fourth field trip of the summer to KidCity, which is a kids' museum in Middletown that essentially just did everything right. The rooms are big, bright, colorful mazes of kid-friendly, open-ended play structures and toys. There are lots of little alcoves and seats and lofts for kids to explore, and every inch of the museum is painted over with the most beautiful artwork.

In the first room, kids cook at a restaurant counter, pull levers on the back of a full-size car, sit in a jewel-and-mirror-encrusted cave, write their names in light on a dark wall, keep balls afloat above a pillar of blowing air, and maneuver a spaceship with day-glo wands.

In the apple room, they can sit on a massive pig, find and sort eggs in the chicken cages, lift apple baskets on a pulley system, climb to the top of an "apple tree" loft and pet the lift-size horse.

In the "fishery," they collect, sort and distribute red, yellow, and blue fish via a magnetized overhead conveyor belt aboard a ship (or they sequester their fish collections inside the nearby igloo).

In the next room, kids can work in the bagel shop, cook at the restaurant-style stove, flip through jukeboxes while they wait to be served at the booths, or control the traffic light above yet another steer-able car.

Upstairs in the former cornfield, they can pop their heads into the middle of train tracks, play at the dino tables, paint a fence, pick carrots, and take care of baby dolls.

Then, in the music room, they can experiment with making different sounds on metal and wood "drum" wall panels and different lengths of tubes - plus there's a slide, monkey bars, and a beautiful see-saw.

Like I said, KidCity got it right. And they open late on Tuesdays to allow for groups like us (read: not paying for tickets) to visit free of charge. We planned to stay for 45 minutes (not sure what I was thinking when I budgeted for time) but of course the kids were elated at every nook and cranny they discovered, so we stayed for nearly two hours. They all played beautifully together, respected the other groups (rather, they didn't really seem to notice anyone else, but that said, they didn't bother anyone), and they had the time of their lives. Our friend Cornelia visited and met each of the kids (we've been practicing the "Hi, my name is ___, nice to meet you!" dialogue), was persuaded to come back to school with us, and later was suckered into reading to L through most of quiet time. We like new friends.

Back at school, abandoning our hopes of fitting in circle time and centers, we immediately ate lunch and most of us crashed for quiet time. L was the exception. At one point, as I was downloading photos and came across the funniest progression of photos of K and was laughing hysterically with Cornelia and Taylor as a result, we looked up and saw L looking at us and chuckling heartily. She pointed to us and said, "It is SO funny." Bear in mind that the room was completely dark and she was hanging off the edge of her cot amid a room full of sleeping children. Anyhow, most everyone else slept HARD. It had been an active morning. In the afternoon, Sim and Sam came over from the lab to teach us Old MacDonald in sign language. We learned the signs for cow, horse, pig, dog, chicken, and farm.

Finally, on Wednesday, we sort of got back on schedule. At circle time, we read my faaaaavorite kids' book Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse. It's about a mouse named Lilly who loooves her teacher, Mr. Slinger, who wears artistic shirts and says "Howdy!" with a wink every morning (and then all of the kids cheerily repeated "howdy" and blinked furiously) and serves delicious snacks and makes Lilly want to be a teacher when she grows up. One day, though, she brings her brand-new purple plastic purse - which plays music when it is opened and carries her shiny quarters and movie-star sunglasses - to school and insists on talking about it during class. Mr. Slinger takes the purse away. Lilly then draws a mean picture of him and sneaks it into his bag. At the end of the day, though, he gives back her purse with a nice note that says "Today was a difficult day. Tomorrow will be better." Lilly feels terrible, and goes home to write an extra-nice apology note to Mr. Slinger. Fortunately he forgives her and she is allowed to share her purse at Sharing Time.

The kids are getting to be really great at sitting still for circle time. They really engage with books and everyone (seriously, everyone) participates on some level for calendar, weather, and morning song. We've come pretty far. I'm so proud of them.

On the tail end of circle time, we talked about bugs and insects. We read The Very Quiet Cricket (sadly Macdonough's copy is broken and doesn't chirp anymore, but they didn't know what they were missing) and a new book called I Wish A Were a Butterfly about a disillusioned cricket whose feelings are hurt when the frog on Swampswallow Pond tells him that he is ugly. He eventually goes to the Wise Old One, who assures him that he is certainly not ugly and that he shouldn't care what the frog says. The cricket realizes that the opinion of a good friend (the Wise Old One) is far more valuable than that of a mean frog, and he embraces his beautiful cricket-ness. Later, before centers, we read the Very Hungry Caterpillar, which was great practice for counting, identifying foods, and understanding the caterpillar-butterfly metamorphosis. Angela visited from the lab for centers and played fabulous math games with the kids - we're turning it up a notch on the math and lit work for our last week. I started one-on-one letter practice with the kids and got through three great little sessions of practicing our names and the alphabet. I was reminded again that each of the kids has a lot to learn - we'll be kicking the letter practice into high gear too.

A had a cranky, cranky day. Like, she was RUDE. When she didn't pop up at the end of quiet time, I decided not to wake her, and she slept soundly through the rest of the afternoon. We found out at the end of the day that she had been up late the night before, which explains everything. Before she left, I took her aside and gave her a chance to own up to her bad behavior, eventually leading her to offering up apologies to her other teachers. I said, "Today was a difficult day. Tomorrow will be better." She agreed.

Thursday was AMAZING. My friend Renee visited and began our day with some impromptu pre-breakfast yoga. Circle time was long again to avoid the rain, but went beautifully. We read Kevin Henkes' Old Bear, which gave us the chance to talk about seasons and encourage theory of mind reasoning. Then we did a rousing rendition of the morning song, during which our accumulated dolls and stuffed animals each got up and danced. Then, the very most special guest arrived: my mama! We've missed her since she left at the end of planning week, and the kids hadn't even met her yet. I warned them that she was coming and told them about how much she had helped us plan for Kickstart, and when she arrived the kids all jumped up and hugged her.

We settled back down on the circle and re-visited our yoga book. Instead of doing every pose (one for each letter), we flipped through the entire book and only did the poses that were animals. Then we practiced our animal sign language (we "taught" Ms. Randi, which is ironic because she is actually signs fluently) to Old MacDonald. Finally we read Going on a Bear Hunt, which we'll bring back next week with audio.

Anna dropped off the best snack ever: strawberries and cucumbers! We cut open the cucumbers to check out the inside ("it looks like a pickle," J observed). The kids loooved both and they all asked for more. Hmm. Wait, it's possible for kids to like fresh, colorful fruits and veggies? Maybe we could skip the ranch dressing and replace the pretzels in our lunches with a few cukes? Just a thought.

At centers, we played Panda Palace for math and made paper-plate spiders for art. We lunched, rested, and then the magic began.

Bobbie Tundermann of Summer Brook Valley Farm visited with two of her alpacas, Rory (an older white alpaca) and Duffy (a brown baby alpaca). The kids sat in awe on the grass as Mrs. T told us everything there is to know about the animals. Each child got to feed the alpacas and take them for a walk. We learned that there are 22 different colors of alpacas and that they don't have top teeth, so they can't bite. They have the softest fur EVER. The visit was really just phenomenal - couldn't have asked for anything more.

In other (less happy) news, Thursday was Taylor's last day. She is leaving us for her family vacation, which we of course understand but WE WILL MISS HER SOSOOSOOOO much. She got extra love from all of the kids, and promises to visit kindergarten often. 

update: click here for Andy's beautiful Week Four Photos!

Who knew alpacas were so kid-friendly?

For the record, though, you can't ride them.

It's been quite a week, obviously. Full-length post to come. Link to complete photo album here.

KidCity

Animals and Insects Week

Here we are, three weeks in and suddenly it feels like we're running out of time! Today was our first day of learning about animals and insects, as planned by Taylor. After free play and breakfast this morning, we had an extended (due to rain) circle time. We read The Seven Silly Eaters, one of my very favorite books from the babysitting days back in high school. It's a story about a family of seven children who each have obnoxious dietary needs - one kid only eats oatmeal without lumps, another only fresh homemade pink lemonade etc - and a harried mother who can't keep up. In the end, the kids try to cook each of their favorite foods for their mom's birthday breakfast, but make a huge mess and hide the whole thing in the oven. In the morning, the mother comes downstairs to find a big pink oatmeal-lemonade-applesauce cake. During the book, we counted as the number of children in the family grew, and we practiced remembering each of the seven names and food preferences.

Calendar time dragged on today - it took too long to go through the days of the weekend, and we're up into the numbers that the kids don't get at all (i.e. 23). When we do "weather watchers," though, they perk up and jump up to look out the window at the weather. Today was our first rainy morning.

Miss Taylor then read Counting is for the Birds, and we discussed differences and similarities between the varieties of birds. We learned about finches, chickadees, and other backyard birds. We also read Tomie dePaola's Days of the Blackbird, which was kind of a stretch of our collective attention, but the kids ended up being pretty engaged and enjoying the story.

Before lunch, we had some outdoor play time and name-writing practice in our sketchbooks. Then, after quiet time and more time outside, we decorated bird-watching binoculars (which we might use tomorrow on our field trip walk) and strung our macaroni necklaces. Miss Taylor also played a brand-new math game.

During rest time today, the team had a meeting to assess our first three weeks and discuss changes we'd like to implement for the next two weeks of the program.




These are the things we are most proud of (our "Keep" list):

• flexibility: Our schedule has to change sometimes, and we do a really good job of adjusting our plans to accomodate unexpected events of each day. The four of us (plus Anna when she's in) work seamlessly together - when one of us is having an "off" day, someone else immediately picks up the slack. 
• relationships with parents: Each of our parents feels comfortable visiting the classroom and have interacted with each of us. We've had visitors to circle time, chaperones on field trips, and one lovely Gram who brightens every morning and afternoon. 
• "make good choices": We all really like the dialogue of "choices" that we have in our classroom. Miss Felicia especially is really good at dealing with potential issues with the simple question "Are you making good choices?" 
• consistency: Another effect of having a great team dynamic is that we back each other up. When one of us establishes a rule, we'll all enforce it. 

To stop: 

• too-long circle time: Though it's good for kindergarten prep to have kids practice sitting for long periods of time, the ideal length of circle time seems to be 20 minutes. We're going to limit circle time to one book and one movement activity, and try to cut back on purposeless calendar talk. Plus, if circle time is limited to 20 minutes, we can have stricter expectations for behavior. 
• meaningless number talk: We forget sometimes that our kids are mostly 3-knowers - any work we do with numbers over 10 is really useless. We're going to focus more on counting, labeling and comparing numbers 1-10.
• picky eater rules: Our picky eaters are so frustrating. The new policy is to answer "Excuse me, I don't like this" with "Fine." They get what they get, and they can choose to eat it or leave it. We're going to emphasize the positive ("I love how you're choosing to eat that healthy fruit!"). 
• letting kids dominate: There are a couple of kids who push to the front of the crowd and always shout out answers, and we're going to work on gently reminding those kids to let others have a turn to answer. Maybe during circle time, we'll go around the circle when we ask for helpers or answers, so that everyone is sure to get a chance. 
• flexibility in quiet time: New rule is that you pick out three books, you lie down, and you don't move. Honestly that's always been the rule, but we're bringing it back. 

To start: 

• math and literacy check-ins: To make sure that each child is getting sufficient math and reading/writing time each day, Taylor and I are going to work one-on-one with each of our students every day for 5-10 minutes. We'll work on cardinality and practice letters, numbers and counting. We'll note each child's progress each day.
• more free play and more structured dramatic play: We're going to encourage kids to come up with complex scenarios to act out after having discussed and planned steps for achieving each imaginary task. 
• more math games: Enough said - the lab has a billion amazing math games and we need to bring them in. 

Tomorrow is KidCity. Photos coming soon from today!