Kindergarten's 3 Rs: Respect, Resources and Rants

Teacher Cardigans in my Etsy Shop!

2024-07-10T15:04:00.005-05:00

I have been plowing through all of my crochet-related projects during summer break and figured I'd check in from my newest blog, From LMNOP to LMS (after twenty-five years being a kindergarten teacher, I'm now my school's librarian!) to show you what I've made, should you be on the lookout for a handmade teacher cardigan or state EDUC8R tee for the upcoming school year!

Make sure to carefully read through the descriptions for each sweater to see if the bust, sleeve, and length measurements will work for you. Some are lighter weight due to being single-stranded, while others are heavier (and warmer) due to being crocheted with two strands of yarn at a time. They are adorable over jumpers, sundresses, skirts, leggings and pants, and are awfully cheerful hanging off of your teacher's chair within easy reach for whenever you feel a chill coming on.

You can also scroll through my other Etsy listings for state EDUC8R t-shirts that feature simple backline tracings of each state, which look great under a blazer, zip-up, and yes, even a cardigan. Please note that women's fit and unisex styles are both offered.

I hope you've all been enjoying a wonderful summer!

~Michaele

My Etsy Shop: https://www.etsy.com/shop/michaelesommerville

Yard and Thrift Sales: Wooden Puzzles

2023-07-08T11:29:00.001-05:00

Shhh, be very, very quiet.

I'm posting here again though it has been y-e-a-r-s, and you really don't want to make any sudden movements or startle me in some other way.

You see, I was a kindergarten whisperer for twenty-five years, and I blogged here regularly for about a decade... or decade-ish. After finally discovering the perfect master's program for myself, I decided it was time to not just teach kindergarten but a-l-l of the kindergarteners (and first, second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth-graders) as my school's librarian. My third year as a librarian (why-bearian, lye-bearian) begins in another month, and just as I enjoyed my summers "off" as a kindergarten teacher, I've found that June and July remain essential periods of rest for my well-being.

Now surrounded by books and readers all day long, you might think that my quarter-decades-worth of summertime thrifting and yard saling for my classroom would be behind me, but oh no, no-no-no, that hasn't been the case. I certainly buy books on a much larger scale than I did before, but I've also continued to grab vintage puzzles and manipulatives for library centers every time I come across cute designs or extras of items that have been popular with students of all ages. Sturdy puzzles were very popular last year with kindergarten, first, and second graders when visiting the library, as more traditional stiff cardboard puzzles got mangled with force or picked apart by students of all ages as they tried to understand how pieces were made.

Wooden Playskool puzzles have been showing up in antique malls around here lately and so many have been in great shape without chips, flakes, or color fade, for roughly $4-$8 each. Since most feature nursery rhyme characters, toys, food, vehicles, buildings, and other people and animals, it's easy to align them with stories and non-fiction content. Since I never expected my Super Stars to sit for huge chunks of time with idle hands, I went ahead and brought all of my kindergarten puzzles and builders into the library when I made the move and quickly discovered that students of all ages appreciated being able to collaborate and create while building their appreciation of books and all of the worlds and information contained within them.

The condition of these puzzles is important, as is the date of when they were manufactured since truly vintage painted toy items likely contain lead. Chipped and flaking paint on old toys makes them unsafe for play or regular handling. You can test the paint on these items using kits that many new homeowners and house-flippers find useful, such as this one:

(found here)

Last year I encountered several students of varying ages who had no idea how to put puzzles together again after flipping the board over and emptying the pieces onto the floor which honestly alarmed me, as puzzles help children develop their memory skills while they test ideas, solve problems, develop their fine motor strength and agility, and persevere. Dimensional, solid puzzles are essential tools for young learners in my opinion, and wood holds up for much longer than cardboard or hollow plastic.

Keep your eyes peeled this summer as you visit thrift stores and yard sales, and don't toss, donate or sell every "kindergarten" manipulative if you decide to change gears like I did.

Cute New Deer/Reindeer Reading T-Shirts Available

2022-10-23T10:26:00.000-05:00

As we head into winter and look forward to the holiday season, the need to layer clothes comes into play for many of us! Students, teachers and librarians can wear cute t-shirts with a cardigan or zip-up hoodie, and there are so many fun designs offered on Etsy, including in MY shop!

You can tell I'm a crocheter, too, but take a closer look at the t-shirt designs I just added this weekend:

Perfect for teachers, parents, grandparents, and librarians, don't you think? You can find this shirt in pink and other colors here.

Toddlers and kids will love wearing their own sweet deer/reindeer for the holidays and family get-togethers, too! Find the kids' shirt here...

... and the toddlers' shirts here:

These shirts promoting reading were fun to design! I hope you enjoy them.

October Writing Prompts and Coloring Pages at TPT

2022-10-22T11:53:00.000-05:00

My littles have asked for autumn/Halloween coloring pages as one of their library centers for next week, so here's what I came up with for them. Many of them enjoy "rainbow coloring," so I know the white ghosts aren't going to end up being a waste of paper, hee hee!

The images are large, cute, and easy-to-color pages for October! Some have writing prompts to help emergent writers as they sound out a response while others have text that supports the image. These are a fun way to develop fine motor coordination and get into the autumn spirit as we head toward Halloween!

Perfect for pre-k, kindergarten, first-grade and library centers!

Take a closer look by clicking here.

Autumn-Themed Sentence Starts and Label Pack at TPT!

2022-10-09T13:26:00.009-05:00

It's been quite some time since I've been inspired to create activities for emergent writers and readers to offer to educators over at Teachers Pay Teachers, but this weekend's cooler weather and changing leaves did the trick, providing me with inspiration while Mr. Coffee kept me fueled, warm and cozy with my autumn beverage of choice.

Students can write on pages featuring individual or combined images, and can utilize a word bank while labeling parts of the same clip art!

Head over to see the pack and make sure to check out my other autumn/October activities featured this month!

Crossposted: Valuing Ourselves and Our Time, Influencers Should also Share the Basics

2022-07-31T12:23:00.005-05:00

There's a barrage of summer classroom setup posts, photos, and videos to sift and scroll through when I check in on my social media, which is very much aligned with my own work calendar as I officially return to my library this upcoming week. I'm discovering new-to-me posts with educators and friends of education reminding colleagues and others that none of us should be giving our employers our work "for free" by returning to classrooms and libraries and labs and school buildings any earlier than our official report date.

Which I totally get.

At the beginning of my teaching career, I couldn't ever enter my classroom over the summers (unless I was teaching summer school within the same building). I was afforded some access during the weekends, and I could stay into the evenings during the weekdays if the night custodian was in the building. After Uncle Sam started moving our family from post to post, I was allowed "new-teacher-time" so I could see my teaching space, put my hands on curriculum materials, and deliver my own gear to be sorted and stored. Since arriving in this district, I've had access to my classroom space each summer after our incredible custodial crew has shampooed carpets and rugs, dusted nooks and crannies, and cleaned windows inside and out. I shared many a post at Kindergarten's 3 Rs describing not only classroom organization, space arrangement and decor decisions that I made during these before-contract hours, but also quick-peek photos explaining other tasks that a veteran teacher simply didn't have time to work through during the actual school year, such as sorting through posters and bulletin board displays accrued over eighteen years of teaching.

Could I have taken care of this job during the one and a half work days scheduled? Possibly, after scrambling through furniture arrangement, opening curriculum boxes, student materials prep, bulletin board displays, lesson planning, teacher mentoring, collegial hey-how-was-your-summer chit-chat, lunch, etc. but... likely not.

"Your classroom doesn't have to be a Pinterest/TikTok/Whatever showcase, you can just do the minimum" is also advice currently being shared by well-meaning folks. Creating an inviting space that didn't terrify kindergarteners was my goal before social media existed. That's right, stuffed animals, my own picture books placed within easy reach, puppets, building blocks, paint, brushes and smocks, Play Doh, computers, beanbags, word walls containing students' names, pencils, crayons, markers, construction paper and glue, and letter and alphabet posters and toys ("manipulatives") were always part of my classroom set up and after get-to-know-your-teacher-day greatly influenced whether or not a child sobbed and screamed for their parents on the first day of school or bravely entered the classroom solo, quickly making new friends. Photos providing a classroom tour were also added to our web page so incoming students and families could have a sneak peek before arriving. Hallway displays welcoming students to our classroom made it easy for five-year-olds to find our shared space as they became familiar with the building. The week after school started, they and multiple surfaces within our classroom were covered with student work, crafts, and creative constructions. Our space screamed to be shared, not only with those in our building daily but with our families who couldn't visit often, so I took photos and emailed them. To help other teachers and to document my own work for myself and my professional reflection, I shared pictures and ideas via the blog. I never became famous or trended, but college students and other new-to-service teachers reached out on occasion, asking to share my content as a resource. After a while, colleagues would tell me that they saw my craft idea or table arrangement on Pinterest. It was cool. But it wasn't my focus.

The bare minimum for many teachers has meant classrooms with damaged vinyl floors, empty bookshelves, peeling paint, no air conditioner, and few if any materials for student use. Despite districts' responsibility to provide for their students, it can often appear (for whatever reason) that their practice is to supply as little as possible and/or to allow retiring teachers to leave behind file cabinets bursting with outdated worksheets and cabinets full of "someday I'll need this" items, hoarded (yet unused) for decades. A single work day isn't going to cut it in these cases, and if you're a teacher with kids, coming in on the weekend during the school year isn't always feasible either. As inappropriate as it may be and may feel, sometimes we do take what we can get, so many of us spend unpaid time over summer break which we use for the most part to acquaint ourselves with our learning space in order to make it efficient, effective, and welcoming for students. Some classroom spaces need more work than others, and some look like they need an exorcism. I appreciate colleagues that rise to the challenge, and I sympathize with teachers who find themselves drowning in overwhelming seas of isolation.

I've spent three half-days in the library this summer, which is the least amount of time I've ever been in the building outside of the school year since joining my district sixteen (seventeen? Goodness, I've lost count.) years ago. Last summer I spent fourteen ten-hour days straight in the space because of the complete overhaul it needed. I'm certain that investment of energy and thought directly correlates to the small amount of time I've needed so far this year, though it was made necessary in the first place because the librarians before me didn't have the time to sort through all that they had inherited and should have purged before leaving. Would I have liked to have been paid for one hundred and forty hours of my time and effort or been recognized in some other way by administrators? Absolutely. Should I have been paid for the work? I believe so, but the applause during our first staff meeting had to be enough before I'd reap the eventual rewards that were to come throughout the year. While those rewards did not put food on my table, gas in my truck, or reimburse me for the thousands of dollars of my own money that I spent to get the space in order, the peace of mind I experienced in knowing that my students and I were as sure-footed as we could possibly be was worth it. During this time of COVID, in my starting this new job, having a sense of control served as a significant part of my self-care, but not every educator can find a silver lining or balance without actual income.

Before you think I'm representative of solely one side of a range of edu-issues, there is a facet of the current criticism of unpaid summer work that does resonate with me, and it has for at least a decade now: zhushing classrooms rather than setting them up for mutual use by teachers and students. Seeing so many classroom "transformations" that include wallpaper, paint, faux-foliage walls and boards filled with funky-font anchor charts and signage, and every surface covered with contact paper with no apparent areas left for student input, work, artwork, and creative contributions appalls me. Seriously: pre-printed everything has become the new sage on the stage. When you leave no room (or only a single 3 X 5 board that you change quarterly) for student work/contributions, you imply that you do not value their work, and you make it near impossible for them to reflect upon it, take pride in it, learn from others, and solicit and provide feedback to one another. As for the affirmation posters and anchor charts featuring cursive or other funky fonts that younger students C-A-N-N-O-T R-E-A-D and certainly cannot write being plastered all over doors and walls and bulletin boards and easels in primary classrooms?

Teachers downloading and reprinting or recreating from scratch every single printed element in their classrooms each August because they "must" have a different theme? No... no. That's not working smarter. And as for those companies who promote cute over substance (you know who they are, they're the ones that have you convinced to go out and buy ten vintage-looking candy jars so that you can run them across the top of a bookshelf and fill them individually with single colors of crayons so your students can "go and get the color that they need" when they've lost, or eaten, or broken, or whittled theirs...) they're not helping you (or your students, who need many opportunities to sort, classify, search, track, compare, evaluate, develop fine motor skills, and select) work smarter, either. A classroom's purpose isn't for social media accounts or to provide affirmations that your employer and/or colleagues might not be offering you. Your primary job as a teacher isn't to trend, it's to teach. Your space doesn't belong to only you, and your favorites don't appeal to everyone. Engage your students and provide them with a template or canvas, but put every tchotchke that speaks to YOU behind and on your desk, above your bookcase or file cabinet, and on the pinboard in your space where you can see it. Allowing students to have and contribute to their spaces, with their writing, coloring, and creativity frees up your time from decorating (and spending a lot of your money on) every available inch within your room. Define your "influence" by your contributions to education and your support of students and colleagues. Maybe you'll choose to share via social media, or only via in-building or in-district mentorship, too.

Whatever algorithm I toggled after searching for and viewing classroom and library decor on social media, it's been difficult to adjust in order to find more middle of the road, veteran educators such as myself. The "influencers" that my searches have shown to me aren't sharing some truly helpful, non-stylized teacher tips when considering your students' learning environment, such as:

If you're able to plan for another year or three to five in advance, create organizational and instructional goals that you can work on over time.
Ask a veteran teacher about the meat and potatoes, the substance of teaching and learning, and don't be surprised when they don't mention desert, jungle, rainbow, or beach color schemes.
Your goals should be longer than your list of decor trending items that you're replacing every year.
Take a week this summer to envision and build the foundation of the environment you will share throughout the year with other contributors (the students). You're going to need the time to arrange and rearrange.
Sort, purge if necessary, and determine actual essentials, identifying the difference between needful things and wantful things.
Give yourself an hour (or three) to make your own space comfortable and appealing to you. Your own space is your desk area, a bookcase, file cabinet, cabinetry, or shelving behind your reading table or in my case, the book repair room behind the circulation desk.
If your job or placement might change after a year, invest in a neutral or simple theme, no unicorns, cacti, ninja, or rainbow characters overload.
Next summer, take a day or a day and a half to do these same jobs, without having to recreate the wheel. Acquire over time, and keep and replace when necessary tried-and-trues.

Like most things in education, one size really doesn't fit all when it comes to how we value our time and one another. Should teachers ever have to work for free? No, yet we've had to for generations. Is it appropriate to advocate for ourselves? Yes, because the majority of us understand that being at our best benefits students. Finding what works for you without it depleting your life savings or negating any contribution by students is a reasonable back-to-school goal, which from my quick peeks at social media isn't necessarily what influencers seem to be advocating, nor a truth that all teachers naturally intuit.

*****

Crossposted at From LMNOP to LMS: Learning in the Library.

I Did a Thing: I'm a Newly-Minted Librarian

2021-06-13T08:27:00.004-05:00

You can now find me blogging at "From LMNOP to LMS," a site I began as a requirement for a graduate course. I've shaken off the dust and added two posts so far that chronicle the beginning of my new adventure as a school librarian!

I've not yet decided whether or not to shutter Kindergarten's 3 R's, as I'll likely be inspired to cross-post whenever I encounter books and activities that kindergarteners will enjoy, so feel free to stick around.

Or follow me over to the newish blog.

Or hang out with me at both places.

*****

That's a Wrap

2021-05-29T08:26:00.001-05:00

... and that's a wrap. My 2020-2021 school year is over. My annual tradition of decompressing at the end of the year as summer begins by reflecting upon and blogging the lessons I've learned is still exerting some pull over me because, well, habits are habits, but goodness... this year has been a doozie.

I started with twelve "all mine" remote-learning kindergarteners at the beginning of the year, and by the end, finished with seven original Dream Teamers and two mid-year transfers. In total, I taught forty-eight students, several of them repeat visitors due to multiple exposures to COVID-19. Because my exposure when Dear Husband tested positive occurred over winter break, my absences from work were limited. The subs I had on those days were brave, turning themselves into instructional hosts akin to Mr. Rogers on the television screen, though I suspect they were glad that I didn't ask them to put on puppet shows.

I watched colleagues who taught students on-site at the ends of two long hallways empty their classrooms of furniture and engineer six feet of distance between their students while trying to remember to create and maintain distance between themselves and their learners, the absolute opposite of what any of us were trained or wanted to do. I witnessed grade-level planning happening with team members standing in their classroom doorways, shouting through masks to one another as they collaborated. I saw the encouragement of confidentiality when colleagues tested positive and/or became ill and for the first time in my career, read not only care and concern in the eyes of teachers and staff when they discovered a colleague would be out of the building for two weeks, but fear. Was I exposed to COVID? How close were we when we walked to the gym/staff lounge to put our lunches in the refrigerator? I unsuccessfully tried to calm my anxiety every time a staff member forgot to wear a mask, or chose to mis-wear one because their personal discomfort (or belief that COVID19 was a global hoax) was an inconvenience against which they decided to semi-passively rail. My need for self-care grew exponentially each time my self-preservation button was casually brushed up against.

I signed many more sympathy cards than in years past as colleagues lost their parents and grandparents.

I eventually conceded to the utilization of a predictable daily routine, complete with scripted Google Slides that were created a week in advance. Spontaneity just didn't work for families who needed and wanted to rely upon a school schedule that could mesh with their home routine. My remote-learning colleague was wonderful in helping to plan our students' lessons, activities and special crafts a month in advance, and we kept our communication with our families as consistent as possible. We did what we felt was best for both our students and our guest kindergarteners, and I believe our families could feel the care that we put into teaching. Administrators didn't police us much, but I can't say whether that was by design or simply because we weren't starting any fires. Having the autonomy to create our own learning program is an experience I doubt we'll ever forget.

Tech being glitchy doesn't instill panic in me any longer. Sometimes it's the platform or website that is having an issue. Sometimes you just have to close out all the apps, shut down the iPad, and let it rest for a few minutes before powering it up again. After the ninth new update to the operating system installs itself, the day continues, and so does the learning... in most cases. I'm glad I was able to create digital resources not only for my students but for colleagues in the district who were able to use them in their on-site classrooms, and I will be forever grateful for all of the sharing teacher communities on social media who donated their own creations in kind. My device and equipment list for the year included:

Laptop; laptop stand (purchased by me)
iPads: teacher (it was my second screen for Zoom, displaying my students' faces, and often their parents' faces and backsides, with regular appearances from siblings, pets and stuffed animals) and student (so I could model all apps and step in as an initial help desk of sorts)
iPencil: I fiddled with it once but never used it again, preferring to model writing and drawing using our regular writing tools
Logitech camera, gifted by admin at the Board Office: the extra camera made it possible for me to share other spaces in our classroom daily without giving everyone motion-sickness by carrying my laptop to a new location. It could pan out to include a view of an entire wall of anchor charts, and zoom in close easily with its handy dandy little remote. My students were able to see and experience storytime with big books and art lessons modeled by me using a regular kindergarten painting easel. I went from a laptop on a milk crate to a command station pretty quickly:

Document camera: for displaying books, worksheets, etc. onto the....
SMARTBoard: My daily instructional slides appeared as large as a bulletin board. Students viewed the board through my laptop and Logitech cameras. Video content was screen-shared from my laptop via Zoom.

Microphone: speakers located in multiple ceiling tiles kept me from having to use my "teacher voice" in locations that weren't within the immediate vicinity of my laptop.

Additional camera (purchased by me) for a desktop computer that I used from my teacher's desk when my laptop was being repaired.

I know that other remote teachers used fewer devices and equipment than I did, but I just couldn't bring myself to teach in a sitting position all day. Having my laptop and Logitech camera on an old media cart in front of the SMARTBoard made it possible for me to stand, change locations in the classroom, and share more of our learning environment with my students.

This year became a standalone teaching experience for me, stretching from last March when the stay-at-home order was first issued through yesterday when I signed off of Zoom for the last time with my Super Stars and their families. Despite some semblance of normalcy provided by curriculum, routine and even decor, I'll admit to having to look through photographs to remember a lot of the finer details of what happened this year. So much has to be brain-dumped when you're literally trying to stay alive while having to appear professional as you're doing it. My Super Star Families were gracious, supportive, and (almost all) on board with what Zoom Kindergarten had to be, and my decision to be a remote teacher for my twenty-fifth year in education and their decision to have their children be remote learners for their first year of school were the right ones for us. I will always appreciate my district providing the remote-learning option that helped to support the health and safety of me, my family, and my Super Stars and their families.

Even during a pandemic, it takes a village.

Groundhog Day Slides

2021-01-27T16:07:00.000-06:00

Thanks to Mother Nature, today was a *snow day*!

I took advantage of the extra time to create some Google Slides for Groundhog Day.

They include links to explanatory videos about groundhogs, shadows and Groundhog Day itself, as well as a story library and some song selections. One of my ~favorites~ is this one!

The super-cute groundhog clipart is from Teaching in the Tongass. Visit her TPT Store by tapping on her logo:

These slides and content are appropriate for pre-k, kindergarten, and first-grade students. You can grab a copy of the slides by clicking here.

Sharing is Caring: Wizard of Oz/Over the Rainbow Interactive Google Slides

2021-01-23T13:18:00.006-06:00

Last summer I took a wonderful series of courses addressing effective digital instruction through Kansas State University. I was able to put to immediate use my ability to create Bitmoji classrooms (which are really just very busy Google Slides) to collect resources that my students and I could use to access curricular, thematic, and frankly FUN content.

With Kansas Day just around the corner, I decided to create a set of slides for The Wizard of Oz and versions of Over the Rainbow/Somewhere Over the Rainbow for my Super Stars to compare and contrast. I included presentation notes and details about the links that I used, so if you'd like to grab your own copy, you'll understand how I intend to use the slides, who should receive credit for each resource, and how to modify the linked content if you'd prefer that your own students not navigate away from your planned activity.

Click here to get your copy.

Here's a peek:

Sharing and paying it forward is a good thing, which my instructors this summer reaffirmed to me and my other classmates. You know who else believes in sharing? All of the members of the Bitmoji, distance-ed, remote learning, and teacher-tech groups on Facebook. They have been so generous with their time, feedback, praise, and the sharing of their own creations, that I haven't had to recreate the wheel for my kindergarteners for most of my math and ELA content this year.

Would you like to join these awesome educators?

Bitmoji Classrooms and Digital Learning Materials for Distance Learning

Bitmoji for PreK and Kindergarten Classrooms

Bitmoji Craze for Educators

Pk-1 Bitmoji Theme Rooms

Virtual Kindergarten Support Group

Teaching with Neons

Sharing is caring.

Inauguration 2021

2021-01-20T19:24:00.009-06:00

I'm a member of several teacher groups on social media, many of them created last spring when so many of us were sent home to teach on-screen. I regularly skim posts from these groups because, for the most part, members are there to share and to learn from each other.

Monday evening, one member of a group asked how other teachers planned to spend today, Inauguration Day, and what, if anything, they'd teach their students about the event. "Praying for our country now that the socialists are taking over," "Nothing- I won't show my students a fake inauguration because that's what it will be," and "I plan to wear all black, but I'm really worried because I'm not sure I will be able to keep from sobbing as I watch this country being destroyed" were some of the responses.

I posted the following:

The first female vice president and no one wants to even mention that accomplishment? How about a rescue dog being one of two pets in the White House? How about the fun title of Madame Vice-President's husband, the first Second Gentleman? Students are going to be hearing some new language- it's our job to help them with this schema. No fear. Just facts.

... at which point another group member tagged me, saying "... oh geez, here comes a unicorn!"

Now if "... oh geez" hadn't prefaced my being called a "unicorn" I would have thought R-O-C-K ON! A fellow teacher gets what I'm saying! She relates to this being yet another teachable moment that can (and should) transcend politics! But the "... oh geez" gave me just enough pause to realize that it was likely I wasn't being complimented. Once I did a little digging and discovered that being called a unicorn was akin to being labeled a "liberal snowflake" amongst Trumpers, I decided this was an appropriate response:

After taking a screenshot of the dialogue (I won't share her identity here), I noticed that the unicorn-labeler's comment disappeared several minutes later. Perhaps she rethought her tone, or maybe she remembered that her comment didn't exactly follow the group's guidelines. Perhaps simply a page administrator decided to intervene. But after some affirmations from other like-minded colleagues, and the insistance by the naysayers that the inauguration "shouldn't be touched with a ten-foot pole," I resolved to CONTINUE to teach my kindergarteners about what an inauguration is, and to provide a simple introduction to President-Elect Joe Biden and Vice-President-Elect Kamala Harris.

That's right: I've taught my students about presidential inaugurations every four years. I blogged about President Obama's first here, and reflected upon a publisher's message to teachers about content regarding Donald Trump's inauguration here, but I'd also done some deep thinking about Mr. Trump when he was still a presidential candidate. Caring for my students and their emotional well-being while providing them an introduction to our nation's democracy, curricular content and creating a supportive learning environment have been goals throughout my career. Providing learners with carefully selected content that communicates factual information and helping them to explore ideas such as leadership are just some of my responsibilities as an educator. I didn't get to just skip over social studies lessons in 2016 because I didn't like who won the election: I still had to teach. More importantly, I still wanted to teach.

Yesterday I introduced my Super Stars to the word "inauguration," explaining that it means the beginning or the start of something. I told students that today would be the first day that President Biden and Vice President Harris would go to work together in the White House to help all Americans. "Oh, like we had the first day of kindergarten?" asked a student. Yes, just like our first day of kindergarten. I offered "Maybe Mrs. Sommerville should have called our first day of school together OUR Inauguration Day!" I watched approval spread across my iPad screen as students nodded and gave thumbs-up signs. I also explained that in addition to reciting the Pledge of Allegiance (just like us!), that our new President and Vice-President would be making another promise to all Americans called the Oath of Office.

Today I shared some facts about President-Elect Biden and Vice-President-Elect Harris. The Stars loved seeing pictures of Champ and Major, the new White House pets and were excited to discover that our soon-to-be new vice-president had written a book for children. But the biggest wave of Zoom-screen glee and unmuted laughter came when I explained that President Joe Biden's full name was Joseph Robinette Biden Jr.:

Can you imagine, boys and girls, what it must have sounded like when President Biden was a little boy and he did something that got him in trouble? His mom and dad probably yelled 'JOSEPH ROBINETTE BIDEN JR.! DID YOU BREAK THIS BLAH-BLAH-BLAH-BLAH? COME HERE RIGHT NOW, YOUNG MAN!"

They. Were. R-O-L-L-I-N-G.

"Mrs. Sommerville!! What about Kamala?" begged a student. I explained that "Kamala" means "lotus flower." My Star snickered before breaking into giggles, saying in her best pretend-parent voice "Oh Lotus Flower, come tell me what happened to my blah-blah-blah-blah! You might be getting grounded, Lotus Flower!"

Two leaders of our country, who they might never meet in person, were instantly relatable to my class of five and six-year-olds learning from home. That's all the lesson needed after our vocabulary, truly.

*****

I understand that classes full of students older than mine were going to have more in-depth discussions and voice (or parrot) some uncomfortable thoughts today. I didn't play any of the inauguration ceremony for my students, leaving that decision to the discretion of their families, and at the request of administrators who wanted to protect students from the possibility of seeing or hearing something unplanned or dangerous. And I didn't ask why some colleagues were dressed as if in mourning.

I wore red(ish), white, and blue, a charm I made in my crafty nook, and of course, pearls:

... and yes, I absolutely checked Etsy for some teacher-unicorn t-shirts, *wink*.

Like a Regular Teacher Shirt

Unicorn Teacher shirt

... and Kindergarten Teacher Dabbing shirt found here.

Staying Flexible: Preparing for School at 6:30 AM on a Sunday

2021-01-10T07:39:00.000-06:00

My internal clock doesn't ever allow me to sleep in except when I'm sick, or frankly, recovering from surgery. Thanksgiving Break? Up at 5:15 AM. Winter Break? Same. Spring Break? Still an early bird. Summer? A cruel irony: I sleep in by about an hour, max, two or three days before autumn PD starts up again, I kid you not. So it's not at all unusual that I am up, drinking coffee, eating a breakfast sandwich, and being productive at six-thirty this morning. What has changed is that I'm not crocheting while catching up on DVRd shows, or reading, or participating in a Twitter chat, or throwing a breakfast casserole into the oven. I've been navigating some work emails and have been updating instructional materials because the week I planned for has been altered quite a bit.

"Stay flexible" continues to be my professional mantra, carrying over from 2020. I volunteered to be a remote learning teacher last fall, and am one of those weird teachers who has actually looked forward to and even enjoyed creating a new learning and teaching environment. I've shifted from trying to make my Zoom and digital experiences "just like" on-site or "real" school (with all of the restrictions that on-site students and teachers have to adapt to, why would I wish any of that upon my class?) and to put it bluntly, my body greatly appreciates having multiple breaks scheduled throughout my day. That's right, I have five, count them, F-I-V-E intermissions where I can and do use the restroom, e-v-e-r-y day. In twenty-plus years of teaching, this is the most accommodated my bladder has ever been.

Unlike past teaching years, my class size can accordion greatly. I began with twelve of my own "permanent" remote learning students in the fall. Families chose my class because they intended to have their kindergarteners learn safely from home for at least the first semester of school. Two transferred to on-site learning after parents who had lost their jobs during the spring and summer gained employment ("If I don't take this job and move _______ back to school in-person, we won't have Christmas or be able to pay other bills.") while recently another parent working the night-shift couldn't support his kindergartener's daily Zoom and activity schedule. As a remote learning kindergarten teacher (I have a grade level partner) I host students who test positive and must isolate or who have a family member who has tested positive and must therefore quarantine for up to two weeks. My class size has grown by one, two, three, six, and last week, by sixteen students overnight. Yes, sixteen. Stay flexible.

SHIKHEI GOH—GETTY IMAGES

Though my entire district moved to remote learning right after Thanksgiving Break, on-site classes begin again tomorrow. Last Thursday and Friday, district students, their families, and teachers and their families were offered the opportunity to be tested for COVID, and as anyone could have guessed, I've already added at least one new student to my roster. Should a kindergarten teacher in the district have to quarantine in the future, however, and with an extreme shortage of substitute teachers, there's a chance I could yet again, take on another entire class in addition to my own.

This week all of our middle-of-the-year mandated assessments begin. Will I be screening ten, eleven, or twenty-five students for dyslexia and STAR Reading, or administering curriculum-based measures for math to children who I have not yet met nor even had the time to build a rapport? I'm also having to take Friday off to accompany my husband to his dental surgery, so I'll need to prepare for a guest teacher who has yet to be assigned since my original sub just received a positive COVID test for a family member.

You know, even flexible tools like pipe cleaners and wikki stix break apart after being bent one too many times. At what point must others release their grip from the mindset of "we-have-to-make-this-year-as-normal-as-every-other-year-because-we-refuse-to-envision-education-in-any-other-way?" Often our ability to effectively apply self-care relies heavily upon the responsibilities thrust upon us even during our hours away from work. Here's hoping that this latest surge doesn't last long and that I can reclaim some of my time for myself and my family, and that my colleagues and their families can do the same.

#TeachingInTheTimeOfCOVID

#BloggingIsSelfCareForMe

What I Did Over Winter Break, a Teacher's List

2021-01-03T16:01:00.000-06:00

I've spent some time over the past few days trying to work some great storytelling into this blogpost to no avail. Maybe it's because of how everything has been slightly surreal since my winter break began, though most likely it's simply because there's no way that great prose is going to be able to sugarcoat this summary. So here, in *possibly* accurate order (days blended together if they didn't disappear altogether) is what I did over winter break:

I baked one batch of sugar cookie trees which were frosted white. I added sprinkles.

I also baked my first ever batch of these Reeses Peanut Butter Cup cookie things. My friend (and former Super Star parent) Kim correctly described them as "sacrificial cookies:" other holiday treats, sweet and savory were able to be sampled by me, myself and I, while The Teenager focused his attention on the pile of peanut butter goodness, yielded from the linked recipe. I know, I know, these nummies aren't new to any of you, but they were to me, and they now have a permanent spot in my cookie-baking roster of tried-and-true recipes.

I deep-cleaned and disinfected the house, which is an annual agenda item for me each year before Christmas. This year, it's a good thing I scheduled it early because...

I had to isolate Dear Husband, banishing him to the downstairs for ten days after he tested positive for COVID. Preparing for dental surgery later in the month, he had been tested in anticipation of his appointment. No, he didn't show any symptoms.

After contacting my principal, superintendent and colleagues, I managed to facilitate my quarantine and that of The Teenager, me to the master bedroom and he to his room. It was an unanticipated adjustment for me, and no biggie for him, except for the constant wearing of masks indoors, and the odd state of things having Dad downstairs. And the open windows everywhere.

I tested negative. Dear Husband never developed symptoms of COVID. After his isolation ended, he continued to quarantine because The Teenager and I had four more days to go. I never developed symptoms. The Teenager never developed symptoms.

I turned fifty-one and was gifted a celebratory meal by the parents of Dear Daughter's best friend. They bought and delivered to our porch delicious prime rib and chicken alfredo with all of the fixings, including cake and cheesecake slices.

For the rest of our meals, I used our oven (thank you, Mrs. Stouffers), microwave (what a great reheater of leftovers), electric griddle (hello, French toast) and crockpot (only once) for two weeks after the stovetop blew out and Dear Husband ordered a new one. It arrived on December 28, after I also purchased an electric skillet which made the best Hamburger Helper we'd had in a month. We all ate in isolation/quarantine for two weeks, thanks to having a full deep freezer in the garage.

I spent time on the back porch each day, feeding and cuddling with a prairie cat that adopted us earlier this month. His name is "PC." Yes, for "Prairie Cat."

I celebrated Christmas with my family on December 29. We prepared our meal using the new cooktop Dear Husband installed, the job that was his first task upon his return to the main floor. Sorry about that, electric skillet, but you'll remain our standby, for sure.

I finished my one-afghan-per-month for December.

After four days of letting the downstairs sit, I deep cleaned it all, and finally made it back to my craft room, my creative spot that I had planned to spend quite a lot of time in during vacation. I packed up the ornaments and mini-tabletop tree and put them away, and got back to work scheduling assignments and materials in Google Classroom and creating instructional slides for the return to school.

I helped pack up Christmas and enjoyed a low-key New Year's Eve with Dear Husband, The Teenager and our cats, Buck and Tish-Tish.

And I gave thanks, so many times, that this brush with COVID resulted in mere inconveniences and the postponement of our celebrations and not something much, much worse.

There you have it: my list. Tomorrow I'm back to work for the start of our second semester, still teaching kindergarten remote learners. I'll be trying to work ahead in anticipation of the arrival of guest students who will be joining my class from others throughout the district because of having to quarantine while classmates attend on-site the week after next.

*****

Was your winter break what you had hoped it would be?

December 2020: My Remote Teaching Reflection

2020-12-21T07:50:00.094-06:00

On my first full weekday of winter break, I’ve decided to actually take a break. I’ve been a remote-learning kindergarten teacher (voluntarily) since the start of the school year and have been working through the new normal that has impacted my weekends and family time as significantly, if not more so, than the hours, weeks, months, and years that my master’s degree did. This reallocation of my time has broken years-long habits of enjoying hobbies, repeating patterns of morning, noon, afternoon, and evening rituals on autopilot, and of course, blogging. I need a brain-dump that only reflection can provide, so here… we… go.

Despite assertions at the end of the last school year that I couldn’t predict the requirements my district would consider and eventually implement to accommodate remote learning opportunities for students and families this year, I’m glad I decided to take part in a summer workshop geared toward virtual/online learning that was recommended to me by a former administrator. Bitmoji Classrooms (which are just really, really busy Google Slides if you’d prefer a simple definition), equity in education, tech resources for devices, platforms, and newbies to it all, digital newsletters, podcasting, and my favorite tool since Pinterest, Wakelet boards, have all been resources I’ve utilized and content that I’ve shared with interested and receptive colleagues this semester. I have added more content to my boards and created new ones whenever I’ve stumbled across useful resources. Building a bank of awesome Linktree contributors has helped prevent me from having to create or recreate every digital activity or material, so that particular board has grown the most.

Developing and settling into a new groove for planning, collaboration and instruction was a big shift, but one I haven’t had to do alone. Though initially dismayed at having been assigned to an additional remote-learning kindergarten position, my partner has demonstrated determination and has had the energy to put her all into her instruction, our synchronized adjustments each time we’ve gained a student (or six) due to quarantines from on-site classrooms, and frankly, collegiality. Having a co-worker who actually says “good morning” and shares some of the normal goings-on in her life on a daily basis and in turn, listens to some of mine, has helped to make this strange situation easier. She’s a finder and a sharer, an asker and a suggester. Kind people who rock reciprocity are cool.

Despite my love of educational technology, I’ve always varied the tools I’ve put into my previous students’ hands and learning environment, so following a digital-tools-only mandate was never going to work for me. Suggestions for at-home materials such as math manipulatives have had to run the gamut from balls of Play-Doh, rocks from the neighborhood playground, Cheerios, and Barbie shoes. I’ve used my monthly copy-count only twice over the past four months to create bi-monthly work packets of pages that families shouldn’t have to print and that are beneficial to students. Students at home should be able to assemble thematic unit and holiday crafts just as their on-site peers do and are just as deserving of the magic of memories and keepsakes that are usually made within the confines of a school building. I don’t intend to ask for permission (again) or for forgiveness: providing students more, not less, continues to be the right thing to do.

Before finding out that my job assignment would be as a remote kindergarten teacher at the beginning of the year, I already knew that new protocols and restrictions would be in place for me and my students. I tried to brainstorm ways to balance limitations with new opportunities, such as alternative greetings to hugs and high-fives, and opportunities for digital collaboration rather than physical partnerships at learning centers or my reading table. For remote learning, opportunities abound for students who are sitting on their couches, at the dining room table, on the floor in the basement, or at a makeshift desk tucked into an alcove in the hallway originally intended as a mud space, though a quick scan of some teacher groups on social media makes it abundantly clear that a lot of other teachers don’t feel the same way when it comes to having very little control over learning environments. While not making light of the issues of poverty, the lack of interest for some families in being the best guide on the side that their child could have, or issues with technology (equal access, availability, and general glitchiness), I have to say that I love that my Super Stars can come to each Zoom session with their favorite blanket, stuffed friend, and even a snack. It doesn’t bother me in the slightest. I have witnessed more awwwwww moments through my laptop camera and iPad screen this semester simply by looking up as I read a story. Multiple frames of five-year-olds hugging blankets and squeezing their stuffed bears, t-rexes, and frilly frou-frou unicorn/princess/octopus whatevers while sucking their thumbs and gazing intently at their iPad screen have stopped me mid-sentence on more than one occasion. And the learning spaces created or adapted for each of them? No one-size-fits-all table, no siree! From little offices or cubbies that resemble clubhouses or forts, to special placemats arranged in a breakfast nook or pillows crammed in a laundry basket underneath a tall table, my students have had a say in the structure of the areas where they have been tuning in.

My own adjustments haven’t been all sunshine and rainbows... specifically, my own auditory processing issues. While most of my students hear me through their headphones, I hear EVERYONE’S background noises when students unmute themselves, and so do all of the classmates who are captive audiences during instruction. Dogs barking, doorbells ringing, parents loudly managing multiple learners, other teachers’ voices booming from devices used by older siblings in the same room who would rather not wear headphones, younger siblings screaming, spouses teleworking and shouting above everyone else in the next room just to be heard, it’s all excessively jarring and headache-producing. I hear it all at the same volume, which has nothing to do with a knob or setting on a sound mixing board that I can control. And for the only-once-so-far-please-let-it-not-happen-again “I don’t give a SH*T IF YOUR TEACHER CAN HEAR ME! THIS IS MY GOD-DA** HOUSE AND I’LL DO WHAT I WANT” event… well, yes, that one resulted in both a headache and a charley horse as I leaped from the reading table to the rolling cart that houses my laptop and extra camera/speaker in an attempt to “mute all.” My Super Star was mortified, his peers were confused, I was concerned and trying not to scream out in pain, and well, obviously Dad was stressed. Not every hour has been our finest and not every day’s successes have been the ones originally hoped for.

I miss working in a room full of kindergarteners and their artwork. Not enough to request a return to teaching in-person, though. The same goes for all of the eavesdroppings I used to be able to do every day as Super Stars worked through their daily activities, learning centers, recesses, snack, and instruction within earshot. I miss it but still end up on the receiving end of some kindergarten and parent funnies via Zoom. Teaching remotely while limiting all of our exposure to COVID remains a reasonable trade-off for me.

I continue to change two of my bulletin boards and some of my classroom décor monthly, even though my Super Stars are likely to never see it all in person. Not putting up bulletin board displays was a line I couldn’t cross. Goodness, I even hang up the results of my own directed drawing activities that my students and I work through during daily writing. Twenty-five years of teaching will do that, I guess. Our classroom can’t just look the part for students, it must feel the part to me.

As curriculum publishers scramble to produce quality digital content and a huge gap continues to exist between teachers who find the use of tech devices and resources intuitive and those who feel it beyond their capabilities, I appreciate not only those teachers who share the content they’ve created (either freely or at cost), but those who collaborate in order to customize the resources that will benefit their students. I don’t have to recreate the wheel when it comes to putting Google Slides activities at the fingertips of my students, and I’m thankful that I know how to create my own content as well. But finding resources and putting them into the queue takes a lot of time, time that would have usually been spent in years past preparing materials with a grade level partner, mentoring a first-year teacher, or helping a colleague restructure her learning center organization during prep. Many teachers trying to make the leap from their file cabinets to their touchscreens are experiencing true stress right now, as are their colleagues who find themselves stretched so thin that they have very little left to give to their teammates, especially as they try to keep something of themselves in reserve so that they can make it home with enough energy to make dinner, clean house, and help their own children work through projects and lessons. Teachers in 2020 are finding it near impossible to do “just one more thing” even if heavy loads in years past were made lighter by many hands. There’s a lot not getting done that needs to be done, and there's really no point in priortizing the fascade that we're making everything as "normal" as possible. Sometimes we must dive into the deep end instead of continuing to dip our toes into the kiddie pool, no matter how frightening it may be. And sometimes, we have to do it alone. Bless anyone who has done their part to be the waterwings, buoys and lifeguards in education.

My mind will return to school-mode a few days before I return to the classroom as it must if I’m to create graphic organizers such as a weekly plan, choice boards and instructional slides, organize materials and schedule activities in Google Classroom, and frankly, iron clothes for the first academic week of 2021. But until then I am hoping to enjoy winter break with my family and get some much-needed sleep, which is also my wish for anyone reading this post.

Happy holidays to you. Stay safe, healthy, and hopeful.

Adventures in Remote Learning: Unmute and Tell Me Your Word

2020-10-10T07:24:00.006-05:00

Me: Alrighty, Super Stars, who is ready to add some words to our O and N lists?

(Several hands shoot up into the air onscreen)

Me: Um, okay, ______, unmute and tell me your word.

Star: I have a letter O word.

Me: Awesome! Let me hear it.

Star: Oprah!

Me: Oprah! Yes, "Oprah" is an O word! And because it's the name of a person, we use an uppercase O at the beginning.

Star, interrupting: Uh, Mrs. Sommerville, I said "Oprah," NOT "Oprah."

Me: Ummm... what, honey?

Star: I SAID OPRAH, ****NOT**** OPRAH.

Me: Mmmmmm.... Are you talking about a person, a famous person?

Star: No, no, not a person. It's something you uh, you uh, you eat! (mumbling in the background).... I KNOW Dad, I *AM* explaining it to her!

Me: ... something you eat... do you mean OKRA?

Star: Yes! OPRAH! My dad fries it! (more mumbling in the background)

Me: Okay (writing).... o....k....r....a. Okra. Is that your word, honey?

Star: Uh, I don't know. I don't know how to spell yet.

And right in front of my Star's face a thumbs-up sign being made by an adult hand appeared on the screen.

And that, folks, is how word-list building is happening in this time of Zoom instruction and remote learning.

BOY Assessment Truths

2020-09-23T20:47:00.002-05:00

F-i-n-a-l-l-y nearing the end of our beginning-of-the-year assessments, one of my Stars logged on to her Zoom appointment today for her comprehensive math baseline.

Full of addition, greater than/less than, a 100's chart, subtraction, geometry and oodles and oodles of counting, the questions can seem to go on forever.

Before I shared my screen with her, I told her "Honey, some of the questions I'm going to ask you and some of the screens I'm going to show you are things you already know, and some of them you don't know because I haven't taught them yet. If you see something you don't know or that confuses you, just say 'skip it' and we'll go to the next screen, okay?"

"Okay, Mrs. Sommerville. I'm ready" she replied.

Eleventy-billion questions later, my Star sighed "W-o-w, Mrs. Sommerville, you really haven't taught me a lot."

It's the twelfth day of kindergarten.

*wink*

How to Navigate to a Google Slides Assignment from Google Classroom on an iPad

2020-08-29T18:55:00.004-05:00

My colleagues and I have been swimming in Google training as well as tracking down other resources in preparation for utilizing Google Classroom with all grades this year, both in-person and remote. As we try to create introductory lessons and activities to familiarize ourselves (and eventually, our students and their families) with how Google Classroom, Google Slides, Google Drive and other resources fit together as a single digital puzzle, we've come up against some surprises that frankly are stymying us for far too many hours of the day.

The biggest problem? Trying to figure out why the Google Classroom app on the student iPad adds a preview of an assigned Slides activity instead of just taking the student directly to Google Slides when s/he/they tap on the assignment link. The preview doesn't appear on laptops or desktop computers, just the iPad.

On a student iPad, I tapped the Google Classroom icon:

There's the classroom header (I'm logged in as a student):

Here's the access point for the Classroom's menu (as indicated by the three horizontal lines):

... and here's the menu. The menu has a different appearance on the laptop and desktop versions, by the way.

(iPad menu view above, desktop menu view below)

But I digress.

As we continue on with the iPad navigation, we arrive at the home page, where the "Stream," "Classwork" and "People" tabs appear at the bottom.

Tapping "Classwork," we're taken to our assignments screen. I've assigned myself a beginning sound identification activity. I created the activity in Google Slides because I wanted to have some moving parts for students to manipulate.

After tapping "Letter Aa Beginning Sound Slide," the following screen pops up. The yellow box with the white rectangular middle is the icon indicating that the activity is a Google Slide. My name next to the yellow box indicates I'm the student. The title of the activity appears next, followed by an "X."

I'm not sure why the "X" appears here, but I can tell you that it is ohhhhhhhhhhhh so tempting to tap. Spoiler alert: if the "X" is tapped at this point, no pop-up message box appears asking if you're *really* certain that you'd like to remove or delete the activity. There's no "cancel" button either. The activity simply disappears. Poof. Gone. Adios.

I resisted the urge (the first time) to tap the "X" and instead made sure to tap the text:

... and it looks like we're being taken to Google Slides, though the icon isn't yellow on this transition screen.

But instead of being taken directly to the assigned Slide in Google Slides, this screen appears:

There's the activity I created. We can see the picture grid, and the instructions, and the five blue circles that I'd like students to drag over to the grid to mark the pictures that begin with the Aa sound. Yes, the boy in the airplane could count though the pronunciation would be a little off, but I'd also like to see who might leave the fifth circle unmoved, likely because they've decided the illustration depicts "flying" or "a jet."

That's my story and I'm sticking to it, *wink*.

However... this isn't the Slide. It's more of a... preview? In the upper right corner we can see a search icon, a writing icon, and an interesting looking square with an arrow embedded in the middle of it.

Notice the square isn't rectangle-ish, nor is it yellow.

If we tap the search icon, a search bar appears at the top:

It's okay to tap the "X" to exit the search. No, really. It's okay. Not like that other "X" we encountered earlier. I promise.

If we tap the writing/pen icon:

... it becomes possible to write on the screen, but remember, this isn't the Slide. It's the iPad preview, or whatever we're calling it, because this screen doesn't pop up on laptops or desktop computers. Because of course it doesn't.

There are writing tools down at the bottom of the screen:

The add-a-box feature allows the student to, uh, add a box (big surprise):

Goodness, someone is in desperate need of a manicure and a humongous vat of hand lotion.

The pen, marker, highlighter and eraser tools all do what you'd guess they would as well:

Remember that the curvy arrow icons indicate "undo" (backward) and "redo" (forward). They're even handier than the eraser tool when you encounter them, in my opinion.

In this mode, the preview that has been written upon will be converted into a PDF, which still isn't the Slide with the moveable pieces that I assigned. The PDF will be added to the assignment screen where the student could turn it in while the actual Slide assignment remains unfinished:

But what about that square-shaped icon with the embedded arrow in it that appears in the iPad preview?

That box, my friends, despite NOT being yellow and not being Slide-shaped is the navigation tool that will take us away from this preview page and into the Google Slide assignment.

Seriously. Tap on it.

Voilà. The Slide. Within Google Slides. The pieces move.

Students could simply press the iPad's home button (the black button on the device) when they're finished because Google autosaves. But if they choose to navigate using the back button/arrow (you can see it next to my name), they may end up on a Google Slides homepage instead of back in their Classroom:

See the smaller back arrow at the very top of the screen, with the word "Classroom" next to it? It appears both on the Slide activity page AND the Google Slides home page. If a student taps that teeny tiny print instead of the larger back arrow next to their name, they'll be taken back to the iPad preview screen:

Tapping the "X" on the iPad preview screen will return the student to his/her/their Classwork assignments in Google Classroom.

*****

To summarize:

If our students are accessing Google Classroom using an iPad, and teachers have assigned a Google Slide activity, a "preview" of that assignment may appear instead of the Slide activity itself. I have no idea why.

Consider teaching students to navigate this-a-way:

Tap on the text of the assignment (don't touch the "X!"):

When the iPad preview image is displayed, ignore the search and writing tools and tap the square icon with the embedded arrow because it's the navigation tool that will take students into Google Slides :

Complete the activity:

When you're done, navigate back to Classroom, bypassing the Google Slides homepage, by tapping the teeny tiny text at the very top of the screen:

... and turn the assignment in by tapping the big black "turn in" button quickly, before you're tempted to tap that little "X" in the assignment's link. Don't. Tap. The. "X."

When you find yourself back on the iPad preview screen, it's okay to click on the *"X." I know, I know... I'm thinking it too.

Assign some colleagues to be mock students in your Google Classroom so that you all can see what the platform display and navigation tools will look like from both the teacher and student views. And remember, if students access Google Classroom via a **laptop or desktop computer, they won't be interrupted by the iPad preview screen.

* I'm guessing that "Xs" to the RIGHT delete assignments, while "Xs" to the LEFT simply close them. Can anyone verify this for me?

** Some families might have their students use a smaller tablet or smartphone to work on assignments. I do not know what display differences may exist on those devices.

Student iPad View of Google Classroom: Kindergarten Edition

2020-08-28T16:44:00.011-05:00

There's lots of preparation for the upcoming school year going on right now, and technology is at the forefront for me as one of my district's remote learning teachers. Nothing beats being able to see content the way my Super Stars and their families will, so I appreciate that I was able to obtain an iPad formatted for kindergarteners prior to the first day of instruction.

I have no idea how other grade levels are rolling out their digital devices for students, but I thought it might be helpful to simply show what I've seen as I've navigated to Google Classroom as a mock kindergarten student using a student iPad. Here... we... go!

I powered up the device, held it upright in the portrait position (not landscape) and found the Google Classroom icon:

After clicking on it, this screen appeared:

I made sure to leave the "Sign up for emails..." box UNCHECKED, tapped the "Get Started" rectangle and logged in using my mock-student Gmail credentials, not an email address issued by the district. I was taken immediately to the Google Classroom I created (as a teacher) and had invited myself to join via email (as a student) with a "join code." This is the first step that parents will have to help students with.

It's too bad that the header/banner is grayed-out; I'm not entirely sure what the purpose might be behind the platform altering the image from how I created it. Notice that you can see the photo that is linked to the Gmail account I'm using as a student in the upper right corner on this screen. I don't know what will appear in this space for students accessing Classroom with a district-provided account.

There are no buttons or tabs along the bottom of the screen except for a lone plus sign:

The plus sign in the bottom right corner provides a pop-up where "Join class" and "Create class" are options. A student will need a class "join code" from any other teacher who invites him/her/them. Tapping "Create class" produces another pop-up, though I'm unsure if I'm seeing it because I'm a mock student and not an actual student utilizing a district-provided account. "Join class" would be the only option our students need.

Three little dots appear in the upper right corner of the header/banner:

Tapping the three dots produces a button prompt at the bottom of the screen that offers to "unenroll" you:

If a student clicks on this button accidentally (or not-so-accidentally), a pop-up message with links to either "cancel" or proceed with the choice to "unenroll" appears:

Talk about the OPPOSITE of "handy dandy" when it comes to four, five, and six-year-olds. I didn't unenroll to see what would happen. My guess would be that I, as a student, would need to be invited back to the Classroom with another join link provided by my teacher. I don't know if the classwork I completed prior to unenrolling would be saved, or retrievable.

Moving on...

Tapping the class' name/title "Kindergarten Remote Learning" that appears within the grayed-out header/banner took me to a very similar looking screen, though this time neither my Gmail photograph nor the plus sign appeared while buttons for "Stream," "Classwork" and "People" did at the bottom. This is the Google Classroom home page:

The message "No posts yet, but check back soon" indicates that I (as the teacher) haven't yet posted messages, announcements, photos, or assignments within Classroom. It also indicates that I (as a student), haven't commented or shared content on this page, either. Posts by teachers and students will appear on this screen unless teachers adjust the permission settings which will prevent them from being published/shared. This home or "stream" page can become congested rather quickly, full of text that many kindergarteners themselves won't be able to read. I don't plan on posting much here, and I will be toggling off the appropriate settings button so that every activity I assign won't appear here in an overwhelming list. Perhaps this page is where I can post a daily learning plan as an announcement instead, and eventually, with lots of guidance and practice, students can respond to content, but my brain isn't ready to tackle that particular adventure just yet.

Clicking on the three horizontal bars in the upper left corner brings up this submenu:

Within this submenu, tapping:

"Classes" takes me right back to my Kindergarten Remote Learning class. If I'm enrolled in other classes, their headers/banners would show up so I could select the one I wanted to access.

"Calendar" produces this iTunes and web browser rabbit hole that kindergarteners don't need to fiddle with:

"To-do" takes students to the To-do page, where buttons/tabs appear at the top for work that is "Assigned," "Missing," and "Done." I haven't yet assigned grades to the activities I completed as a student, so I don't know if a "grades" column will be displayed for students. Teeny tiny arrow up/arrow down buttons to the right of the list allow you to expand or collapse the categories that appear (assignments, or "this week," "next week," or "later:")

"Kindergarten Remote Learning," the name of my Classroom, takes me right back to the main page where the "Stream," "Classwork" and "People" buttons appear at the bottom.

"Classroom folders" takes a student to their Google Drive via a web browser, where s/he/they will see the class folder. Clicking on the titled folder opens it and displays all of the assignments/items shared by the teacher. After only a few days, I imagine this can become a bit crazy to navigate, though the icons are easy to view. I don't know that I'd ever tell a kindergartener to go into their Google Drive and start hunting and pecking, and I'm not sure parents will be able to avoid being overwhelmed by traveling along this route, either. Using the back arrows at the top of the screen only allows navigation within the browser, so students will have to click the "home" button on the iPad to leave the browser and then find the app icon to return to Google Classroom.

If subfolders aren't created and organized within the Classroom folder (my Classroom is named "Kindergarten Remote Learning"), the photo below shows what students and families will see. I have spent some time trying to create subfolders as a student within my Classroom folder on the iPad this weekend and frankly, I don't recommend it. Perhaps older students can organize their Drives in a logical manner and with the help of their teachers, but kindergarten students and families may need to be told to simply ignore the Classroom Folder link in the Classroom submenu. Just view assignments using the To-do tab, and avoid the Drive.

Everything pops up, and this screen is only one day's worth of activities that I've assigned. Remember: students don't have to open up their Google Classroom's folder via Google Drive in order to access their assignments. They can simply click on the "To-do" button in the submenu that appears on the Google Classroom homepage via the three horizontal bars in the upper left corner. I just wanted to show you the Google Drive rabbit hole that they (and parents) will encounter if they tap on the "Classroom folder" link in the Classroom's submenu.

"Settings" opens up options such as "About" (the app's legalese), "Account Settings" (the Google user's info, sign-in and security, personal info/email and account preferences), "Default apps" that includes "get" buttons for other browsers and recommendations for other apps, "Report crashes," "Notifications," and "Google Usage ID," none of which I'd want kindergarteners fiddling with.

DO familiarize yourself with the "Account Settings" link though, because there's a "Remove account from this device" prompt at the bottom of the screen:

Tapping on the prompt produces this pop-up:

Goodness gracious.

Student access to settings and sending Google feedback aren't necessary for kindergarten. Their parents will be the ones accessing the "Help" button, but there's quite a bit of info within that particular submenu that isn't applicable to parents or students, such as "Grade and give feedback," "Communicate with guardians," "G Suite administrators" and other "teachers only" information. Goodness, the rabbit holes.

Finally, when we're back on the Classroom homepage, where "Stream," "Classwork" and "People" buttons appear at the bottom, the "People" tab brings up a list of teachers and I'm assuming other classmates. When I click on my (teacher) name, no pop-up window appears, so it doesn't seem to be a communication link.

Whew.

As a reminder, I held the student iPad upright, in the portrait position for this navigation tour. Holding the device in the landscape position simply shortens and widens the screen display. No button, tab, or submenu locations change or have to be tracked down in some other place.

Now that you've endured eye-strain and my overuse of "rabbit holes," "goodness gracious," and "fiddling," I'll save showing you how a Google Slide activity assigned in Classroom accessed by students via an iPad may confuse them with a preview of that activity in PDF form (that is also editable and submittable) rather than going directly into Slides itself for another blogpost.

Okie dokie, artichoke-y?

Bulletin Board: Together is Our Favorite Place to Be

2020-08-27T18:26:00.000-05:00

I'm one of my district's two remote learning kindergarten teachers, and moved from a classroom I've occupied for twelve years into a new space that amazingly, has been an ideal fit for my materials, curriculum, and virtual learning plans. While the bulletin board displays within the space will be easy to reference during live Zoom instruction and photograph for close-ups that can be added to Google Slides or elsewhere, this year my own students won't be navigating the school's hallways or displaying their artwork and creative constructions. I anticipate that I'll experience a serious case of withdrawals.

Despite my own students learning from home, the on-site classrooms of my colleagues are nearly ready for the arrival of eager, masked children. These kids will be passing by my door as they begin and end their instructional days, and I want them to see something cheerful.

This is likely the last year that I'll use my "scribble kids," because frankly, they're more wrinkled than I am, but seeing them has cheered up my days and lowered my stress levels, and I hope they have the same effect on those who pass by them every morning and afternoon.

Whether on-site or remote, together is our favorite place to be.

Kindergarten at Home: My Suggested School List

2020-08-22T21:01:00.005-05:00

When it comes to considering, selecting, and offering "educational" manipulatives to my Super Stars, I ask myself some specific questions such as "Will this item engage and stimulate my students? Will it help them create and creatively explore ideas and concepts? Can it act as a bridge, and/or be combined with other objects and items that can help children learn, test hypotheses, express creativity and develop fine and gross motor skills? Can my students use these in multiple ways? Can they still 'work' even if a piece goes missing?" and "Could using them help my students better understand real-world situations?" The items I choose to put within my students' reach have to be effective and adaptable to multiple uses.

Many kindergarteners will be learning from home this year. What kinds of items might I suggest to their parents?

These:

Play-Doh (Walmart, Amazon, toy stores, or made from scratch) This smooshable stuff is great for fine-motor development; as squishable counters for 1:1 correspondence (roll out twenty pieces formed into balls and place in a single line, then have your child smoosh each one as s/he says each number in order starting with "1"); as "face makers" to depict emotions and feelings or to add facial features to blank mats, apples, or pumpkins (jack-o-lanterns in October); as a finger/hand warm-up tool before writing and drawing (modeling clay or Theraputty would also work well for hand-strengthening as they are more resistive and require a lot of handling to loosen), and of course, stress relief.

Wikki Stix (found here or on Amazon), are strips of bendable/moldable wax-covered yarn. Use them or pipe cleaners (or Play-Doh) to form letters, numbers, shapes (flat and three dimensional), and ignite the imagination.

A dry erase board with indicator writing lines (Amazon, school supply stores), though you'll want to know what handwriting format/curriculum your district will be using. Zaner Bloser? D'Nealian? If you choose to purchase a reference chart make sure to select one that includes the numbered directional arrows so that you know where to place your pencil-point as you begin to form letters, and which stroke or mark to make next to complete them. A blank, lineless dry erase board works for all sorts of writing and drawing activities, too.

Magnetic letters and numbers (like the ones you put on the fridge), letter tiles (Scrabble, Bananagrams) or letter stamps. Make sure these items are plastic or wood and produced in a reasonable and recognizable font. Foam letter sets are less expensive, but they'll also be torn apart, bent, folded, and come out mangled if they've gone unnoticed into the washer and dryer. These items are great for word-building, sorting, adding text to kid-drawn illustrations etc., especially when little fingers are tired from gripping pencils and writing.

Dry-erase pockets/pouches for tracing or completing reusable worksheet pages, although you could print out tracer pages and laminate them instead. If you'd rather create and laminate flashcards, tracer pages, schedules, posters, charts and other items, I recommend a tabletop laminator and pouches. Laminators like the one pictured above can be used on paper sized 8.5 X11 inches and smaller. I've found versions of them for less in Walmart and Target, and 100 piece packs of laminating pouches go on sale from time to time on Amazon.

Lots of "found" items can be used as counters and pattern builders or manipulatives to create sets/groups and storage. These objects might be discovered and collected in nature: rocks, twigs, feathers, leaves, shells, flowers, pinecones, etc. Kitchen and other household items would work well too: dice, game pieces, checkers, Lego pieces, tongs, plastic tubs with lids, pencils, paperclips, balls of yarn, crayons, recycled cans, empty shoeboxes or tissue boxes, card sets, dominoes, oatmeal or TP cylinders, counters punched from cereal boxes or frozen food cardboard using a large craft punch, slotted spoons and colanders/strainers. Food items could be used as counters (be mindful of allergies and choking hazards) but could also be used to create collages, pictures etc. before eating as a snack: cereal pieces, m&ms, raisins, crackers, grapes, berries, salami slices, etc. Collect 100 objects (they don't have to match) and store them in a bag for sorting, classifying and counting practice (counting to 100 and beyond is a kindergarten math standard). Dry beans and pasta also make great counters, weighable foodstuffs, and craft supplies. If you'd like to include more schoolish looking manipulatives, a sampler set like this one (grades K-2) might work well:

It includes base-10 blocks, snap cubes, pattern blocks, colored tiles, an adjustable analog clock (not Judy brand), and Cuisenaire rods. Many of these pieces are foam, which isn't ideal, but they're the same types of tools students will encounter (usually plastic) in classrooms. Items found while on a walk outside double as manipulatives and show and share contenders. Store pieces, bought or found, in lidded tubs or shoeboxes rather than plastic bags. Tubs and boxes are easier to stack and label.

Stencils sets help children to develop their fine motor skills, illustrate pages, learn attributes of shapes, and build confidence in writing, making cards and books, as they share their work with others. Stencils can also be made at home using cardboard or tracing around objects such as lids, boxes, cookie cutters and toys. Young children also like using rulers, yardsticks, protractors and other interesting edges as they work with paper, crayons, pencils, markers, colored pencils, pens, and paint. The set of five plane shape stencils can be found here and the other animal-themed stencil set here.

Beanie Babies or small themed toy collections work well as game pieces, BINGO game covers, desk and book buddies, and tic-tac-toe markers on a grid created on the floor, a blanket, a sidewalk, or a sandpit. A shoebox filled with sand or dry rice provides sensory input as children use their pointer fingers or the end of a pencil to write their name, draw shapes, or form letters and numbers following handwriting guidelines. Shaving cream "painting" on a table surface, or even pudding painting on a cookie sheet with raised edges are great activities that encourage children to use their fingers and other washable/safe items to write and draw. Involve your child in meal-making, cleaning up, writing grocery lists, and make sure he or she knows it's okay to sneak notes and drawings into lunchboxes, backpacks, purses and briefcases. Help your child create his or her own alphabet chart, number chart, or other graphic organizers such as a word wall, calendar, and imagination station (art display). None of these items require shopping at a teacher store.

For families who haven't given their children safety scissors or markers or paint because they (parents) fear the mess, please know that teachers always spend a lot of time upfront teaching classrooms full of students how to handle specialty tools, never leaving them unattended or within reach unless they are going to be used immediately. We do not give scissors to children "trusting" that the child will know what to do. We do not hand students a pack of watercolor paints, a cup of water, a brush, a sheet of paper, and a smock and then walk away to go and work with a group of students at our reading table during the first quarter of school. Marker sets are capped, bagged and stored in a tub out of easy reach. Your child cannot develop his or her pencil/pen/marker writing grasp when using only their pointer finger on an iPad app. S/he cannot become efficient and safe at cutting if you never teach him/her the proper way to carry scissors from place to place (point down), the way to grasp them (thumb "on top" in the little hole, remaining fingers "on the bottom" in the larger hole), the directionality of cutting (always with the tips of the blades pointed away from the body, never toward; elbow lowered instead of raised in the air), and how to properly store the scissors until they're needed again (closed and in a drawer or a cup point down). Children should learn to paint and draw using backing surfaces such as slanted easels, upright dry erase boards, paper on clipboards, and flat tabletops. If your child has ever gotten a hold of your Sharpie stash and gone to town on your walls, sheets, curtains, dogs, and other children, you know why anything ink-based (or adhesive) should always be brought out for use and then immediately put away, not in a drawer, and not on a tabletop but in a closed container on the highest shelf in the most boring cupboard or closet. Children learning from home will have to learn and practice these skills. Taught and supervised properly, messes will be at a minimum. Truly.

Construction paper. Blank copy paper. Notebooks. Brown paper bags cut open into large panels. Journals you've been gifted but will never use. Index cards. Post-it notes. Graph paper. Whatever you've got, let your child use it. Often.

Ask your little learner to help you design or delineate a learning space within your home. It might be on one end of a dining room table, at a smaller table and chair set already in use in a playroom, or a simple lap desk with a nearby set of cubbies where school items can be put away and stored when not in use. One of my Super Stars last spring seemed to spend a lot of time snuggled into an oversized laundry basket, a learning pod of sorts where a sibling couldn't crowd in. Kids know what makes them comfortable, and it isn't always a desk and chair. Hang up and display not only learning charts but your child's artwork and writing, too. No, it does not need to be perfect and yes, your child should be encouraged to enjoy and reflect upon his or her work.

Keep a "reuse" stash of recyclable items. Junk mail is fun to use for playing office, school, or mail carrier. The plastic lids from milk jugs or laundry detergent (thoroughly washed and dried) can be collected over time for sorting, building and crafting. Magazines and newspapers contain lots of images and print that can be used for collages, book-making, word and letter finds, and other crafts. Cardboard cereal and other food boxes can be used as containers, disassembled and reconstructed into other incredible creations. You'll want glue sticks, bottled glue, clear tape, masking tape and even possibly a low-temp glue gun... rubber bands, paper clips, some metal rings (kids love flashcards on a ring), and who knows what other office supplies might come in handy. Remember, the use of these tools, adhesives, and pokey objects MUST BE TAUGHT and supervised. Put them a-w-a-y, REALLY A-W-A-Y when your child is done using them.

Finally, a home library of favorite bedtime stories, reference books, and self-selected fiction and non-fiction books is essential when it comes to providing the best tools to support pre-reading and literacy skills, develop a love of reading and learn and share through print and writing. Scholastic Book Clubs has an ordering option for parents where they can use their remote teacher's "class code" to order books and other items each month and have everything delivered to their home, rather than the school. Create an Amazon book wish-list for titles and share it with family members, and check out which books might be shared digitally online via your school and local libraries. Read, read, and read some more.

The manipulatives in this list and the other items I've suggested sound a lot like toys and objects to play with, don't they? Their selection is no accident because play is rigorous and produces opportunities for engaged problem-solving, experimentation and creativity.

What other essentials that make learning fun would you add?

My New Classroom in the Time of COVID-19

2020-08-22T15:46:00.001-05:00

I'm a remote learning kindergarten teacher this year. In my district, this means that I will still report to my school building each day, but will teach students from my classroom via Loom, Google Classroom, and pre-recorded content videos while other teachers' students join them for face to face instruction on campus. My new classroom is a teaching space that would never in a million years be able to support all of the materials, furniture, decor and experiences that my previous room did, but I selected some essentials that remained with me in the building while everything else was brought home. I hope to be able to mount my laptop (camera) on a swivel stand in the middle of the circle, so as I move from location to location, all I have to do is check for focus and framing, without trying to finagle the right height for my laptop in each location, risking gravity's inevitable assertion.

Here's the "before:"

I've arranged my classroom into three areas. The first is my instructional "circle," which includes in a clockwise rotation my SMART Board, a reading table, bins full of ELA and math manipulatives that can be displayed via projection provided by a document camera, an art easel for painting and craft table for demonstrations/tutorials, and a big book, calendar and story time area next to a cart that is positioned next to the SMART Board. The second is my office area, complete with desk, second monitor that can be hooked up to my laptop, my bulletin board and curriculum storage, and a large table that I can use to sort consumables, create work packets (hopefully), and spread out curriculum guides or other bulky items if needed. The last area is the real estate for my bulletin board displays and other visuals such as anchor charts and dry erase surfaces.

Here's the view from my desk (my SMARTBoard is against the far wall, past the big book stand and storytime easel):

I've been keeping half of the room's lights off and the projector of the SMARTBoard dimmed this past week in an attempt to keep the room as cool as possible. Even with the help of two oscillating fans, I haven't been able to get it cooler than seventy-three degrees, which, no joke, is almost ten degrees hotter that I like any room to be. There are no quilts or lots of puppets and stuffed animals in my room now because we need to minimize the amount of fabric and other porous surfaces into which I and other visitors to my room may come into contact, but the bulletin boards are prepared and surfaces are decorated as they would be if my students were going to be with me in-person. I plan to photograph our sound wall, a display of our 7 Habits, our sixty Power Words, our math vocabulary wall (it's taped to cabinetry), and the front of our room in case a Bitmoji-style room isn't allowed for reference on a Google Site or in Google Classroom. Even if our building is closed again like it was last spring, I should be able to use the pictures I've taken as reference materials online.

To the right of my desk, behind the instructional circle is a long table, rolling cart, and bulletin board/tub storage. I anticipate this area will end up full of math workbooks, packets, and whatever other resources I might be providing to my students. Because there's a huge bulletin board in this area, I've put up a sound wall that I can easily photograph for my students' reference. All of my ELA book tubs are stored within easy reach, though I don't know yet if my students will be able to borrow and use books at home, or if they'll only have access to them digitally.

(Sound Wall printables by Must Love First on TPT found here)

Though I'm hoping I'll be able to teach effectively for the school year from within this classroom, I'm setting up an instructional closet area at home in my craft room should our buildings be closed again like they were in the spring. Over-prepared is better than under-prepared, right?

This year my classroom won't be full of students or their work, creative constructions, or seasonal crafts. It will be odd, and even uncomfortable. I'll be hearing other children and colleagues as they pass by my classroom each day and it will be an adjustment to only interact with my own students via a screen with little if any time in each other's presence. It will be refreshing yet unusual to eat my lunch and snacks and drink my water outside for as many days as it is possible. It will be uncomfortable, worrying about what might be in the air all around me indoors, and what I might bring home with me each day.

No, I cannot take a year without pay. I'm at least fifteen years away from retirement.

Vigilance. Grace. Hope. Patience. "Preparedness."

I'm not sure they, or my organizational efforts, will be enough.

Pedagogy in Crisis: Goodbye Art Cart, Goodbye Dramatic Play, Goodbye Puppets

2020-08-06T20:06:00.005-05:00

Today was the first day of my twenty-fifth year in the classroom.

I wore my mask on my face and a button with my face on it. Upon admittance to the building and my classroom, I found tables and desks set up spaced six feet apart with all of the other furniture pushed against the walls and stacked upon cabinetry. After early morning PD, I was sent back to the room (will I be teaching here in a month, or stationed elsewhere as a remote learning instructor? Who knows.), ate lunch, and then started my assignment: determine what remaining furniture, if any, could still be used, and remove all of my own personal belongings and all cloth items from the room. Furniture to be stored had to be labeled and put in a central location within the classroom so it wouldn't clog up the hallway.

I might have been able to maintain some semblance of stoicism for the remainder of the afternoon, but a dear friend walked into my room, and it was all I could do to not sob. After drying some tears (crying and having one's nose run behind a mask is NOT an ideal situation), I pushed through to problem-solving mode: what do I need to keep? What must I send to storage? What must I take home? How can I provide visual cues to students (who I may or may not have in-person) so they know where to keep their very moveable individual desks (one solution would be Sit Spots on the floor, one marking the upper right desk leg and the other marking the lower-left desk leg) as we attempt to maintain social distancing requirements?

But being the first day of my twenty-fifth year of teaching, I recognized that I am being required to do exactly what I have fought doing for my entire career: I must work against my students' very nature, coach and praise them against how they learn best, and constantly redirect them from their very selves. And if I manage to do it "successfully," I know that there are other teachers and possibly even administrators who would find the arrangement of kindergarten students sitting face-forward in straight rows for seven hours each day at desks ideal, even desirable post-pandemic. I'm experiencing a pedagogical crisis.

Here is the furniture to be removed:

Goodbye art cart. Goodbye alphabet rug.

Goodbye Dramatic Play/"House" Center.

Goodbye lightbox, Lego table, and painting easel.

Goodbye reading table. Goodbye Play-Doh table, and math table, and writing center table.

Goodbye discovery table with the roadway on one side of the flippable topper and a farm scene on the other.

The wooden barn and dollhouse will sit high atop the upper cabinetry, stored, but not out of sight. Students will wonder why they are there, and why they are out of reach. If I'm not reassigned, my class set of scoop seats will join the barn and dollhouse. So will whatever extras might fit that we won't be allowed to use... but students will see them. And wonder.

As for the personal belongings that I have to bring home, here's the first load:

Kindergarten will have no resting mats.

No storytime chair. No mini couch or chairs.

No shopping cart. No puppets, no apple basket tree to hold them.

No stuffed animals to "buddy read" to.

No balance beam. No stepping stones. No sensory bin.

No side table for plants or book displays.

No rolling cart for lunch box and snack bag collection.

Kindergarten not being kindergarten is supposed to pass as a solution this year, but a developmentally inappropriate learning environment will never be the correct answer.

I am grieving.

Back to Work Tomorrow

2020-08-05T10:48:00.001-05:00

The cleanout of my greenhouse has begun. I'm down to one cucumber plant and a handful of cherry tomatoes, some parsley and "nasty urchin" (nasturtium's nickname bestowed many years ago by a Super Star kindergartener) blooms. After an initial harvest, dry mold took the peppers and a different cucumber plant, and a frog took over my barrel of green onions.

Thanks a lot, Kermit.

Despite the rapidly multiplying beetles that I've been unable to deter or kill, the pumpkin vines they inhabit are still busily producing, to the point that I have greenhouse porch and house porch pumpkins.

I love pumpkins.

I return to work tomorrow for Convocation. Student tables or desks or chairs or stools (who knows what I will find) have already been arranged in my classroom, and I'm not to move them. I have no idea if my increased risk factors for COVID complications will mean that I'll be assigned to teach as a remote learning instructor. I do know that if I am to teach remotely, I will do so from within the school building, though not necessarily from my own classroom. I may have to pack a little and try to make the walls of my classroom more appealing, or I may have to pack everything and move to a different space, possibly sharing it with another remote teacher.

I'm of the opinion that remote teachers remaining within school buildings will likely end up serving as substitute teachers. If schools don't return to full-time distance learning, I wonder how many teachers will break their contracts and quit at the semester. I know, I know. These are not cheerful ponderings, but I don't have to channel Pollyanna here, so I won't. I'm wondering how much of my back to school PD will be structured as school-as-usual pantomime... theater. Going through the motions and "acting as if" there's some normalcy to be had, and as if that appearance of normalcy is of some benefit to teachers who, though wearing masks, will still be sharing air and thinking about the colleagues sitting to the right and left of them, six feet away.

My usual routine of getting my hair done and indulging in a pedicure before the first day back isn't in the plan for today. I've watered the pumpkins, harvested edibles, and will be baking cookies that will be well-wrapped in individual servings for our custodians. I'll do a grocery pick-up run, come home, shower, iron clothes, play with Google Sites to see if I can make a more appealing, navigable and intuitive resource for parents and students before they dive into Google Classroom (we no longer have Seesaw, which is difficult), make dinner, pack tomorrow's lunch, lay out my clothes, masks, visor (or glasses, I haven't decided yet), and put my tech devices into my teacher's bag before starting on my manicure.

I still haven't decided whether or not to wear makeup tomorrow, aside from waterproof mascara and some moisturizer. I'll be behind a mask all day, after all. And seeing my classroom so visually sterile is going to be a punch to the gut.

I'll need to bring a camping chair so I can sit outside and eat my lunch too, come to think of it.

If you're new to Google Classroom and Google Sites and Google anything for schools, explore Google for Education and seek out groups/pages on Facebook such as "Google Sites for Distance Learning" and "Google Classroom for Kindergarten and Primary Teachers." There's bound to be similar pages for other grades, too. If I can make progress on my Google Site I'll make sure to screenshot it and share it here at the blog- we need inspiration, right?

Don't forget that there is a sale over at Teachers Pay Teachers today, too.

Tick... Tock... Internal... Clock

2020-07-22T10:31:00.001-05:00

Photo by Marco Verch under Creative Commons 2.0

Each summer, I'm usually sharing photos of my classroom set up right about now, or posting some tutorials on bulletin board creation, and of course, gushing over my fresh, new teacher planner. This year, I'm at home, with bedhead, my second cup of still-hot coffee steaming next to me on my nightstand and the smell of Clorox kitchen cleaner wafting down the hallway listening to the whirring of the dishwasher, fully loaded and running at 8:30 a.m.

I briefly considered joining my district's COVID-19 task force/re-opening schools committee two weeks ago (they're meeting this week), but decided that I wanted and deserved a break with a little bit of "real summer" leftover to try to enjoy after a workshop I took came to a close. Changes at my building and our state's back-to-school calendar mean that convocation and first few days of PD could be fairly interesting, but it's the sitting and waiting to hear about what the framework of my district's remote learning plan might look like that is preventing me from turning my brain off and attention toward other much less stressful pursuits. The committee is plowing through a lot of content and putting their creative selves to the test. I wish I could bake them all cookies.

In May, I volunteered to be on the staff for any digital academy or distance learning that we might offer because 1) I didn't believe we'd be back in brick and mortar schools, or if we were, that we'd stay there long and 2) I fall into a high-risk category for coronavirus complications. As it turns out, the pandemic and virus did indeed continue on their merry way, causing problems and necessitating adjustments, despite many of my neighbors' disbelief that any entity would dare to work counter to their plans and schedules. I still do not know if I'll be expected to teach face to face, face to face and have my instruction live-streamed (a ridiculous format for kindergarten), face to face with an extended day schedule for half of my class and the remainder of the afternoon after early dismissal creating and sharing virtual lessons and instruction for the second half (easily double or more the workload, especially if diverted to sub in another classroom), remote only using Seesaw and other digital platforms/curriculum tools and restrictive rules implemented last spring, and if teaching remotely, working from home or within some other office elsewhere so that I can help multiple grade levels with planning instead of just kindergarten, all while trying to not be pulled right back into the danger zones of in-person meetings and step-in substitute duties that prompted me to volunteer for remote instruction in the first place.

I'm looking forward to having an answer to the questions I have about where to invest my time, and frankly, money too. Do I start shopping around for an oversized dry erase board, green screen cloth, mini-desk, bookshelves, comfortable rolling chair, storage tubs for all of my belongings and classroom library still at school, and repaint a wall in the guest bedroom? Do I completely reorganize my storage to accommodate all of my gear, which includes classroom furniture and toys, and if so, when do I actually go in to pack it all up and haul it home? If I'm going to have to work in an office, when do I get to pull my necessities and then pack up and store the rest? Do I make and buy more masks and a visor? Do I need to stock up on wipes and hand sanitizer, none of which is available in town, and when it appears in other stores is limited to one item per customer and incredibly overpriced requiring extra gas and extended exposure to others? Do I purchase scrub-type clothing? I spent a lot of money to pay for my summer workshop... will I be allowed to use any of the tools and resources I learned about? What do I have that I can donate to the cause to help my colleagues and their students? Do I create age-appropriate mask-wearing posters, or create Wakelet boards of tutorials for how to create Bitmoji classrooms? I'm not panicked. I'm anxious.

A former colleague told me in May that we shouldn't plan anything, and just wait and see what the state decides and what our district decides in the fall, because "you never know." Yes, yes, you can know. You can know that a pandemic occurs over a wide geographic area and affects an exceptionally high proportion of the population. You can do some research and can come to know that pandemics don't operate via collaboration with businesses' calendars for the fiscal year, and you can infer that preparation for change is necessary. That many parents are now turning on teachers, those same teachers with whom they partnered and praised last year, demanding that we take their children back after purposely (even proudly) avoiding the mask-wearing and social distancing recommendations that could have made that very option viable makes me realize just how much of the population also believes in just waiting and seeing what happens rather than being proactive and making informed, not wild, guesses about the future. The instructors of my summer workshop anticipated that their content would be needed, and I'm terribly thankful that our state board of education created a committee that would address multiple schooling scenarios. I appreciate that the workshop opportunity was shared with me and that there are, indeed, options for my twenty-fifth year as an educator.

But wow. My internal clock and calendar are all thrown out of whack this year, which is uncomfortable for me as a confirmed creature of habit. This week is supposed to involve classroom furniture, bulletin boards, decor, and year-long calendar planning, followed by a website update, parent communication, and copies for August, September and October being sent to the printer. Then I bake and take in cookies for our custodians, my first week of school crafts are prepped, I attend PD while regularly checking on my ever-evolving class list, have lunch with the team, start grade level planning, and sprinkle in lots of peeking into classrooms to catch up and see how everybody's' summer went. I didn't get to do much of this preparation in person last year due to my surgery and didn't realize how much I had been looking forward to getting back into the groove until May when I realized the normal back-to-school routine wasn't going to be likely. After all of this summer's upheaval, and hopefully, as a "remote learning" teacher, I am looking forward to the start of the school year, even with its uncertainties. I need a routine, even if it means creating a new one. My days require structure so that I can develop habits that make it possible for me to plan a schedule. I'll know when I'm working, and I'll look forward to my off-hours. My brain will disengage and allow itself some other pursuits because the foundation will be firmly built and I will be able to rely upon it.

Tick.

Tock.

Must Teachers be Martyrs to be Saints?

2020-07-14T10:01:00.000-05:00

Peeking in on new teachers' groups I've joined via social media isn't really helping my mood.  

All teachers are concerned about their students' health and welfare if they continue to have to stay at home without food, without access to the internet (or reliable internet) and digital devices, and where abuse and neglect occur.  Some teachers are MORE concerned about those students than their own health, which I understand: that's the default setting for almost all of us.

Other teachers (even after considering school shootings and other crimes) are for the first time adding their health, their lives, and the lives of their families to the same side of the scale, joining, not dismissing or demeaning their students' needs. For many teachers, this is a first, a precedent in our careers. Not every teacher who needs to stay home will have the option to do so.  Not every student who needs socialization will get it in socially distanced classrooms. 

When teachers get sick (and we will), our substitutes, if available, won't first be looking for signs of abuse or neglect and it's possible that they may not teach to the standard of a veteran educator. When children get sick (and they will, if they don't come to school on the very first day asymptomatic or symptomatic and medicated to mask it), they'll have to have digital back-up resources provided not only in an attempt to keep them connected and learning, but to provide districts data that demonstrate they deserve to retain their accreditation. Why not start digitally for everyone, then use those color-coded district plans in reverse, as we acknowledge the surge in cases that is currently happening (red), achieve some flattening (yellow) and then get the clear-as-it's-going-to-get status proven by study and research (green)?

Trying to pick one side of this debate over the other ignores that there may be yet three more angles and options of which we're unaware or unwilling to explore simply because we are fixated upon a first-day-of-school date that should be just as sacrificial as traditional high school graduation ceremonies were.  Sacrifices hurt, but  I cannot teach if I've on a ventilator or dead. It's incorrect to label instinctual self-preservation as only selfish.

 Must we be martyrs to be saints?