It has been a wonderful few days off with my family. Time away always gives me a chance to catch my breath, reflect, focus and get ready for the little ones. I have really made a decision to work a little as possible from home. I have spent the last year and a half in front of the computer at home, working on entering documentation on Teachingstrategies, COPA, writing letters to parents, filling out conference forms and all kinds of other paper work. Wow! there is a lot of paper work as a Head start teacher.
     This past week, we were short one teacher, Ms M, and I was alone with a foster grandparent for a short while, a parent volunteer later on in the day and my little ones. The teacher that was out is more of the enforcer than I am and without her presence, my kids were more than happy to push the limit. I also realized that I spend enough time out of the classroom doing paperwork that the kids are not used to my presence for the whole day.

     This is what my day looks like. I arrive at 8am. I greet and chat with the children and parents as they arrive. I leave to check my email in a shared office/ conference room. I have breakfast with the child, we have circle (I lead 3 a week, Ms M leads 2) then they are off to work in their interest areas. During this time, if I have pressing deadlines I have to work on, I leave for about an hour and a half. For example, we completed parent conferences which means I had to conduct them (at parents' convenience which could be at any time really) then write it out on the conference form then type them out onto COPA in two places, one as a visit and again as a case note. This is not a speedy process. In order to meet the deadline for completion and to work less at home, I have to leave the classroom.
     I come back in at 11am, before our foster grandparent leaves. The children have their large motor time, lunch then they nap (whew!) at 12:30. We have a part time teacher, Ms L,  who comes in at 1pm. When she arrives, we meet, discuss what we need to work on, small group materials to prepare, share any information, etc, then I leave the room at about 2pm to work in the office. This is time I use to enter case notes into COPA, tie up any loose paperwork, call parents for various things, enter documentation into TS, create home activities, letter to parents, planning, etc. I can easily go on to list at least 10 other things I have to do at any given time. 3:30, Ms M leaves so I go back into our classroom.
     The above scenario happens once or twice a week. The rest of the time, I leave the room in the afternoon, after Ms L arrives at 1. Either way, I don't think I am spending enough time with the children because of the work we have to do to fulfill accountability issues for Head Start programs. I will talk more about this on another day. I am sure you do not want to read anymore on this today.

     On another note, I finally had a chance to look at the wonderful prints the children made using a piece of white cloth, a mallet and a leaf of their choice. They hammered a leaf that was placed between a piece of fabric and a piece of paper. The children were very enthusiastic about using the mallet. They had an opportunity to observe the beautiful yellows, reds and greens of their leaves transfering onto the fabric. They noticed the veins and the stem as they began to appear on the white material. This activity was adopted from a great post on http://www.allfortheboys.com/home/2011/6/15/hammer-some-art.html

I used fabric to get a more permanent artifact.

I am in the process of sewing them all together to create a sort of tapestry for a wall during our tree study. As soon as I am finished, I will post a picture.

The children explored trees with a site visit to a local park district. A 219 acres of beautiful inner city nature and recreational facilities. They noticed so many things that they had simply walked by in the past.

 

Roots can sometimes be seen above ground.

 

Fallen trees become logs that children can climb and investigate.

 

How many children does it take to wrap around this tree?

 

Trees on the ground are sooooo big! Who knew?!?!

     As a Head Start teacher using the Creative Curriculum and Teaching strategies assessment system, it is fall, the weather is tumultuous and the leaves are changing so we are naturally immersed in the Trees study. For those of you not familiar, The Creative Curriculum comes with 5 studies with books, lesson guide, activities and more. Each day is plotted out for you.
     To be honest, the way it's laid out, there isn't enough time spent on certain aspects of the studies, there isn't enough repetition, it doesn't get deep enough to feel the way I understand a study can be. In our classroom, we stretch out each week to about 2 and go in directions that feel important or that the children are particularly excited about. I think if you use the planning guide as-is, you are not giving your children many opportunity to create their own understanding. An essential part of internalizing concepts.
     I will post pictures and some activities the children have been enjoying, as soon as I can but I wanted to check in to keep connected. We are in the middle of parent conferences after fall the GOLD checkpoints and very busy- AS ALWAYS!

Here it is on a Thursday night at 10:30pm and I am writing my first post.

I am so eager to share the goings on in my HeadStart PreK classroom full of energetic 3,4 and 5 year olds.  As a somewhat new teacher, I am planning to document my transformation from a newbie to a more seasoned, confident educator. A great motivator for me to get this blog started is to connect with other teachers and parents alike!

I have been teaching for about a year and a half now and really starting to understand how PreK and Head Start works. I would like to share activities we are engaged in, questions we are trying to answer, challenges we are facing and other real life situations working with young children and a large system that is Head Start.  Hopefully this blog will contribute to the teaching life in some way of all those who visit.