Reflections on a school year

It's been awhile since I've blogged.
I've had a glorious ten days of summer break so far, which began with my niece's wedding and lots of time with extended family I hadn't seen in far too long. Yes, summer!

I have been dreaming - or 'nightmaring' - about school each night. What is that about? 
Here are snippets -

One,
I can't find my way to my classroom, I'm trapped in the hallway several rooms away...I know the children are inside the classroom waiting for me, I can hear their voices, playing loudly, and plaintive cries of "Where's Ms. Ingram? Where's Ms. Ingram?," yet I am trapped in the hallway by one thing after another ... a parent with an urgent need, an administrator with an urgent demand, a child from another class who urgently requires....

Another,
It's the new year and school has begun and my children are arriving but none of my boxes have made it to the classroom, none of my tables or chairs or anything whatsover ... all is lost...the children are streaming in the door and my new Teaching Resident is looking at me - what are we to do?

Still another,
I am on vacation and I am at a restaurant and I see that I am surrounded by the families of this year's students and next year's students and they are eating breakfast, before school, because it is the first day of school and I am confused - but I didn't have a summer break? What do you mean it is the first day of school? I am on vacation. I can't get there in time!

What are these tense night-time dramas about? 
Why am I so preoccupied with preschool during summer? 

I'm a little surprised that I am having these anxious thoughts some ten days into summer, though they are a testament that I have finished a long, challenging school year and have not yet decompressed.

We worked a long, full week after the children's school year ended, packing our rooms for the big move this summer, labeling all our furniture and equipment for the new space. Everything is so organized! I really enjoyed the process - it was cleansing and comforting to have everything stored "just so" in boxes, to throw out the useless and unnecessary, to begin to imagine the new building and my new classroom.

I had many reflections as I packed.

I had a very nice last week of school with the preschoolers...still a few tantrums, of course - preschoolers with raw feelings on display - but, overall, a profound sense of community, children lingering at whole group gatherings, wanting to share and participate, not wanting to leave one another...I count this as success!

I smile when I think about them on "splash day," one of the last days of school, when everyone was just delighted to be playing in the water in our [miserable!] side alley location.

Pay no mind to the dumpsters at one end of the alley and the corresponding stench,
pay no mind to the throngs of preschoolers [four early childhood classes of children were crammed onto the alley at the same time],
pay no mind to our most basic, limited accoutrements - one single hose providing water, no sprinklers, a hard, rough, asphalt surface,
when there is water, children are happy!

They were thrilled to have teachers spray the hose on and around them,
happily labored over our school's large blue blocks,
soaping, lathering, scrubbing these
(helping us get the blue blocks ready for the move),
they delighted in lounging on beach towels at the far end of the alley, dry in the sun.


Some, over and over, squeezing soap from sponges,
another stepping into the bucket each time I refilled - loving the sensation of the soapy water,
several, dumping buckets out and following the stream, where will it go?
many, tossing soapy sponges back and forth,
still others, scrubbing not just the blocks,
but the walls of the building, the alley floor, and, of course, themselves,
happy, happy, happy.


Everyone was happy.
Everyone was allowed to do their own thing.

(I smile at the image of one student who did not want to get wet at all; he stayed to the side, dressed in his regular clothes, a companion to his teacher, completely calm and happy, helping her fill soapy buckets of water with the hose - and being careful to stay dry.)

A full morning of revelry with water and I don't remember a single altercation, a single frown, a single tear.
Everyone was happy.

Ideally, preschool is filled with these type experiences for children...sensory satisfying, and open-ended yet purposeful, allowing everyone the flexibility to do their own thing comfortably together.

SOLSC #9 Coincidence or calculated?

I am posting every day during March as part of the annual "Slice of Life" Challenge for Two Writing Teachers.  Check out their website for lots more reflections on teaching.

*******

Several Big Cats were playing in the sand at the sensory table and talking about "house" -

I am the big sister and you can be the Mommy
Here's the Daddy.
There are two babies with the Mommy.
I live next door to you. I have my own house.

I interjected with a playful question,
How old do you need to be to live in your own house?

Their answers were immediate, one right after another -

"5" said Eloise,
"9" said Lavinia,
"11" said Seymour,
"20-teen" said Jasmine,
"100" said Shaan.

I found myself smiling as I jotted down their responses, thinking it would be a cute note to share with families.

You can see that preschoolers are just beginning to developing number sense; they do not  have a true understanding of time - how long a day or month or year is...what an age might be? [I am flattered on my own birthday when preschoolers will guess my age as in the 20s.]

But as I jotted down their responses, I noticed that this little group of friends had steadily increased their numbers, each guessing higher than the one before.  I find that fascinating.

Coincidence? Or calculated?
How did they happen to do that?

**************

(A daily share by a preschooler, in their own words)

A Story Collage by Alyja

These are the spots where I live. The three little dots are to have fun. Look – there’s Mommy, Alyja, baby, Daddy. Here’s a spider, walking up the fence. The spider hides right here. That’s for the wild cats to scratch. They say, “Meow! Give me food! Give me food!” The wild cats came to the baby’s ancestors. They didn’t do anything, they’s just wild and they scratch people. They like to eat spiders and spiders like to eat flies. Mommy’s living in a house and I am living in the house next door and Daddy’s holding the baby. Today it is snowing and there’s icicles on top of the roof. The wild cats are going to run away. The spiders are disappeared. The End.

Culling my way down memory lane

One of the beautiful things about summer is having time to sift through things and get rid of the unnecessary, the outgrown, the irrelevant.

Well, my most recent foray has been our piles of papers in the back room.  How did we accumulate so many?  This is borderline hoarding.  Time for action.

Lo and behold, I come across this "growth chart" for my then preschooler Keith (now 23 years old!):

Not entirely sure why I kept this, because, from the looks of it, I didn't use it very long!  He has stickers only through the third column.  Did each column represent days? Weeks?

I read through the goals of the chart and I am transported down memory lane....

Handles his anger successfully, Respects/loves Wade (his infant brother at this time) -

Keith is 2 1/2 years older than his brother, Wade...I remember how surprised I was at the effect of Wade on Keith...much happiness, much joy, yes; but, unexpected meanness, too, a jealousy, coming from out of nowhere, seemingly. It was no longer little Keith alone with Mommy. There was a daily sharing of Mommy.  

I saw real frustration in the little guy when he was three and four years of age.

I remember had so many questions, so many concerns! He was my first, my entryway into how to raise a child.  I wanted to parent him differently than I had been. My own childhood was in a home of "eggshell walking" - with a mother who had severe mental health issues, we treaded carefully and quietly around the house, not disturbing, not upsetting, not rattling her.  I didn't want a child who swallowed his emotions, like me.  I knew how essential it was to raise my child differently, more healthfully. But how to teach him?

We both had so much to learn about how to express anger and frustration.

I am aware of the enormous role my sons' preschool and Pre-K teachers had in the life of my young family.  I am so thankful for these wonderful women, who helped me understand my three boys as individuals.  They modeled ways to talk to, play with, and discipline my children, provided books, articles, and websites as resources, helped me find answers to my questions.  Their guidance helped me to be a better parent.  

Dresses without argument

Keith's preschool years were my first introduction to "sensory issues" - again, thank you preschool teachers!

How we struggled over what he would wear.   He would get so angry! Oh my.
"That feels swishy, Mommy."
The seams in his socks, if not "just so" on his feet, would drive him wild.

I remember his wonderful Pre-K teacher, Mary Landsman, explained how sometimes the tightness or texture of clothing is like a fingernail on a chalkboard to a young child - like so much loud noise in their ears - rendering them incapable of thinking about anything else, stuck and angry.  She helped me to see how important it was to not hold my child to some aberrant, adult-driven rule,
"Wear these or else" or
"You can't wear those because you wore them yesterday,"
but to have him help to choose the clothing, to let go of fashion, to allow him to wear the same thing day in or day out.  That year, he wore the same pair of green sweatpants to school everyday.  (Thank goodness for laundry machines and the freedom to use them overnight.)

Gives Mom and Dad privacy, Stays quiet in bed, Eats without argument,

I am aware of how important it is for parents of young children to see and understand how they are creating the rituals and traditions,
the expectations,
the norms,
for how children should interact with one another and with adults.  Parents of young children are shaping a family.  It doesn't happen in an instant, but many, many opportunities over time.

In these early years, we took awkward first steps at setting family expectations for staying in one's bed, eating as a family (and appreciating the chef!), and giving one another space.  It wasn't automatic. I remember tearful dinners and exhausting good night routines.  But we were making steady progress.  Over time, we created family traditions, our family "way."

These imperfect days led to a home where
we don't yell at one another,
we get frustrated and take a deep breath and figure out how to talk about it,
we are allowed to question things and to do things differently from one another,
we enjoy our family meals and evenings together, and
our time apart.

It helps to have a supportive, loving partner in this parenting, as I have had (thank you, Tony!).  And fantastic preschool teachers along the way - thank you Irene, Mary, Cindy, Janise, and Mindy!

Yes,
I'm not entirely sure why I kept this chart.

With hindsight, the list of "goals" seems like a lot at once for a young child; if I had a do-over, I'd isolate one of the goals and work on that only.  (Often success in one area has positive effects elsewhere.)

Truly, I'm not sure where I stand on behavior charts like these for preschoolers.  I definitely don't like them in a classroom as a public display, where children might be pitted against one another, leading to a sense of isolation and defeat for those who do not achieve.

However, perhaps they are useful for a parent or teacher to have with a child, one on one?  I wonder if some young children might benefit from having a visual aid that isolates specific small issues/goals to work on?  Charts allow you to voice the issue in a non-emotional way - helping the child to work towards specific goals.  

Certainly, charts like this are great for reflection, twenty years later....
It has served its purpose.  Time to throw it out! ;-)

#27 Time for Gak

I made gak with the children.
Imagine, late in March, and I am just now introducing my preschoolers to the sheer joy and purposelessness of creating this "silly putty-like" stuff!
Where has the school year gone?

I had a willing group of about eight "mixers," my sensory-seekers,
those who like to touch, stretch, mush, wallow in anything I put out.
We "cooked" up the batch, me wondering aloud if this was edible cooking,
since I was using glue and Borax,
and them exclaiming, as I had hoped,
"Ms. Ingram! NO! NO! NO! You don't eat glue!"
 Just wanted to be sure, since it seemed like we were cooking,
with a mixing bowl, a wooden spoon, measuring cups...
wanted to be sure we were on the same page.

Ahhh, the delight when you mix the dissolved Borax in with the glue...
the substance changes, as you turn the wooden spoon,
into gloop, into stretchiness, into surprise!
And I was no longer working with a group of eight but the full class of twenty-two,
needing to see, needing to touch, needing to play.

Here's what I heard:

“It’s gloppy!”  

“Stringy!” 

“Vervining” (said one precocious four year old), “which means it’s getting stretchy and puffy and now it’s expanding.”

“It’s sticky!” 

“Yucky.”  

“That’s gooey, it feels gooey.”

“It feels squishy.” 

“Gooey!” 

A few first-graders came into read to us and that just wasn't going to happen, and, so,
for five minutes or so, the first-graders joined in on the fun...
I promised to share the recipe with their teacher (for a lighter time in their schedule).

Another batch or two today...to keep up with the demand...

****

GAK

1st Bowl:

2 cups glue

1 ½ cups tap water

Food coloring

2^nd Bowl:

Dissolve 2 teaspoons Borax

Into 1 cup hot water

Mix two bowls together (pour 2^nd bowl into 1^st bowl). 

Drain off excess water. 

Let stand for a few minutes after mixing.

Knead gak until its pliable.

Bounce it! Stretch it! Roll it!

To save it, put it in a Ziploc bag in the refrigerator, so it won’t dry out.