Empathy

I have a student, D, who I had been locking horns with since the beginning of the year.  He was defiant, seemingly unable to focus on work, would actively distract the class when I would try to teach a lesson and pester other students until they could barely tolerate being around him.

Most of that has changed - he's doing much better at managing himself, we've got a list of "Not Okay" things (like invading personal space) that we don't even have to talk about any more (I can just say, "Oh, that's on the list" and he immediately fixes it) and that's letting me appreciate him more as a student and a person rather than just an obstacle.

So, another student is sobbing at my desk (her mom was out of town and she was feeling sad).  D comes over and very soothingly rubs her back.  She starts calming down, though she's still hiccuping her way through tears.  D looks at me, nods, then looks back at her and says quite sternly, "STOP CRYING!"

At the time, it was just a classic D moment, but in the retelling, I've come to appreciate the hilarity in that event.

In which a student gazes thoughtfully...

We're working on a neighborhood unit, and the students are coming up with characters who they will use to interact with each other.  Some students are doctors, some are police officers and there's a surprising number of bakers.

Michael was having a really hard time coming with a name for his character.  After I told him that "Red Lightning" was more of a superhero name, he gazed thoughtfully out the windows for an extended period of time.  When I finally came back to him, he looked up at me and asserted, "My character's name is Tree Branch".  I looked over my shoulder out the window, and sure enough, there was a tree branch waving in the wind.

I don't think I've ever had such a "Calvin and Hobbes" / "Anchorman" moment.

(For those of you who need the pop culture reference, here's the Anchorman clip)

A crushed heart

Back for a new school year, with 20 lovely kindergarten friends!

As part of the new school year, we were doing some community building.  I cut out two large paper hearts, and on one of them, we wrote down nice things that people say or do, that make us feel good.  On the other one, we brainstormed ideas for things that make us feel sad.

Then I crumbled up the sad heart, talking about how those things can make your heart feel crushed.  "And even", I said, smoothing it out.  "Even if the other person says 'I'm sorry', does this heart look the same as the other one?"  We all agreed that it didn't.  Once it's been crushed, it will always look different.

Fast forward to the following day.  One of the other teachers in the building has a kindergartner in my class.  I see her coming down the hall, shaking her finger at me in mock-anger.

"Ooooh, Mr. Graham", she accused.  "You are in SUCH trouble?"

"Me?" I replied.

"Yes, you!  Everytime I asked Brooklyn to do anything that she didn't want to last night, like come inside and brush her teeth, I got these soulful eyes and the response, 'Mama, you're crushing my heart....'  Finally, I just had to tell her, 'That's NOT what Mr. Graham meant!!'"

I laughed all the way back down to my classroom.

One reason I love teaching kindergarten

One reason I love teaching kindergarten is seeing the change in students from the fall to the spring.  For example, here's a student's writing from September 30, 2011:

Here's the same student from May 22, 2012:

Who knew that teaching kindergarten would turn out to be such an "osum Ideya"?

"Mr. Graham, I did weed!"

One day, one of the kindergartners in my reading group ran up to me, SUPER excited about something.

"Mr. Graham!  Mr. Graham!  I did WEED!" she exclaimed, looking totally pleased with herself.

"H'okay, Katelyn..." I replied, thinking furiously.  "How did you do that?"

"Mr. Graham!" she said, holding up her reading bag.  "I took my weeding bag home!"

Ohhhhhhhhhh, riiiiight.

Ballet in kindergarten

Our class has had the privilege and pleasure of working with the Oregon Ballet Theatre over the past few weeks - they have sent us a lovely teacher, Miss Hannah, who has given six classes to each of the kindergarten and first grade classrooms.  Her lessons have been built around the story of "The Old Man and the Mountain", and the students have learned bits and pieces in each lesson.  For one of the final lessons, she had them perform it, with half the students being performers and half being the audience.  The kids had a pretty great time with it all.

Here's the links: http://youtu.be/KWcT8jCN_9c  and http://youtu.be/OeKYQLPNqF0

"The Little Engine that Cood"

Just some kindergarten writing, because I think it's really quite dear.

Click here to see

Blast from the past

I had the most "guhBUH" moment today at the end of the day, and it wasn't even with one of my current kindergartners...

One of my former students, now a 3rd grader, came to pick up his kindergarten sister.  He almost made it out the door, and then spun around.

"Oh, Mr. Graham!" he exclaimed.  "I almost forgot!  Tell your sister 'Happy Late Birthday!'  She had a birthday on the 17th!"

How did he know that my sister had a birthday a week ago....?  I haven't had this student for three years....

So I posed the question to him, and he had a totally reasonable answer:
"Well, my sister's birthday is the 16th, and my birthday is the 18th, and I remembered that you had a sister with a birthday in between."

Whoa.  I called my sister to tell her, and she clearly has a new favorite from among my former students.

He is "niec to evrbude"

We've been working on writing letters in kindergarten recently, and as the omnipresent adult, I've been receiving a fair number of them.  This one really touched me, though, and I wanted to share with you.  If it is hard to read, here's the direct link to the PDF file: link

You can't DRIVE to California, Mr. Graham!

I have a student in my class who is heading on a weeklong trip to California to visit his grandmother.  He is incredibly earnest and excited about it, and when he was explaining that "my dad said we can chew gum!", I figured that he must be flying down.

"So," I said.  "Are you flying to California?"

"YES!"  He exploded.  "In an AIRPLANE!"

"Well, you can also drive to California, you know," I told him.

"Mr. Graham..." he said.  "No, you can't!  It's too far!  The car would run out of gas!"

"You could get more gas," I reassured him.

"No!" he responded, convinced that I was teasing him.  "There's no gas stations in California!  We'd get trapped in the forest with no gas!"

So, watch out, California.  No gas stations for YOU.