Catching Up

     It has been a while since I have had a chance to do any blogging, this school year has been sheer insanity. My current group of kiddos has been the most challenging class I have had in 20 years. My teacher friends will note my choice of the word 'challenging' i.e. similar to wild animals! It's like describing a child in a conference as "energetic, determined or spirited." This translates into "hyper, ornery, or bratty."

 This is our crew on any given day

     Before I continue, I must admit that I am blessed to have the most awesome coworker on the planet. Brittney is the Yin to my Yang, the Bert to my Ernie...... the Lucy to my Ethel.

     She is literally the right half of my brain. I could not function without her. She helps me not only with the day to day operations of the classroom but with my constant episodes of forgetfulness such as, "Where did I leave those sharp scissors?" We have one of those relationships where there is no need to ask........ she will just observe me walking around in circles looking up and down and know exactly what my 43 year old senile brain is wondering. We have even adopted the same tone and phrases with the kids and often blurt out things in unison.  

Me and my Right Hand Gal

     Despite the fact that I am the same age as her mom, Brittney and I are more than coworkers, we are best friends. Our days are filled with laughter even when we have to hold each other back from wringing some little necks. NOTE: I make this comment in humor, I would never lay a hand on any child.  Without Brittney, I most definitely would not have survived this year.

     

      So..... back to this year's crew. Due to the domino effect that occurs when the 5 year olds leave preschool we acquired a whole new class at once. Those of you familiar with Montessori Philosophy know that a class is most often comprised of children ranging in age of a few years. The children in our class are usually as young as 18 months and as old as 2 1/2. This is to encourage children to learn from their peers. They come in at the bottom of the proverbial totem pole and work up to becoming leaders. It is amazing to witness this growth and maturation. Some relish in the leadership role more than others. There is always at least one 'Go-To' Child, usually a girl, that you can count on to come to your aid when needed. "Lauren, can you get that box of tissues for me, please? Would you take this to the trash can for me? Could you please go get Robby out from under the table?" It often gets to the point where you have to reign in the go-to-child some when the power goes to their head, "Lauren, you may not wipe Connor's bottom after he uses the potty!"

Sometimes it's easier to learn from someone closer to your size

     This particular group of kiddos has been difficult to get into a routine. In the fall I had visions of all of the amazing lessons we would work on and all of the creative projects we would make. In reality, most of our time has just been getting them to sit in a chair without falling out..... I am not kidding! Their inability to have already mastered the art of chair sitting is from the apparatus that the children use in the classroom that they move up from. A little torture device I call "Table Jail." This seating choice goes against every fiber of my being. It's sole purpose is to confine the children to make the job of the caregiver easier. 

     I am not sure who is tortured more by this device.... the children or the poor soul who has to break their back trying to lift and wrestle them into it. Children can not learn to independently sit if they are trapped in a seat surrounded by formica. They need to be encouraged, i.e. trained, to sit in a chair because it is time to eat, or do a puzzle etc. not because they are shoved into it. The children I am referring to are mobile walkers, not infants that can not sit independently. 

     I must point out that my current preschool is a church preschool-not a Montessori school. Although my training and opinions are valued by some, it is not the norm of the program. My experience and training has taught me that if you create an environment that is inviting and encourages exploration children will be excited to learn and engaged independently in activities. Our classroom has shelves with 'work' for the children to independently choose to work with. The activities are either to be used at a table or on a rug on the floor. Everything is organized, legos are in one basket, blocks in another. Table work consists of work such as sorting, spooning, or play doh. Everything needed for the child to use for each activity is contained neatly on a tray. 

     The feeder classroom as I call it, has (in addition to an 8 seater Table Jail) a trunk of toys that are dumped out on the floor for the children to play with. The children mainly just toss the toys around, run over each other with cars and climb inside the toy chest itself.  They are encouraged by one of the caregivers to put things on their heads and bang on items like a drum. This particular caregiver entertains the children by singing, nothing wrong with that, except she does it ALL DAY, REALLY LOUD all while banging on things that are not drums.  These kids have come to expect a freaking musical revue everyday. After the move up I turned on a cd for some background music and the kids looked at me waiting for me to bust out in song and dance. Liza Minelli, I am not. 

     All of my above complaining is my attempted explanation for why I have neglected my blog, (in addition being therapeutic.) We did manage to get some cute projects done, which I did take pictures of so I will get around to posting Thanksgiving Crafts hopefully by Easter. There is a glimmer of hope for our class for 2014. We only moved up 2 students in December. This will give the current older Einsteins time to evolve into the leaders of tomorrow and become positive examples for the new kiddos coming in.

  

Are You Ready For Some Football? You bet your sweet a$$ I am.

I know it's one of the more common cliques about my home state, but it's true…..at least to me. Football is a religion in Texas. Pee-wee, High School, College, Professional,even Powder Puff (which yes,I did play) all levels are equally exciting in my book. I have watched football as long as I can remember. My ALL TIME favorite television show is Friday Night Lights. This is a huge kudos to FNL, I watch alot of TV. If you have ever lived in Texas, you know how spot on this depiction is of the football lifestyle here. 

Oh Dylan Panthers how I miss you... mainly you, Tim Riggins!

My dad played high-school football and continued living out his youthful dreams of being an athlete in an adult league. His imaginary career was ended when he broke his femur landing him in the same hospital where my mom was in labor with my younger brother. (I don't think it was a requirement for dads to even be on the premises when their wives were delivering their offspring in those days.) 

I know you just pushed out my heir after 87 hours of labor, but could you waddle on down to my room with him.... and bring me a pack of smokes?

I have been a true blue fan of my home teams, both the Oilers and the Texans. I can recite all of the words to the Houston Oiler's Fight song. I have yet to be able to rap the "Houston" (Texans Anthem) by Slim Thug FEAT. Paul Wall & ZRo, but I will by the end of the season. Most fans love the action of the offensive game. Sure, there are amazing receptions, quarterbacks with the aim of an elite sniper, huge runs by gazelled legged running backs and unbelievable field goals scored by the less brawny kickers. But I love the defense. Maybe it's the sadist in me, but I love an all out, throw 'em to the ground, 'Let's see you get up after this hit' smack down. Don't get me wrong, I do NOT want any player to get injured, but I like to see some action. We will revisit this predilection in February or March when I chronicle "why I go to the rodeo." 

Luv Ya Blue!

I remember sitting on the couch with my dad on Sundays watching Oilers like Earl Cambell and Billy 'White Shoes Johnson.' Talking about how we hate The Dallas Cowboys. I remember thinking that Dan Pastorinini was so dreamy. And I don't have to remember, I still can feel, how much I hate Bud Adams.

I love it that the Texan's defensive coordinator is the son of The Oilers' beloved coach Bum Phillips. 

Hell, I love Bum Phillips sausage! 

Last season I was crushed when my favorite player, Brian Cushing, suffered a season ending torn ACL injury following a low block by NY Jets guard Matt Slauson. BC, as I call him, embodies all I love about the game. On the field he is a destructive beast, that plays by the rules, at least from what I've seen. He lays opponents out like Snookie and The Situation tanning on a beach at 'the shore.' He is fearless. Case in point, after a completely unjustified shove by Shawn Lauvao of The Cleveland Browns, a brouhaha ensued. Lauvao head butted BC, who was without a helmet, he didn't even flinch. The conversation on the sidelines when Cush returned was almost as good as the altercation itself, as he joked with the Texans' trainers “You guys are going to have to pay for this plastic surgery bill.”

This is the face of The NFL

Come here Brady, I'm gonna knock that smile off your pretty little face!

Despite playing the game with barbaric ferocity, Cushing has been the Team Captain of the Texans for three years. His energy is contagious to his teammates on the field and the ones with their butts sidelined on my couch. Perhaps the most endearing attribute is seeing BC's interaction with the fans, and more importantly his newborn son. In this day and age of Baby Mommas and delinquent child support payments by athletes with 8 children by 7 different women it is heart warming to see a 6'3" 250 lb giant cradling his bambino at the park on father's day.

But perhaps the greatest testament of my love for my team is that I am awake at midnight on a Monday night watching a game that, at the moment, is not going our way. But there's still another quarter left. Yay! West coast games suck!!!

update: BC just intercepted and scored a TD, BoooooYaaaa!

Football, Fall or 'Friendly Welcome?'

      Today as I sit on my couch watching my beloved Texas Aggies whip some Owl behind, not to aliente any readers- I actually attended A&M's rival school University of Texas. You may have noticed I did not call it THE University of Texas, it's an Aggie thing. My enrollment at UT was solely based on housing and financial reasons. I have been an Aggie at heart since I could walk. It is also a bit of a conundrum for me because I taught at Rice University, home of The Owls, before my current position. So as I remain loyal and root for my Ags, I am also thinking of projects to do this week.  My current class is graduating on Tuesday and I will be getting a fresh batch of children that are 1.5  years old to just barely 2. This new undertaking it will have to be a bit more simplistic than we have been doing with our current advanced artists.

    

    I have done some football themed projects before and may have to search my tome of past projects if we go with that theme. I have a hard time justifying doing back to school and fall themed art because our school is year round so they are not technically 'back' to school and it will not feel like fall here until December probably. I may just do a "Welcome to Our New Class" theme. We shall see this week what the final decision will be. I guess to put it in football terms, it will be a game time decision. In the meantime......... 

Whoooooooop!

(If that sounds crazy to you, google A&M "Whooooop.")

Me, Myself and I

     I downloaded a new app on my computer and have been learning the ropes of it.
I made a gazillion collages of my boys so I decided to have a moment of vanity and make one of myself. Here's a peek into my life.

Barefoot at the Beach

     

 This week we made more summer themed art. I still have a looooong time to come up with summer projects since winter doesn't occur until around January down here in Texas. For those of you that don't know, we only have two temperatures, warm and hot. We named this one "Barefoot at the Beach." Another good title would be "Footprints in the Sand."

     

       We started by folding a standard sized (9x12) piece of construction paper in half. You may need to use a larger size, depending on what size your kids feet are. I used an off-white color but I am curious to see how a true white sheet would look. I still have a few kids left to do so I may try the white paper. I used a little piece of masking tape to keep the paper folded to make sure the kids didn't unfold it and turn it over to paint the back of the paper. I gave them a small container (more on that later) with blue paint in it. Next, I gave them another small container with white paint in it. I am also curious to see how blue paint only would look, I will probably try that next week as well.  

Update: 

      I tried doing the scene on plain white paper and it did not look as good as the off-white color. I also had the kids use just blue paint and it also didn't come out as well. I guess first instincts are always the best.

      

      Next, I mixed some glue, water and sand in a container. I got the sand right out of the sandbox on our playground by sifting it with a fine colander, the children even helped. I used enough water to make the mixture a little thicker than tempera paint alone, but somewhat thinner than glue. They painted

the other side of the paper with the sand mixture.

Close up of the painted on sand mixture

      

      I let the papers dry overnight. Next came the fun part, for the kids at least. I painted each one of their feet with red paint. You can use any color you prefer, I just thought red would show up nicely. The children always love getting their hands and feet painted, most of them anyway. There's always that one kid that never wants to do it. It's up to you whether or not to used a "forgery" foot. I usually do. I wouldn't want to deprive a parent from receiving one of these works of art and most of the kids in my class don't really talk yet so they can't rat me out. I did both feet, one foot at a time of course, onto the sand side of the paper with the toes facing the crease of the fold. I had the children sit in a chair and put the paper on a clipboard and pressed the foot up against it. If your children are older, you can have them step directly onto the paper placed on the floor.  

This particular girl has one toe that is always wedged above the big toe and third toe and never 

shows up. The funny thing is, she has a twin sister who's foot does exactly the same thing.

After the kids had done the footprint I did touch it up a little with a small paint brush

(especially those of the 4 toed twins) to define the toes and edges.

I always have a basin with some soapy water, a nail brush and a towel waiting nearby

 when I paint hands, or especially feet, to clean the paint off.

   

      After the footprints had dried I flipped the paper over back over to the blue (water) side. 

                      I let the kids choose some ocean themed stickers to stick on.

These foam stickers are very good for developing fine motor skills. They are individual (not all on one sheet of backing) and on the smaller side. The children have to peel the backing off a relatively small backing to stick them onto paper.

      We had these really cool tiny shells in the art closet. I put a handful of shells into THE container. Here's where we get to another one of my recycled items that is possibly as useful as glue dots. At my preschool we have children as young as six months. Apparently an easy lunch for parents to throw together is Gerber Graduates. These blue containers have proven to be very useful for many things. When one of my kids brings a gallon sized container of spaghetti for lunch, I give them a small amount of it at a time in one of these containers to prevent the majority of it from being hurled onto the floor. I also use them to transport paint, glue, beads, sequins, etc. from the art closed to the classroom rather than take the entire supply and have to remember to return it later, which in my case is much later. I have a bad habit of putting materials in my cabinet and forget about them until one of my biannually cabinet cleanings. When the kids get markers or paint on the table I give them one of these little gems with some soap (we have the foamy kind in a dispenser in the bathroom) with a nail brush to scrub it off. And, I use them for this purpose, to give the kids a small amount of materials for the project we are working on. Another useful container is the small plastic bowl that fruit cups are in.

Behold the wonder that is the Gerber Graduate Blue Bowl. If you are familiar with the size of the bowl then you can tell how tiny the shells are.

      Next we finally unfolded the paper exposing both sides. Now we had a sandy beach with 

an ocean full of sea animals. I usually prefer to have the kids paint glue on for projects, but I knew 

it was going to take a good amount of glue to keep the shells in place, so I drizzled in on. The children

 put the shells onto the glue. I did go back and put more glue over the top to secure the shells on better. 

Tiny shells glued onto the beach.

     

       After the glue holding the seashells on had dried, I used foam letter stickers to spell out, "Barefoot at the Beach" and the child's name. When I took these pictures I hadn't put the year on it yet, but I always date every project the kids take home. That allows the parents show off the masterpieces, created by their Little Picassos at the tender age of 2, to all to all of their family and friends.

      You can see where the masking tape held the paper together. I will touch that up and add the date before sending the project home. This project was fun as well as educational. We talked about oceans and the animals that live in them. We also talked about the colors of the different animal stickers. The children that can talk some, told us about their trips to the beach. One child shared with us about Shamu and his trip to Sea World. I read books about ocean animals. We also did matching work of language cards which I made from clip art of an ocean animal depicted on them and the corresponding figure(again Dollar Store plastic animals.) We sang songs about fish and other animals in the ocean.

     Noah's scene in the picture below was made before I found my other ocean stickers in my previously mentioned black hole closet. I could only find stickers of dolphins and whales in the school's art closet. I had to improvise and cut the gold fish, shovel and pail out of foam sheets. I also did this one with the paper in a landscape direction.  Like all of my projects, it's all trial and error.

      

Am I A Horrible Mom?

 

      It is finally upon us, the day we have been looking forward to for over 18 years. Next week H1 leaves for college. All the years of pushing him towards scholastic excellence, classes for SAT preparedness and studying (yeah right) are behind my husband and I. It is now solely H1's responsibility.

      While I have been busy buying supplies and dorm essentials one thought has been plaguing me. Am I really going to miss him? This is the child, now adult, that I begin every morning screaming at to get his a$$ out of bed. (Oh, I start out nice and gentle, the first 96 times I go into his room. When it is 8 minutes before the tardy bell rings, and he is still nestled in his bed, I have become Cruella De Ville.) This is the child that I stay up nights worrying about until I hear the garage door open when he has gone out with his friends. This is the child that I have driven to countless little league games and practices and sat in the sweltering Texas sun watching him play. This is the child that triples the amount of laundry and dirty dishes I do. This is the child that I am constantly butting heads with. (They say it is because you are too much alike but I don't think that's the case.) This is the child that I have watched grow from baby to man.

    This is the child that would die of embarrassment if he knew I posted these pictures

     H1 has always made good (sometimes great, sometimes just decent) grades without ever opening a book. I have not seen him do a project, report, or research paper since elementary school. Somehow he has always sailed through each school year without any real effort. I have to wonder..... can this be a good thing? Is he even prepared for the rigorous curriculum of college? Will he fail or succeed? Is he going to be able to do his own laundry, folding all of his shirts Gap style the way he likes them?

Better question- will he even be able to wake up to get to class?

H1's first grade teacher told me he could retake this school picture. Why? He had just lost his first tooth and was dang proud of it!

     What worries me personally, is am I going to miss him? Being 18 with a busy social life, he is rarely home at all anymore. When he is home he is either sleeping, showering, asking me for money, asking me what I am going to make for dinner (even though I know for a fact he has just eaten while out with friends) or arguing with me over a variety of topics. Will I miss this?

     Can he be ready? My head tells me 'no' but my gut is telling me 'yes.' I have done my job to the best of my abilities. I guess it's the little voice inside my head that has questioned every decision I have made in his upbringing. When I see all of my friends having their children later than I did, I often think about all of the things I would have done differently. I guess hindsight really is 20/20. From what other adults tell me he is a great person. That's hard to believe when I see him act the way he does at home, but these are people I trust telling me.

     Maybe my greatest worry is that he is ready to survive without me. 

 I guess like every other aspect of parenting, this is one of those experiences where I will have to

 'wing it.' I am sure next Friday when we drop him off I will be overcome with some emotion. Will it be sadness or relief?

But the question on my mind most is, does he know how proud of him I am?

   

It's A Bug's Life

     Lately the kids in my classroom have been bug crazy. We decided this week we made some bugs to decorate our door. We started with toilet paper rolls, empty ones of course. I had each child paint their roll with bright colors. This helps the paint show up on the brown rolls. I cut wings for various types of bugs and the children applied glitter to them. While the wings were drying, I made faces with googley eyes and tiny pom-poms for noses. We used thin strips of construction paper make antennas. Once the wings were dry I stapled them onto the toilet paper rolls and used glue dots to mount the faces (I really love those things!) The kids also painted some flowers to hang with the bugs. They glued jewel shapes onto the flowers to really jazz them up.

     All of the kids loved making their favorite bugs.  We talked about different types of bugs during circle time. I also did an object matching lesson with plastic bugs, most of which came from the dollar stores. Just make sure you get two sets of bugs that are the same. Matching exercises are a perfect activity for young children, you would be amazed at how well they can find the corresponding bugs.