Applesauce & PDAs

We were talking about the letter "A" this week so on Friday I decided we should make applesauce. I played pretty well but didn't get to school early enough to cut up as many of the apples that I would have liked to have done before the kids got there. However, I had the ingredients (apples, water, sugar, cinnamon&sugar) ready to go and actually have just the right amount. My goal was to have most of them cut up and in the crockpot at the start of school so that I could just cut up one or two in front of the kids and let it start cooking. Instead, I had about 3/4ths of them done and spent an hour getting the kids to work on "A" worksheet pages while I waved the knife around and tried not to cut up my thumb and start bleeding everywhere. I had already grazed the skin once and put a bandaid on one thumb which was noticed very quickly. When asked whether or not I had cut myself I replied that I was using the bandaid to protect my thumb from getting cut which wasn't exactly a lie but didn't exactly answer his question either. It made our room smell absolutely delicious and tasted just the same! The kids really enjoyed it, and I think it's definitely a keeper idea for next year.

Fridays can always be a little crazy at school and this one was no exception. It seems to me like Power Store Fridays are even crazier than most. The Power Store is this cabinet with pencils, school supplies, and small toys that the kids can buy with their "SOAR" tickets that they have been earning the last few weeks for being respectful and responsible. Most kids get between 8 and 15 in two weeks. Then, they go and spend their tickets on junk, but they LOVE it. Anyway, since my kids are in Kindergarten they aren't quite ready to count and pick out their prizes by themselves. This requires me to go through and count their tickets and then tell them which 5, 10, or 15 ticket prizes they can buy. Each class only has 10 minutes at the "store" so we don't have time for 18 kids to stand up there and have their tickets counted and then look at everything and pick something out. There is a poster with all the choices on it that goes around and I make them choose their prize and put it on a sticky note on their plastic bag of tickets. Then, when we go to the store, the teachers helping grab the bag, take the tickets, and hand out the prize. This also prevents us from standing in the hall for 10 minutes which for me is pretty much my worst nightmare. Do you know how hard it is for Kindergarteners to stand calmly and quietly in hallway without small toys in their hands!??!? Impossible. That's how hard. So to make this long story a little shorter, I have to make sure that the kids are really independently busy while I count the tickets and help them choose the prize. I did an impromptu art project last time which worked well, but this time with a planned apple tree making project I wasn't quite as successful. When the kids left for PE at 2:30, the room was trashed, the project was not done, and I felt more than a little bit out of control and we had 5 minutes after they got back to pack up and get ready to be dismissed. Ah. We made it okay though and I will continue to look for a good project to make Fridays a little more successful in the future.

After school, I hadn't planned to stay very long because it was Friday and I had actually done quite a lot for the next week and felt like I knew I could come back on Sunday and get everything perfectly ready to go. Then, at 3:30 they asked us to go the library because the technology man was there. Not only was he there, but he had brought our brand new PDAs! What originally was just a 10 second thing to put the software on our computers became a two hour thing where we played on our PDAs and tried to figure out all the cool things that they do. I'm pretty sure I haven't really explained this to many people, but the entire teaching staff is getting a PDA to do assessments and primarily DIBELS. DIBELS stands for Dynamic Indicators of Early Literacy Skills and is an assessment used on students to figure out how much reading intervention and help they need. The Title I teacher has already "DIBELED" all my students so their results are already compiled and ready to go in my little handheld device. : ) It is very cool and fun to play with but at 5 we decided that we better go home because we really could play with it just as easily at home. I was surprised and pleased though with how well my students did on the assessment. Most are in "green" which is okay and only 1 is in red which is that she doesn't know much of anything. Definitely an indicator of who I need to be paying close attention to. There is going to be a lot to learn with it and a lot of changes as it the district figures out how we can use them most effectively but I think I'm going to like it.

I'm going to go backwards here but on Thursday we had staff social event where as many people who wanted to met at TGI Fridays for dinner and getting together outside of school. I went and had a fun time even when the principal came and sat right next to me. : ) I was a little surprised he came but everyone was glad he did and it was fun to get a chance to see everyone a little bit more relaxed and out of "school mode."

I know I haven't talked about the other staff and principal much but besides the Kindergarten teachers I haven't really had much interaction with either. On Friday though I did actually have an actual conversation with the principal about how school was going, my class, and other general things. I already knew this but he is very nice and easy to talk to as well as extra supportive of his teachers and staff. He is very involved with helping teachers with problem students, parents, and just everything that comes along with being a teacher. He is very hands on with students and about being open with teachers so that he can help in any way that he needs to. However, he leaves the instruction to the teachers and trusts us to do what is best and involve him when we feel the need. Having only heard stories of other principals, I feel very fortunate that my first experience is proving to be a very positive one.

Well, I think I've written enough for one week and with no ILLINI game to watch, I'm off to do some Saturday projects. An oil change, the bank, a haircut, and bedroom room organizing! Looks to be one dandy of a day. : D