If You Like It, You Better...

I often seen one of my little ones on the subway in the morning. She's in kindergarten and has speech disabilities. She's a little hard to understand and also talks super loudly.

The other day, she spotted me a few seats over. Though squished between her 8-yr-old brother and very pregnant mom, she yelled my name and tried to climb out to meet me. I didn't think that was good for our fellow passengers, so I got up and went to her.

We shook hands, and that's when she noticed my ring. Oh boy, this was exciting. She grabbed my hand, yelled at her mom, "Ring!! He got a ring!!!" and started doing the Single Ladies dance. No jokes.

Visual

As you might expect, there are a lot of pictures in kindergarten and first grade. Especially when the kids can't read yet. So I spend a fair amount of my time drawing things that are, somehow, supposed to express a ton of meaning.

For a "Writing Partner" lesson, I needed to show, "Partners listen to each other and provide feedback. Partners share their writing clearly. They sit side by side. They take turns."

Sometimes, the meaning gets skewed. Like here:

If I didn't know better, I'd think this lesson was on how to stare adoringly at a friend, perhaps alienating yourself, even though she should be the one who's alienated because of her hairstyle.

When I grow up, I wanna be...

Every class gets to pick a "star of the week." The star gets to do all sorts of things: wear a special ribbon, hand out papers, steal numbers off the hundreds chart. My favorite thing is the Star of the Week Interview.

It is written down and put on the wall. Hard-hitting, it covers questions like, "What's your favorite color?" and "Why are you special?"

It also asks, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" Predictably, the girls' answers usually include doctor, teacher, and police officer (although that came out of nowhere from a mini, smiley kindergartener).

This week's top answer: fire truck.

When pressed, she answered that, no, she didn't want to be a firefighter. She wanted to be the truck, spraying water and everything.

Peacocks

Let's face it: things got busy. Opening a charter school takes brain energy, and why post if there's nothing to note?

But today, there was something to note.

When reading a label book (you know, "tiger" is written right by a picture of a tiger), one of my grumpiest kindergarteners found a peacock. At the top of her little lungs, she shouted, "Cockbush!" It was followed up with "Lion!"

She had no idea....