I am thankful for....

my students who inspire and provide me with a perspective other than mine.  They remind me of the simplier things in life while I strive for things that will encourage them to be creative and explore in the classroom.  Thank you for sharing your life with me.

*I think this is a blog I shall share with them on Monday as I reflect on my day off.  I always think of them even when I am sick and can't taste the delicious meal my hubby and I made.

Not to mention the family, friends, B, and strangers who have shared the generosity with through endless support and donorschoose.

I am blessed to have such wonderful and amazing people in my life.

Farting

This started not too long ago but my students sometimes farts in class.  There's always one child who starts the "ewwwww! that stinks!" or "nasty!"  So the other day when it happened again, I used it as a teaching moment.  Sometimes it's just better to gets it out of the way incase a principal, master educator or anybody in your classroom in observing me teach, there my classroom management would go down the drain.  So I started the conversation with how many of you go to the bathroom to pee.  Everyone raised their hand in cluding myself.  Then I asked how many of you poop.  They started with the ewww but when I raised my hand again and then the rest of the children raised their hand.  Then I said how many of your burp, and everyone raised their hand.  Then I said how many of you fart and only some of them raised their hands including myself.  I said yup, we all pee, poop, burp and fart.  Sometimes when we burp, we can't control it so we say excuse me and sometimes when we fart, again we can't control it but we still need to say excuse me.  I'm sure whoever farted in class didn't mean to because sometimes our bodies does things that we can't always control.  So I asked my class what happens when we fart, they said just say excuse me.  No later than two days, I ripped one during morning meeting and I said excuse me.  Some of my students were shocked as I was but I explained to them, sometimes we just can't control it but we have to say excuse me.  After a couple of these discussions, my students no longer say eewwwww.  I think sometimes you have to use yourself as an example before they get it but I really wanted to laugh after I farted in class. ;-)

Report Cards

Thanks to this new assessment for the early childhood classrooms, the report cards are a cinch.  I do the documentation on the students all quarter long, then input them into the teaching strategies online program, grade the students and finalize their developments and then Walla! a computer generated report card with room for teacher comments.  Thank the many deities for technology!  I don't know what I'd do without it.