It Might Be a Roller Coaster...Or it Might Be a Train Wreck

Well, remember when I talked about the "Little People Adjustment Rollercoaster"?  Well, this  is how the roller coaster looked today.  More, in fact, like a train wreck. 

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Actually, the first part of the day wasn't too bad (except for the fact that they would not stop talking to me for a second ("Teacher, teacher, teacher...").  But then just after Outside Time it took a quick dive downhill.  Of course, "After Outside Time" is the time when they're required to actually sit on the carpet and listen and - most of all - stop talking.  ("Teacher, teacher, teacher...") 

It was in fact a steep and sudden downward turn, and the Little People just loved it.  They threw their little hands in the air and screamed in delight as the Roller Coaster cars plummeted downward.  Their hair stuck straight up from their heads and their eyes rolled back in an ecstatic frenzy as it went faster and faster and grew more out of control.  The foamed at the mouth as they realized the strength and potential of their Little People Mutiny.  They held hands with their little Roller Coast Car Neighbors, cajoling even the calmer and more on-track students down into the abyss with them.  And all the way down they chanted in their high-pitched voices: 

("Teacher, teacher, teacher...") 

Oh, it was chaos.  And a very good reminder of why I don't like roller coasters.

The good news is that no one was harmed in the Roller Coaster Plummet.  Even the child who sat and on the carpet and angrily threw wood chips at me was not harmed. 

They all went on their merry way after school, wiping the foam and drool from their cheeks as they went.  And hopefully tomorrow will be better.

Enough Said Here

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Picture Day

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I had to go back through the blog posts from last year to see if I wrote anything about Picture Day.  And I did not, except to describe how one Little Person was going to pose like a boxer for his picture.   In hindsight, it is quite amazing to me that Picture Day escaped with so little comment, because the truth is that Picture Day is crazy.  I mean almost out-of-control chaos.  It's a wonder that any preschoolers anywhere survive it. Or Preschool Teachers, for that matter.

To give you a better understanding of this traumatic event, let me just tell you all of the elements that must go together to make Picture Day.  First, you have the Picture Day setting:  Lunchtime.   Not only is lunchtime a noisy and distraction-filled time on any given day,  the combination of a noisy room, any kind of food and 21 dressed up, curled up and/or slicked down Little People is generally not a good one. 

Then you mix in the fact that everyone in the school is getting their picture taken, so despite your best wishes, the Little People must actually start eating their lunches before it is their turn.  (See point above.) We can only be thankful that there was no chili or ketchup on the menu that day.

Then you add in the fact that  the actual pictures are taken on the stage of the cafeteria.    The stage with a four-foot drop off that naturally serves as a magnet for any three or four year old.  Plus a live microphone, which my aide wrenched out of Little Johnny's hand just in time before he gave his own personal broadcast to all of the upper elementary grades.

In addition to the elements already mentioned, you also have  one grouchy Picture man in a very deceptively happy-looking Hawaiian shirt.  I'm not sure if he just didn't like preschoolers or was just feeling resentful to allchildren needing their pictures taken.  (Which would be sadly ironic, since that was obviously his job.)    Either way, he wasn't very friendly, nor was he the least bit accommodating to our Little People.   In fact, even though he had his own photography station that he had been using before we got up there, he didn't even take pictures while my kids were up on the stage.  This left them to wait through just two photographers.  Then he came to me and said I would need to line all my remaining kids up behind just one of the photographers so the bigger kids could come to the other two cameras.  I furrowed my brow at him and asked as sweetly as I could, "Or perhaps could they just stay with the two photographers they're at now so they can get done quicker -- because they're  four."  He said huffily, "I know they're four," but he didn't make me move them.  And obviously he didn't really know that  which he said he knew, because anyone who really knows that knows that you don't try to line up a class of preschoolers on a stage with a four foot drop just feet away from them.   In fact, the words "line up" and "wait" don't even go together in Four Year Old world.  I definitely don't think he knew that.

Finally, the final part of this is that fact that the three teachers also have to get their pictures taken.  We just took turns after we finally got everyone back to their seat (where they were too distracted to eat any more and were largely just either yelling as loudly as they could or were flinging their lunch boxes around wildly at their neighbors).  I tried to wipe the sheen of sweat and Picture Day stress off of my face before they took my picture, but I'm not sure it worked.

I think I just looked Harried.  Which I suppose captured the entire experience perfectly.

Not a Good Day

Written Friday Morning: 

Yesterday was probably not a good day for the Little People.   Nor was it a good day for their teacher.  Actually, I should say that first it was not a good day for the teacher, and as a result it probably wasn't a good day for the Little People, either.  In fact, I definitely don't think yesterday will be voted "Best Day of the Year" - by anyone.

It all started at 3:00 AM the night before when I woke up to find a sick son in our room, saying that he felt horrible, and his head really, really hurt.  He and I spent the next hour applying a wet rag to his head and dozing on and off in his room (he in the bed, I on the floor).  Finally he threw up about four, and we both were able to go back to bed. 

The resulting tiredness paired with a few other day-to-day issues at home brought me to work feeling grumpy and weary - and oppressed.  Right before I got to school I got a text from the morning teacher saying that we had been instructed to stop using sidewalk chalk because - well, someone wasn't happy about it.   Then we had another day in our continuing "lunch table" saga between our class and another "fringe group" at school (whom I will not name, but I will just say it's not a regular classroom).  In short, the person in charge of this group has been unhappy about the current seating arrangement in the cafeteria and has been wanting our class to move to make this better.  I saw no reason to move, but was trying not to seem unwilling to cooperate, nor was I (yet) wanting to go over her or the cafeteria manager's head to get it resolved satisfactorily (meaning: resolved in the way that I thought it should be).  So when we walked in the cafeteria and saw that the leader of this group had just come to the cafeteria extra early so that she could get the table that she wanted, I was not very happy.

So, the Little People might have suffered just a little.  Well, not suffered, but I certainly wasn't my regular self.   I was grumpy.  Instead of asking Little Suzy three times to please not yell in a singing voice in the cafeteria, I moved her immediately to a different seat - without any explanation at all.  When my second-year student was spraying other people with water, I just sternly said, "Now, Little Johnny, you know better than that.  Cut it out."  I even used my meanest/on-the-edge-of-yelling voice when two little girls wouldn't let go of my id badge when I saw that someone across the cafeteria table was putting a large juice cap in her mouth that she could surely choke on, especially since - how shall I put this -  common sense does not always appear to be in this student's Top 10 list.  "Let GO", I hissed to the little girls when they would not and I needed to move quickly to stop the  potential juice cap consumer.  Yep, they kept their cautious, puzzled eyes on me for a good long time after that one.

I told students, "Nope.  You're not sitting up on the carpet, you're not getting a sticker.  No sticker for you."  I told Little Wood Chip thrower (in front of all the other kids), "If you yell 'no' at me one more time, I am going to get up and call your mother and tell her you have to go home RIGHT NOW."    

Yes, in hindsight I feel bad about all of this.  Especially about Little Sally, who we've learned is used to communicating mainly in a very bossy yelling voice.  Usually we can say, "Sally, please use a talking voice to talk about what you want instead of yelling."  But yesterday when I heard her shriek once again, I was just tired of it.  "Sally."  I said sternly.  "You are going to have to learn to not yell out whenever you want something.  It is not okay to yell like that.  Now, what's wrong?"  She looked at me with big tears in her eyes.  "Somebody stepped on my toe," she said sadly.

Oh dear.  I repent.  Someone needed to make Mrs. Locke take a break away from the group and take some long, deep breaths.

But some days are like that.  And even though the kids most likely go home and tell their parents, "This day was SO FUN," I know that it's okay.  Today is a new day.

Plus, my supervisor told me that we are not allowed to sit or otherwise "mingle" with non-preschool  children and therefore can not legally follow the seating plan that the Fringe Group person was trying to implement. 

So, today is looking better already.

Rule #12: We Keep Our Pants Pulled Up at School

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Well, today was quite the Crazy Day at Preschool.  Everyone was amped up from the weekend, I suppose, and showed this in their own unique way.  Lunchtime and playground were by far the craziest times of the day, although the rest of the day was a close third.  Lunch probably won because we had general craziness plus a throw up.  Playground came in second because we had general craziness, the parent of the sick child to call, plus two "We Keep Our Pants Pulled Up at School" episodes.

One of these was completely my fault.  It involved one of my English Learners, and while he's catching onto some things, he still has a lot of English to learn.  We were just done with playground cleanup and the conversation went like this:

Child: Drink, teacher?
Me:  Oh, you can get a drink at the water fountain over there before you line up.
Child: (beginning to edge toward the gate of the fence) Drink, teacher?
Me:  (looking away at the other kids).  You can get a drink outside.  Then after that you can get another inside.
Child: ....(silence as he starts to go outside the gate toward our room, looking concerned).
Me: (seeing him outside the gate).  No, no, no - go over there for a drink!  (I point dramatically over to the outside water fountain, thinking this will help his understanding).
Child:  Okay.  (And off he goes that direction).

The problem with this conversation is that I was thinking all the way through it the words he was saying were the words that he actually meant.  However, the truth is that the words he was saying really meant something completely different.  So, actually the conversation really went like this:

Child: Bathroom, teacher?
Me: Oh, you can go to the bathroom at the water fountain over there before you line up.
Child: (beginning to edge toward the gate of the fence) Bathroom, teacher?
Me: (looking away at the other kids). You can go to the bathroom outside. Then after that you can go to the bathroom inside.
Child: ....(silence as he starts to go outside the gate toward our room, looking concerned).
Me: (seeing him outside the gate). No, no, no - go over there for the bathroom! (I point dramatically over to the outside water fountain, thinking this will help his understanding).
Child: Okay. (And off he goes that direction - and pees in the bushes right by the kindergarten windows.)

Sigh.  Okay, we'll have to work on those important vocabulary words. 

Or, we'll have to just never assume that words mean what we think they mean.  Especially with this particular student.

An Open Letter to the Parents of the Little People

Dear Parents of the Little People,

I would hear by like to make my request known to all of you to start refraining from stopping by Starbucks on the way to school to pick up a Venti-double shot Latte for your children.  How do I know you are doing this, you ask?  Why, by the way your children were acting at school today, of course.    In fact, let me count the plethora of ways I could see this in your child's actions:

1) No one knew how to walk in line today.  They were either skipping, hopping, twirling, or generally walking backwards.  Some children wouldn't walk at all.  Others would walk a little bit, but only if they were far, far away from the  other children.

2) No one could stay in their seat in the cafeteria.  Every time I looked up someone was in a different place.  Two children were leaning out from the chairs at our table and were resting their heads on the table next to us.  One child was repeatedly banging one of the fourth graders at the next table with his lunchbox.  Several children were wearing their lunchboxes as hats.   One child, for the second day in a row, had food in his lunchbox that literally exploded whenever he opened it - there was muffin shrapnel everywhere.  (Yesterday it was yogurt residue - strawberry.)  One of the most telltale moments was looking up and seeing one child chasing another child around  the cafeteria- with a spork.

3) While the playground is usually a place where everyone can run and play, today they would not stop running.  Or screaming.  Or chasing.  Or crashing their bikes together.  Or randomly throwing the playground balls over the fence.  Or barking.

4) Centers as well were an amazing time.  The Home Center alone was a hub of Little People madness.  Plastic food representing many different cultures was thrown around at random.  Much talking was done on the play telephones - to people who were obviously extremely hard of hearing and very irritating.  At one point, three or four girls started beating a baby doll with plates and other kitchen utensils - while laughing maniacally.  "Oh, no," I said.  "We feed the babies.  We don't beat them."  To which they answered, truly puzzled, "Why not?"

5) Finally, we got through both Small Groups and Music time, and sent all the Little People on their way.  But not without consequences, as well as some general Wear and Tear on the teachers.

So tomorrow, parents, keep away from the lattes.  Skip the sugary cereal.  Cut back on the Mountain Dews.  Or, if these actions are from a full moon, please just bring them back to school - later.

Thank you,
Mrs. Locke