I want to go home!

Let's go back to Day 2. Taji really didn't want to be at school. He was so certain that he wanted to go home that he carried around ALL of his things ALL day. (He left most of his things in his locker the next day, and just carried around his blanket for a few weeks).

Here we go again!

I haven't added any posts lately, but that doesn't mean there hasn't been much going on. Quite the contrary! Since August 4th (my last post), I have gotten married, said farewell to my old class and welcomed twelve new two-year-olds into my life. (This all happened between the 1st and 5th of September....since then I've just been recovering!)

While the first few weeks of school were very hard...I was having withdrawal from my old class(now PRESCHOOLERS!), while coping with crying new babies (and there was a lot of crying)...things have finally started to calm down. I still get to see my preschool friends, (and they still shout at me like I am a celebrity every time they see me in the hallway or outside.) I get wonderful reports of how smoothly the preschool classes adjusted to the new school year transition, (having one full year in my class before entering preschool), and once most of the crying stopped, I realized that I have a wonderful new class.

While this years' class is completely different from last years', I think it's going to be a great year:

• Last year I had a very social class, everyone vying for attention and camaraderie, this year they are much more introverted. Perhaps this is because they are younger, perhaps they just have different personalities, in either case, there are a lot less struggles and battles with others, and we have plenty of time to teach them how to make friends.
• These new children are much more in control of their bodies...we have two children who started the year who weren't potty trained (as opposed to seven last year), and one of them is already well on his way to pull-up free days. But it's not just potty training...these kids know how to blow their noses! This is a skill I worked and worked on with last year's class, to seemingly no avail.
• Last year we had a good handful of children who wouldn't interact with me for months. I am, of course, the strange person who looks different and speaks a foreign language. Although it has taken a few weeks, my new class seems interested and excited to interact with me...and at least they aren't afraid of me anymore!
• These new children have much longer attention spans than last year. They are interested in circle time, singing songs and dancing, and don't run away to find something new to spark their interest after two minutes.

For these and many more, I know this year is going to be a great new journey.

Here's to my journey as a second year two-year-old teacher in a small, non-profit, dual-language, preschool in Chicago's Chinatown (serving low-income immigrant families who speak three different dialects of Chinese).

As always, names have been changed to protect the innocence of those involved.

Little Scientists

This summer, my class has been enjoying learning about the bugs we find in our backyard. We mostly see ants and roly poly bugs, but every day is like we've never seen them before. "Look Roly Poly!"

In this photo my class and the preschool class that was also outside that afternoon collected over 30 roly poly bugs in our bug box. This little scientist couldn't stop staring in the top of the bug box all afternoon.

Abstract American Flag

For 4th of July, the children painted in Red, White, & Blue, like the American Flag. This is our result!

Body Parts!

During lunch, I was writing a note on a post-it and got some ink on my finger. Anna noticed and said, "You write on you...shoulders?" ...At least she got a body part! :)

More Feelings!

We are still excited about feelings! This week I added a poster with different faces for different emotions, and during our hello song, the children got to choose which face described them. They loved it!

One day, Betsy came up to me and said, "Ms. Rose, angry!" (making an angry face herself)



She is holding a puzzle piece from a set of puzzles where the bear has different faces, shirts, and pants, and you can mix and match the faces and outfits. She must of been working on the puzzle when she ran across the angry face.

The Sun is Hiding!

My kids were very excited about the weather this spring, so I made 3 weather cards: sunny, cloudy, and rainy. We put one up each day to tell what the weather is like outside, and they love looking out the window and being the meterologist. A few of the children get very excited to change the card in the middle of the day when the weather changes. It gets to be confusing when it is a partly cloudy day and the sun goes in and out behind the clouds. I have described to them that when we can see the sun, but it isn't yellow, it is hiding behind the clouds.

The other day (which was a mostly sunny day), John Henry (3 and 1/2) ran up to me with the sunny and cloudy cards and said, "Eh sunny is hiding hind the cowds!" Holding "sunny" behind "cloudy" as seen:I looked outside and sure enough, the sun was hiding. John Henry went around the room showing all of his friends and telling them about the sun that was hiding.

After about five minutes, the sun came back out and he ran to me again and said, "Es Sunny! Es Sunny!" pointing to the window, holding up only the sunny card.

Future Meterologist?