The Newbies

I spent the last week getting my classroom ready for 16 new kindergarteners. I cleaned and scrubbed, scraped old glue off the tables, filled cups with crayons, sharpened pencils and made everything look shiny, pretty and inviting. I was motivated but it didn't help that it was 90 degrees and our comfortable old building has no air conditioning, but I kept at it.

Last week was also kindergarten screening week. That is an adventure, and I mean that in a good way.

I love meeting the new kids. They seem so small and well, babyish compared to the ones I sent on their way back in June. They seem like a nice little bunch. No separation issues at least so far, and they are so darn cute and say the funniest things.

One little girl put out her hand for me to shake and said, "Wow, you're beautiful." (Think she's getting an "A"??). Another little boy told one of my co-workers, "you remind me of my fish." (I'm beautiful, she's a fish...she's never living that down.) One told me he has 4 girlfriends at preschool and he plans on collecting a few more, another, when asked "what do you do when you walk into a dark room" replied, "I don't know, you tell me." (T-R-O-U-B-L-E).

I also had the chance to go up to first grade to observe a Responsive Classroom lesson. Responsive Classroom is a philosophy we subscribe to at our school. It's based on the theory that the social curriculum is as important as the academic one. One of the first grade teachers is a guru on the subject so it was fun to watch her give the lesson, but mostly it was fun to visit with some of last year's little guys. They are all so familiar to me, and it made me miss them. I wondered as I watched them, if I am possibly going to be able to love this new bunch as much as I love these guys. 

I also realized that we kindergarten teachers do all the hard work so the first grade teachers can reap the benefits of a well-behaved, able to sit-still-in-a-circle, line-up and walk-quietly through-the-hallway-kid!

So Monday is officially THE day, and I'm about to get really busy and really tired, so my blogging time is going to go way down hill. Not a lot of time to write and not a lot of time to read all those blogs I've gotten so attached to over the summer.  I am determined to post about my kindergarten adventures this year, after all I wouldn't want to disappoint all 4 of my loyal readers.

On another note...

Today is my birthday. My family is taking me out to dinner. I told my kids all I wanted for my birthday was for them to get along all day and not fight. We'll see how that goes. 

I got a birthday card from my best friend the other day. She sent a lovely card and put a little note in in about how we need to get together. It's really sad that we don't, but I guess life gets in the way. At the bottom of the card she wrote, "can you believe we are middle-aged?" 

Ouch.