Shades of Blue

There's a sweet fair-skinned kindergarten boy at our school, one I check on each morning. His goal is to use self-control when he's angry. Each day, his teacher gives him a 1-10 score based on how well he controlled his emotions the previous day, and the child colors in the corresponding number of boxes on a vertical bar graph. For instance, if he did really well and earned a score of 8, he'd color 8 boxes stacked on top of each other. We call this a rainbow chart because each day's stripe is usually a different color, and the page ends up looking pretty and bright like a rainbow. Well one day last week, I mentioned to the little boy that his chart had all blue stripes, differing SHADES of blue, but all blue nonetheless. It was really kind of peaceful looking! I pointed out that my favorite was the blue-green stripe because it reminded me of the Caribbean Sea. At the time I made this comment, my friend was in the process of coloring that day's stripe. He said, "I think I like THIS blue the best." Reading the label, we discovered that he had chosen plain old blue, which was the color of faded denim. Although the boy had already begun coloring his chart, he stopped, put his crayon down, and held up the ziplock bag of crayons. Running his hands through the bag, he picked up each blue he found to see if it appeared to be blue-green. There were several shades of blue in the bag...blue violet, cerulean, and sky blue, to name a few. Poring through the bag's contents, the child was intent on finding that elusive blue-green crayon. Several times, because he couldn't read some of the labels, he made a mark on the back of the chart to check out the hue. Although I was in a hurry and had lots of children to see in a short amount of time, I sensed that it was important for me to be patient and wait. Finally, the child and I discovered that my elusive blue-green crayon actually looked black until it was used, and then the vibrant color became evident. With a relieved grin, my kindergarten friend proceeded to color over the blue he'd started with and to make that day's stripe my favorite blue-green. Since this little boy wanted to honor me by choosing the color I liked best, I know that the extra time I spent with him that morning was worthwhile, and my heart was warmed by his affection.

Move It, Move It

My kindergarten students have been learning about calming down strong feelings and doing the right thing. As part of this unit, I've taught ways to calm down that we can ALWAYS use, such as belly breaths, and strategies that we can SOMETIMES use. The latter include talking to someone about your feelings, resting, exercising, and playing to cheer yourself up. To help children memorize these ideas, we often stand up, bounce, and chant, "Talk, rest, exercise, play!" until we're good and tired. One of the most popular songs I play for kids to dance to is "I Like to Move It, Move It" from one of the Madagascar movies, and I use this song because it ties in with the strategy of EXERCISE. The children are familiar with it, and many of them beg for it when they see me coming! Well the other day, I played this song in a class for the very first time. Before turning it on, I gave my usual spiel about how this song makes children go wild sometimes. They LOSE their self-control and DON'T handle their strong feelings of silliness in the right way, so we have to follow some rules while dancing. We have to find a spot and stay there instead of running around the room, we have to keep our hands to ourselves, we have to keep our feet and only our feet on the floor (as opposed to break dancing, doing push-ups and cartwheels, etc.), and we can sing but can't talk and chit-chat. (Did I mention that sometimes kids go BANANAS during this song??!) We stood up, I turned on the music, and high-speed boogying ensued. Girls were slinging their hair, children were doing the robot, disco dancing, jumping and waving their arms in the air, doing the swim, and amusing the fire out of their teacher and me. One freckle-faced smiling girl appeared to have rubber bands in her feet as she turned them this way and that at supersonic speed. Yes, I did have to turn off the music for a momentary reminder, but we got to finish the song afterward. When it was over, a slow, peaceful melody came on my iPod. "Now here comes a RESTING song, " I said, since rest was one of our calming down ideas. Immediately, children started flopping down on the floor for a rest, as they'd indeed worked up a sweat while dancing. The little girl with the fast feet said exhaustedly, "Miss Mimi, I NEED a rest," and lay down in a ball. "I'm sure you DO," I laughed. "Your FEET had the BEAT!" She rolled her eyes at me good-naturedly and sank back down on her imaginary bed. Oh, the fun I have teaching kindergarten classes!

Treasures

For a couple of months, we've been learning about ideas for dealing with bothering and bullying.  Since a new strategy is introduced in each lesson, I've taught the children to pretend that they have a treasure chest in their minds, one that's overflowing with gold coins and jewels.  Each of the life skills I teach them is a treasure in the chest, and these treasures will be with them and useful throughout their lives.  After all, grown-ups sometimes have trouble getting along with people, too!  Throughout their years in guidance class, students have learned peacemaking ideas, ways to calm down strong feelings, problem-solving and decision-making formats, as well as skills for learning.  These are life-long treasures!  Well, to get back to the lessons on dealing with bothering and bullying, we've learned the strategies of ignoring, walking away, saying stop, saying it again, and standing up for others who are being teased.  This week, we're discussing asking for help.

When I checked my mailbox at school this afternoon, I found an envelope addressed to me in a child's handwriting.  Inside was a letter from a wise and kind-hearted first grade girl.  She described with first grade spelling how she'd encountered a boy in the hallway who stared at her and made her feel uncomfortable.  The little girl said, "I used two of my treasures, but they didn't work. I got to number three and wanted to say please stop but didn't know how.  Can you give me some advice?"  I'll check in with this child tomorrow, but my heart was so warmed when I read that she'd used some of her treasures!  I hope others are taking in these life skills and trying them out in the real world, too, and of course I'll be glad to help them along their way as they practice being responsible, caring, peacemaking citizens!

United Nations

As I bopped down the hall first thing yesterday morning, hordes of kids were making their way to class. It was picture day, so I was privy to a parade of spiffily decked-out children. A dark-eyed kindergartner flashed open her coat to show me her outfit and proclaimed, "Look Miss Mimi, I'm beautiful!" Indeed she was, all scrubbed and shiny-faced. She wore a dark-colored skirt, a princess sweatshirt adorned with pink butterflies, gray and pink argyle leggings, and boots. Her pony-tail was topped off with a frilly bow. While I oohed and aahed, a classmate came up, opened her own coat, and said, "Look! I'm wearing a church dress!" This one sported a precious purple knit dress with a belt and metallic boots. At this point, we were joined by a third friend who unzipped her coat to say, "And look at what I'm wearing!" This one modeled a gray and purple plaid pleated skirt, cardigan, and boots, and she proudly thrust her tummy out to show just how pretty she felt! Giggling and admiring each other's picture-day outfits, each threw an arm around another's shoulder and they sashayed into class together. Witnessing this spectacle, I felt gratified that these little cherubs had parents who took the time to help them get gussied-up in their very best school clothes for kindergarten pictures. I was also impressed with the fact that the children so obviously felt confident about themselves. It was only later, as I remembered this snippet of my day, that I realized something even more important. Although each of these three girls was from a different ethnicity, they were the best of pals, treating each other with admiration and respect. We adults certainly have a lot to learn from the little ones in our care!

Family Confusion

Today I met with a fresh-faced first grader who has a warm personality and big blue eyes. As she told me about her family, she mentioned a relative who sounded important to her. Breaking into a smile, she said, "I have the cutest little cousin! He gets in trouble in pre-school because he falls out of his chair and can't sit still. He loves pickles and going to my grandma's farm." "I can tell you love him a lot," I said. "What's your cousin's name?" Shrugging her shoulders, the little girl said, "I don't know his name, so I just call him Nephew." Hmmmm.....what an unusual name for her favorite little COUSIN!

Turnabout is Fair Play!

Although I don't use names when I write about school happenings, I need to make up some pseudonyms for this particular story. Otherwise it won't make a lick of sense! I walked in to teach a second grade class this afternoon just as the children were finishing up indoor recess. As I unpacked my teaching supplies, a pretty freckle-faced girl named Ella said, "Miss Mimi, we were playing house at recess, and I was married to Billy." She followed this comment with a playfully disgusted look. "Oh, I take it you're not a fan of marriage," I replied. Grinning, she said, "Not when I'm married to Billy." Continuing this interesting conversation, I asked, "So when you played house, your name was Mrs. Conley," which was Billy's last name. Shaking her head vehemently, the child said, "NO, HE'S Mr. KENNEDY," which was HER last name. Laughing, I said, "Oh, so your husband's taking YOUR name. Does Billy know about this?" "Not yet," she admitted. Playing along, I went to Billy's desk and said, "Hey, I understand that your new name is Mr. Kennedy since you married Ella." Standing up forcefully, he raised his eyebrows to the roof, pointed his index finger at Ella, and strode intently in her direction. Fortunately, by this time another class had joined us, most of the students were settling down for guidance class, and I was spared from any further shenanigans! I must say I would have enjoyed continuing the drama for a bit, as all the players were good-natured children having a good time at indoor recess!

Can You Say Conniving??

Every morning, I've been encouraging a tawny-haired first grade girl as she works at becoming more respectful to her peers. Specifically, her goal is to use kind words, as opposed to "snarky" ones, and according to her teacher's daily reports, she's improving rapidly! Because the child's efforts have been paying off, the teacher pulled her aside to let her know how much she admired and appreciated these newly pleasant words and behaviors. As part of this conversation, the teacher mentioned that it wouldn't be long until the fair-skinned little girl could "graduate" from having me come do daily check-ins. Directly after this private conversation, the child walked back to her desk and made a rude comment to her neighbor. "I can draw better than that," she said. Immediately, the little girl tucked her chin, cocked her head to the side, looked up at her teacher with raised eyebrows, and said, "NOW do I still get to see Miss Mimi?" Whoa...that's what I call a conniving female! I do have an update, though. This incident happened about a week and a half ago, and all last week the child's behavior was very positive. Therefore, I'll taper the visits to every other day and then fade them out altogether. Apparently quitting cold turkey isn't wise with this one!