Beating the lunchtime crazies

Lunch has been a very challenging time for me in the classroom. I'm usually very stressed out and frustrated by the end of lunch hour and I am forever trying to find the system that works best for everyone. Last week I changed things up a bit and I wanted to share this new system. Our kindies go out for recess first and then come inside and eat lunch. They take off all their gear, grab their lunch bags and come find their seat. I have laminated name tags that I made that tell the children where they are sitting. I do have a seating plan so usually they sit in the same place very day. So my kindies come in, eat lunch and they USED to finish lunch, out away their lunch bag and come in the class to play with a green toy at their desk. It was getting crazy, children kept leaving the room without permission, they were starting to okay all over the classroom, I was being stretched in all directions and it was getting frustrating. So I changed it up. NOW what they do is when they are I unfinished, I check their lunch to make sure they aren't pulling my chain and then they put their lunch bag underneath their chair (this way nobody has to leave the class during lunch hour). Once one person is finished, they get a bucket to play with. 

I have 5 tables in my classroom so when I put out their nametags, I also put a number on their table (1-5). That's the number bucket they will get that day. I named the buckets somewhat generically so I can easily change the contents once all the tables have had a turn. 

The reading bucket has books, the colouring bucket has colouring pages and crayons, the discovering bucket has search and find books, the creating bucket has paper and pencils, and the playing bucket has blocks. At the end of lunch, the children have to clean up their bucket and I come around to dismiss them to put their lunches away. So far this system has worked very well. A few are still going out into the hall at clean up time instead of waiting to be dismissed but other than that, this system is relatively stress free for me. 

Tomorrow I will be changing the contents of the buckets. The books will get some different books, colouring will get some new pictures, discovering I may put in search and find placemats instead of books, creating I think I will put in some writing paper (with a picture area and sentance area). And playing bucket I think I will put in the wooden puzzles.

Our toy bucket system

Tonight I wanted to share our toy bucket system. All of our toys are either just on the shelf (like blocks and doll houses) or in those white buckets. If you look closely at the photo, you may be able to see the green or yellow or red dot sticker on the photos. All of our toys have one of those dots. Green dot toys are usually a quieter toy or one that is easy to clean up. Yellow dot toys are still not too messy but the kids get a bit wilder and then the red dot toys are crazy people toys. When the children get time to choose toys, we usually say something like "yellow and green toys only", or " you can play with green, yellow, or red right now". The children know which toys are available to them and which ones are not. Sometimes the toys even get new stickers on them. One of our previously green sticker red buckets started to get really messy. The children were dumping the small pieces out or taking forever to tidy it up so it became a yellow toy. 

This way of toy labelling has helped us out a lot in classifying our toys and it's a much simpler way of expressing to the children which toys are available and which ones are not. Sometimes we just don't have enough time in the period to get into the more involved red toys. It's very easy to implement and very easy for the children to learn and understand. 

Flood!

Well I got to work this morning to find my classroom flooded!!!! Although the picture doesn't do it justice, there is about 2-3 inches of water on my floor. Which was quite an improvement from the foot of water that was there originally! 

The children adapted beautifully. We spent our day in the library and just had a good ol day. The children used their wonderful writing time to brainstorm how our room was flooded. They drew pictures and wrote their ideas down. The librarian pulled a great book for us to enjoy called "Matthew and the midnight flood". It was illustrate by they are guy who does Robert Munch books. It was so cute. At lunch on Friday's we usually watch magic schoolbus so although we were in a different classroom, we still got to watch it. Today we chose to watch the episode about the water cycle. How suitable. It was quite a difrent way to spen our Friday but I was so proud of our children. They really adapted well to this change. 

A perfect day

I'm exhausted but I don't want to forget to share this so I will do it now. Today, many things happened that were beautiful. We have been doing a bird inquiry since as long as I can remember. These past couple of weeks we have focused specifically on the blue jay, one of the 9 birds the children know and recognize from our bird feeder at www.feederwatch.org. After lunch today, Mrs. K was reading the book "Two Blue Jays" 

We had read it before but it is such a great story so we were reading it again. We had the bird feeder on our projector screen and Mrs. K said she would tell them to look if a blue jay appeared. She had no sooner finished reading the story when we here this bird through our speakers. "JAY JAY!" It called about 3 times. The children got all excited and started shouting "That's a blue jay! I hear a blue jay!" I was incredibly proud of that moment. They have learned. They have grasped. They are recognizing outside of the teaching moments. But it got better! 

Then the blue jay appeared at the feeder. All the children were on their feet now. They were pointing and cheering and yelling and so excited. They heard the jay and now there it was saying "you guys were right! You did it! You heard my call and new I was coming!" Oh oh oh but it got even BETTER!!!!!! 

As the children see the bluejay, a few actually looked to us to share (shout/ yell in excitement) that the blue jay is relaxed because it's crest is down. wow. Seriously wow. I wrote a story last week for the with real pictures and information in a simpler format where we learned about the blue jays "crest" which is that tall part on its head. It actually tells you what the blue jay is feeling. When  it is flat back against the jays head, they bird is relaxed. Standing up straight means excited, and fanned out means frightened. So in about a 45 second window right after we read a blue jay story, these children heard and were able to recognize the blue jay's call. They got to see the blue jay on the feeder, and they saw and RECGONIZED how it was feeling. 

Today we saw learning. We were rewarded for our hard work and effort. We were given a gift today in that moment. I looked at Mrs. K right then and said "that kind of gave me cry ball". 

Absolutely beautiful. This is why I love my job! This is why I do what I do. This means something to those children and they are learning and loving it. 

Feb 21 update: I took pictures of the blue jay book I made:

(I am aware of my spelling faux pas on the following page, It was really late at night when I made this but the children haven't found it yet so I'm ok with it haha)

Inventing bucket

I wish I had a picture to share but you will have to just visualize instead. Yesterday I introduced a new toy bucket to our kiddies. It had a big word on the outside that said "Inventing". What ever could it be? Well let me tell you! So my dad is a ham radio operator and happens to also have a whole bunch of "junk" lying around. He found some goodies for me that he didn't need anymore. So this bucket was filled with wires, switches, displays, screws, handles, nuts, bolts, I added rope, 3D glasses from the movie theatre, tinfoil, and my set of real mastercraft screwdrivers. I'm sure there was lots of other stuff in that bucket too. 

I introduced it to the children starting with that big word on the side. What does it mean? Once we got past the word then we talked about what we might do with it. Is it a craft bucket? No. So can we build things and bring them home? No. But can we save things and take pictures to continue later. OF COURSE! Then I held up a few items and we talked about them and then the bucket waited for us for play time. 

Now, in our classroom we don't have a ton of toys. Our shelves are not bare but toys are pricey, those costs would come out of our personal money and we just can't afford that. So most of our toys dont engage the children as well as more open ended toys would. But this bin was revolutionary. They played beautifully. They played creatively and the played cooperatively. They also played quietly. Quiet play is a sign of engaged play. Engaged play is an indication of learning. That sounds really pretty. Someone should share that and quote me. I've never been quoted before. Anywho, I'm going to write another post about today's play where you will hear about what they did.

Feb. 21 update: I took pictures!!!!

Although they look very messy, this is where the inventing happens. 

Dramatic Play Centre... The Bird Zone

We are still in birds for our inquiry so here is a glimpse at our dramatic play centre. It is ALWAYS a work in progress but this is where we are right now. Mrs. K and I built the corner tree on a PA day and the pictures in the area are of birds the kids can recognize from our bird feeder. On our shelves are some bird stuffed animals, puppets, a bin of sticks, a bin of rocks, a bin of pine cones, a sensory bucket filled with sunflower seeds and of course our window is incorporated too. There are 2 stools (one for each window in the centre) and there are bird posters under the window too. They can look outside at our window feeder or hanging feeder and hope to catch a glimpse of a bird. 

I just bought this carpet last weekend from Ikea. It was on $29.00 not a bad price at all. It really inspired them in the centre and made it feel more outdoorsy as they crossed the river or tried to swim. I am very happy with my purchase. 

Finally, I wanted to draw your eyes to our bird board. These are the 9 birds that the children know all from watching the bird feeder at www.feederwatch.org. I found some nice crisp photos of them online and had them printed out. Then the children wrote out the names below the birds. There is definitely a reflection of our children's voices in this classroom. I am very proud of that!

Just in case you were wondering, here are the birds we know:

1) Evening Grosbeak

2) Chickadee

3) Black crowned sparrow

4) Downy Woodpecker

5) European Starling

6) Blue Jay

7) Ruffed Grouse

8) Pine Grosbeak

9) Grey Jay

Focus on writing

We have focused a lot on writing for the past month and a bit. We started wonderful writing every single day at period 2. The children have filled their folders with vivid pictures and some beautiful new sentences. Their folders were starting to get a little crowded so we decided to pull out all the finished January writing, and send it home. I made a cover page for them and evaluated all the writing so the parents can see what stage of writing their child is at.

Mrs. K discovered this neat idea on a kindergarten facebook page. Instead of the traditional calendar (that both of us were pretty bad at updating) we put together this bristol board calendar (thanks to our highschool student getting those volunteer hours!!! Didn't she do an AMAZING job!) The children wrote the word february to make the border of our calendar and then whenever they have something special coming up they can write it on our calendar. The children have contributed things like "Pizza Day", "Swimming", "Skating", birthdays etc. It makes them excited to write, eager to share and it personalizes our calendar into a much more meaningful classroom tool.

Last but not least for this focus on writing, we changed the way our children sign in in the morning. With our new focus on writing, we decided it was time to do away with the children finding their names on their paper and placing them in the basket. Now it was their turn to "sign in". So every morning they come into our classroom and find this waiting for them on the table with a bin of markers! That's right... Markers! How fun. They write their name on the lines to tell us they are here and ready to learn. They are having a lot of fun policing it and making sure their friends remember to sign in.

Stop Light to Behaviour

 I wanted to share the stop light system we use in our classroom. We started with the traditional Red Light, Yellow Light, Green light at the beginning of the year. We also chose to put our stop light upside down so children understood that moving up is good, moving down is bad. It was a very basic model with just coloured circles. It worked well but Mrs. K and I both agreed that we needed to support and celebrate our students who go above and beyond just as much as we need to encourage those students who need reminders to make better choices. So I hunted pinterest and combined a few different ideas to come up with this one:

All of the students have a clothes peg with their name on it on both sides. They all start their day on green because they are all "ready to learn". We give reminders throughout the day of what that looks like (sitting criss cross, quiet, eyes forward, listening, doing our jobs etc.). Children get a warning first and then their peg is moved down. At this stage children are also reminded to tell us what yellow means. They always say "think about it" and we encourage them to think about the choices they made that got them there. We usually end our conversations with "Can you get back up to green? YES! How can we do that?" If we have to intervene again, then the child gets moved to red. Again, we keep things on a more positive note by calling it "Make better choices" and we talk about what those choices could be. Our goal is to get those kids to green.

On the positive side of our chart children can be moved up to blue (great choices) and purple (star student). These are just above and beyond things like helping out a friend, great problem solving skills, great cleaning, etc.

At the end of the day we give out stickers to the children on Green, Blue, and Purple.

I picked up this cute little drawer unit at walmart. It holds our stickers perfectly. There is even a spot at the top for our work stickers, stars and jewel stickers.

In the top drawer are our stickers for the children on Green. They get wonderful stickers but tiny little guys. 

In the middle drawer we keep our blue stickers. These are bigger stickers or cooler stickers. At first we let the children on blue or purple choose their own stickers but that got too time consuming so now we choose the sheet for the day but they choose the sticker they want off of that sheet. 

In the bottom drawer are our stickers for the children on Purple. These stickers are our fancy stickers. They are big, or fuzzy, or smelly.

 I also bout a sheet of sticky back little jewels from dollarama and the children on Purple get to choose a jewel to put on their clothespeg. Once their clothespeg is full then they will get to take it home and we will get them a new one.

This behaviour chart has worked so well in our class!

Recess Pets - fixing outdoor behaviour problems

We were having some issue in our kinder room at recess time. They were being very hands on and strugging to remember how to walk in a line. Too many sillies! So I came up with these "Recess Pets". They were just clothespegs with pompoms glued on and googly eyes:

The children were introduced to these pets one day and given a very important task. Their job was to care for these pets. They only came out at recess time and they cared for them by making good choices. Helping friends, using words etc. They lost their pets by being hands on, not coming when the bell goes, making poor choices etc. The children then got to choose a pet and we wrote their name on the back of them. At first recess the pets were clipped to their coats and out we went. If their were any problems outside, the children got a warning first and then their pet was removed. Back inside, the children who kept their pets safe were given a green box for the recess:

Everytime their pet came in safe, they got another day coloured in. Once the children had 5 squares coloured in they got a prize. At the end of the day all of the pets were returned to the leash for the night.

Prizes didn't cost us anything either. We had this book called "Treasure chest" it was just a small scrapbook album I had at home:

 Inside, I cut 8X8 paper down to the books size and taped in little prize cards:

Here is the list of prizes we used:
Bring a stuffed toy to school
Get first choice of outdoor toy
Show and Tell
Have a good note sent home
Read a book to the class
Play a game with the teacher
Use special stickers in the art centre (very popular with the girls)
Sit in a special chair at the carpet
Be in charge of sweeping floors (believe it or not but there was constant arguing over sweeping and washing tables at lunch time)
Be in charge of washing tables
Switch spots at lunch
Get a drink from the water fountain whenever you want (the child got a badge to wear as their "pass")
Carpet captain for the day
Line leader for the day (Both carpet captain and line leader prizes included a badge that they wore to state that they were carpet captain (make sure the children are quiet and criss-cross) and line leader (first in line all the time))
Use playdough at freetime
Sit beside a friend at lunch
Have lunch at the teachers desk (This was the MOST popular prize!!! They LOVED this one)
Have a turn in the rocking chair
Computer turn

Introducing the pet routine
When we started the recess pets, the pets were given out every recess and collected every recess. Once they got used to the pet routine, we gave them out at first recess and collected them at the end of the day.

Things I would do differently
I would add pictures to the prize book so it would be more independent for them to choose. They are still learning to read so they needed some help reading all the prizes.