Kiwi, binoculars, and Polar Express!

I realize that I haven't posted in a while... I've been trying to finish up classes and took my last final today! What a relief :)

This was adorable:

We were having lunch, and instead of the usual bananas, oranges, or apples, we got KIWIs with lunch! What a treat!

One of the kids bit into a kiwi and said, "It's so sour. It makes my face go like this." So he shuts his eyes really tightly and makes a squished face. I wish I could have taken a picture of him so that you knew what he looked like.

------------------------------------------------------

Kids are so creative. We have these multi-colored blocks that come in rectangles, triangles, and other cylindrical shapes. They have magnets on the ends of them so that they can be connected together and stay in their place.

Common themes are airplanes, cars, a house... This girl decided that she could use her's to "see things." I asked her what she saw, and she said, "Mickey Mouse and Christmas."

I told her that they are called "binoculars." So adorable. Gotta be one of my favorite pictures of all time.

------------------------------------------------------

This one takes the cake. I want to make sure that you are sitting down so that you can handle it!

I start singing "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" with the kids, and here this boy comes in and he says, "That's like Polar Express!" "Yes, " I say, "like Polar Express?" 

"Yeah, except it's a bigger train! A BIG, BIG TRAIN!!" His eyes get really large and he's holding his two hands up to show me that it's BIG. At this point, he's practically yelling because he's so excited. Okay, got it.

We keep singing the song, and he can't get over it, "It's a bigger, BIGGER train!" then he starts turning his arms like the wheels of a train, "Choo, choo!" 

So he says it again, "It's like Polar Express, except a BIGGER train, MOTHER F***ER!!"

Oh HECK no! "I don't EVER want to hear you say those words again!! Those are not school words, do you understand??"

I was totally caught off guard. I wonder where he got that from?

------------------------------------------------------

Lastly, I had an issue with a student (the same student who called me a loser, the same student who wouldn't park the bike. :/) and he would not stop talking during nap time. He kept talking to people across the room and totally disregarding the sleeping people around him. HOW RUDE!

So after moving his bed, reprimanding him, and verbally threatening to bench him during play time, I finally said, "I need to talk to you outside. This is not okay." He gripped his bed tightly and shook his head "no." 

I told him, "Can you walk over there by yourself or do you need me to help you? I'm going to count to three and if you're not up, I'm going to help you. 1-2-3." He sat up at "3" and sluggishly trudged over to the door. He looked like he was near tears, but I wasn't going to take it!

We got outside and I asked him what was going on. No answer.

So I told him, "When it's time to play outside, you can sit on the bench until you're ready to talk to me. But no playing until you talk to me." That got him talking right away. 

Then I said, "When you go inside, what are you going to do?"

"Sleep."

"Good idea. I want you to go straight to your bed, no talking. If you're talking, that means you don't want to play outside."

"But I do want to play outside."

"Then stop talking."

He went right to bed. That was a victory for me because I really thought I lost him. Thank goodness for perseverance. 

I'm ready for happy hour. LOL.

Tracing fun & dinosaurs dying :(

The kids traced my silhouette onto the blacktop:

Please take note of the delicate features around my face, the absence of a chest, and the lumps and bumps where my stomach is supposed to be :P

One of the kids walked up to the drawing and he didn't see the other children tracing me. He said, "Teacher! Look! It's a ghost! Ahhhhhhhhhh!!!!" LOL 

--------------------------------------------------------------

Earlier today, I was reading the book "How Do Dinosaurs Eat Their Food?" It's a great book to get kids to think about their manners, especially when they're eating (it's available in English and Spanish!). Instead of using children, they use different illustrations of dinosaurs (and they're beautiful drawings!)

We got to this page and it asks "Does a dinosaur throw his spaghetti high in the air?"

I read the line, and a boy said, "Look, the dinosaur is dying!" and he was so concerned. I said, "That's just spaghetti sauce. He'll be fine." The kid insisted, "No, he's dying!"

The teddybear cracked his head and ate foot-flavored cake.

I really need to think of more creative titles without giving too much away...

Anyhoo, more pics to share! I'll post in chronological order:

1) Sergio* (not his real name, duh) recently celebrated his birthday and he was SOOOO excited to give this to me.

I walked onto the school site and he took me by the hand, saying: "Teacher, come here. I want to show you something." He's guiding me toward the classroom, and I ask, "Is it in the classroom? Let's wait until later because we're playing outside right now."

"But I want to show you now," he says, in the most sincere way possible (not bratty at all).

"When we go inside, you can show me, okay?" "Okay," he said, sounding defeated.

As soon as we walked in, he said, "It's in here!" as he pointed to the refrigerator. He knew that  only teachers could touch the refrigerator, so he just pointed.

I opened it up and what did I see??? I most beautiful, lop-sided cupcake! The yellow frosting slid halfway off the top and it sat all by its lonesome in the cupcake tray. I exclaimed, "Is that for me??"  He had the biggest, proudest grin on his face and he said, "Yeah!" I told him that I LOVED yellow :) and he beamed.

And those cupcakes taste even better when the kiddos give them to me ;)

---------------------------------------------------------------

2) Moldy something.

We were going through an old stash of paint and we found this at the bottom of the box:

I'll let you decide what you think it is...

---------------------------------------------------------------

3) Strawberry. Platano. Foot.

We were in the sandbox making "cake" (the kids like to watch me pretend to eat it. They like the chewing noises that I make :P). Francis* brings these three "cakes" and I ask her what flavors they are, "Strawberry cake, platano cake..." and what's this one? She says, "Uh, foot cake." Mmmm, foot-flavored cake... LOL too funny. I wish you could see her, she's just adorable.

Top: Strawberry

Middle: Foot

Bottom: Platano (banana)

---------------------------------------------------------------

4) The kids had cinnamon teddy grahams today for snack with some milk. Two of the cookies were stuck together, so Carlos* told me, "Look, there are two together" as he tried to pry them apart. He wasn't successful at keeping the bottom one in tact, so he said, "Teacher, the head cracked off."

---------------------------------------------------------------

5) (No pic for this one :/)

We're shifting from Fall to Winter, so we were asking the kids why they think the leaves are falling down. We wanted to get them to talk about it being so cold, the leaves changing color and falling off, and how animals want to move somewhere that's warmer.

They were able to recite and recall "hibernation" and "migrate," except for one student. We were juggling back and forth between the two concepts to make sure that they could distinguish between the two, so we asked, "When birds move somewhere warm for the winter, what is that called?" Ally* said, "Migraine!" even though I think she meant to say, "Migrate." I told her to make sure that we could hear the "t" sound at the end, so she said, "migrate." 

Chuckie??? And purple dinosaurs (I'm not talking about Barney)

This is one of those "Wha??" stories...

I was sitting outside with the kids before we transitioned to nap time. We were just talking about movies and whatnot, then one of the kids said, "I watched Chuckie at my house." I said, "Wait, what??" And she said, "Chuckie." I told her, "That's scary. I don't think you should be watching movies like that. You're too little to be watching those kinds of movies."

One of the other girls were sitting with us and she was shaking her head in disagreement. She says, "Chuckie mataron senores con cuchillo." (Roughly translated: "Chuckie kills/murders girls with a knife." OH MY GOODNESS. I had to tell them, "We don't talk about those things at school. Those movies are too scary."

Just LOOK at him.

Why on earth would you want to expose your little child to something as horrendous as CHUCKIE?? It boggles the mind. I don't know how those kids sleep at night.

------------------------------------------------------

We have these purple dinosaurs in our playground that look just like these:

One of the children walked past a dinosaur while it was bobbing back and forth (another child was probably riding it or just got off of it). You can guess what happened... the kid got hit on the head by the mouth of the dinosaur and started to cry because he was startled. 

He came over to me and asked for an ice pack, "The dinosaur hit me right here!" pointing to the left side of his head.

and then he put it on the right side of his forehead, and I said, "I'm sure it was an accident." Then I looked at where he had the ice pack and I said, "Wait, I thought it was on the other side?" So he slid the ice pack to the left side of his head.

A minute later, he stopped crying and said, "I feel better now." The area was just a little pink and I said, "I want you to keep this on for just a little bit longer." I thought he would just sit on a bench or something, but he got up and started walking. I asked where he was going and he said, "I want to apologize to the dinosaur." I told him, "But the dinosaur hit you, you don't need to say anything to him." So he didn't :) 

God, kids are funny.

You don't know me!

I really need to get this off my chest!

We had a sub in our classroom and he has a very dry sense of humor and more sarcasm than I care to deal with (and I consider myself a very patient person).

The kids were trying to finish some turkeys that they were making for Thanksgiving, and being that the last day of school is tomorrow, we were trying to crank them out ASAP!

While it would be nice to send the turkeys home in time for the holiday, I also knew that Thanksgiving would go on without them, so I wasn't in a panic.

I'm giving the sub instructions about cutting the feathers, body, feet, etc. and I list off the students who have not completed the project yet. Then I say, "If we don't get to all of them, then I guess they just have to wait until Monday to bring the turkeys home." He started laughing and said, "I mean, it would be nice to have it for the holiday for their parents. I know you don't care because you're not a parent or anything. But, as a parent, I would like to have something like this. I like this kind of stuff."

The audacity!!!!!! I was appalled. Fool, you don't know me!! I would risk life and limb for my kids, without a doubt. Rather than waste my energy being upset, I let it go. There are some things in life that just aren't worth raising your blood pressure for. And this man was one of them.

OK, I'm done venting.
Thanks for listening to my ridiculousness :P

Quotables about poop and yellow hair.

1) One of the kids was compelled to tell me all of this before he went to bed:


Child: "Teacher, I went poop in the bathroom and got poop on my hands."

Me: "It's okay, it was an accident. Did you wash your hands though?"

Child: "I wiped it with paper towel and then I washed it."


2) Background info: So my class is primarily of Hispanic origin. About 80% of them are native Spanish speakers, and only half of them can fully understand English. Two of them have light brown hair (very handsome boys!), but none of the children have blonde hair.

"No one in our class has yellow hair, right? Only yellow blankets."


3) Another child rushes to the restroom and looks very puzzled. I said, "Go use the bathroom," and he said, "There's too many bathrooms." We have two toilets and he couldn't decide which one to use :/

L-O-S-E-R Like Me!!

Thanks, Chels, for this blog title LOL


If some folks are familiar with that Fox show "Glee," they had an episode where they wrote their own lyrics to a song called "Loser Like Me." Here are a couple of lines:


"Just go ahead and hate on me and run your mouth
So everyone can hear
Hit me with the worst you got and knock me down
Baby, I don't care
Keep it up, and soon enough you'll figure out
You wanna be...
A loser like me"


I have a student who is particularly difficult. He is very aware of the choices that he makes, he knows what he needs to do, yet he chooses the path that isn't always best. Here's an example:


He's squeaking around on the bike track with his trike and I yell out, "Room 1, line up please." Most of the kids start running toward our classroom to line up, but he's still squeaking around on the bike, as if he didn't hear me. 


I continue to watch him, and he is aware of this, but he's still going. I repeat, "Room 1, line up please." Again, nothing.


So I finally jump in front of his bike to obstruct his path, put both hands on the handle bar, bend down so that I'm in his face, and I say with a firm voice, "Park the bike right now, we're done."


He says, "But I want to..." and I interject with a "Park it now" and I point to the bike parking lot. [He was going to tell me that he wanted to finish his lap before parking it. In other words, he wanted to park the bike on his own terms.]


He heads over in a huff, but he stops in his tracks, turns to me and says, "When I see you, I'm not going to smile at you or be happy to see you." I said, "Fine. Just park the bike."


YES. This is the student who called me a loser.


Here's how it went down!


We're sitting in circle and I'm starting to call students so that they can go wash their hands for lunch (we have lunch in our classroom). But, to sit in circle, the kids need to sit "criss cross apple sauce, hands on your lap." 


The rest of the kids are sitting with their legs crossed, but not him. His legs are sprawled out right in front of him, he's chillin'. Everyone else is done, but he's still sitting there. I say, "I'm waiting for you to sit criss cross applesause. I know you can do it, I've seen you do it before." Nothing. So I say, "Fine, you can sit there until you show me that you can sit nicely." So I'm doing my own thing and trying not to look in his direction.


He calls me over, "Teacher! I'm sitting nicely now!" And I say, "Good. Now I want to see if you can stay like that." After a series of leg-straightening and crossing, he finally stays cross-legged. I sit down right in front of him and say, "See, I know that you can sit nicely. Now I want you to sit like that all the time. You can go wash your hands now." 


AS SOON as I finish saying that, he takes one of his legs and straightens it out, then he says, "But I'm not sitting criss cross applesauce." OKAY. I said, "Just go wash your hands," again in a firm tone. He stomps off and washes his hands. VICTORY! I think...


I'm putting some beds down for nap time and I hear a voice, but I'm not sure where it's coming from. I hear, "You're a loser." I couldn't tell if it came from the bathroom or from the tables where the rest of the kids are eating and talking, so I brush it off. The next voice is clear and distinct and I know it's coming from the restroom, "Teacher Em... (in a teasing and inciting melody)" I turn my head so that this child and I are looking eye to eye, "you're a loser." WOW.


I walked over quickly and told him, "You DO NOT talk to me like that. You don't talk to anyone like that. That hurt my feelings. I'm going to have to talk to your mom." 


"I'm sorry. I said I'm sorry. No, don't do that. I'm sorry."


"I heard you say sorry, but I'm still going to talk to your mom."


QUIET. He drags himself to the table for lunch and he's sulking. But, come on, you can't talk to people like that.

I believe in fate, signs, and divine intervention.

So I've been doing quite a bit of soul searching these last few months, but the message couldn't be any more clear at this point...

Not too long ago, I went to So Cal to visit some people that I really wanted/needed to see :)

I got into a very intense and very personal conversation with someone in a car (they know who they are), and we were talking about what made us happy. A really broad topic, right? But somehow it all diverted back to work and the kids. That's all my life is centered around and right now, nothing makes me feel more fulfilled than being with those kids. I love them and I feel the love reciprocated, isn't this enough? Shouldn't I be content?

This person told me, "The only person who can make you happy is yourself. No other person will do that for you." At first, I was appalled. I thought, "Are you crazy? You're wrong! These kids love me!!!! THEY LOVE ME!!!!" Then, once the emotions subsided, I realized that he was right: I shouldn't have to define myself or my worth based on how others love me. He said, "You need to truly love yourself."

I've always had issues with body image, self-esteem, etc. Growing up, I took a lot of criticism and blame, and I've carried it with me until now. It's so easy to forgive and forget with others, but I can't even do that for myself. I'm working on it!

I don't want this to be a sob story, so I'll cut to the chase... It must have been a day after this deep conversation, I went home and spent some time with my dad (we were actually taking a drive to Las Vegas. CRAZY, right? Yes, another convo in a car.) and he started talking about friends. He said, "Don't trust your friends. The only people who will be there for you is your family. And God." Then he just kept going, and going, and going.... He said, "The only person that will take care of you is yourself and God. No one else." I thought, "Wait, I've heard this one before... Hmm..."

OKAY, God, I hear you LOUD AND CLEAR. LOVE MYSELF. It's okay to like who I am :/

And if that wasn't enough, my brother and I were texting today, and this takes the cake. I was asking him to help me decide whether I should buy something, and he said, "If you want it, go get it." I know we were just talking about an object, a thing, but I looked at the BIG PICTURE.

IF YOU WANT IT, GO GET IT. Wow.

Final thoughts: Life is just going to stand still unless I go out there and make something of it. And I have to really love who I am if I want to make things happen!

Thanks to Robert, dad, and Phil for helping me realize this.

Kids are freakin' smart.

I just got home not too long ago from a trip to Las Vegas!!! Went to see grandma for her birthday, saw some cousins that I haven't seen in ages (they're only in their early teens and already my height or taller. I should have drank more milk as a kid...), and ate lots of Filipino food. Life is good ;)

Anyway, I saw a high school friend and her 3 kids (all of whom I happen to be Godmother to).

Okay, so between this house visit and seeing my family, I got to talking about work and being with so many children. These kids are dang smart. They're funny, charming, honest, and joyful. I LOVE BEING AROUND CHILDREN (not in a creeper kinda way HA HA, I'm sure you know this :P).

These three kids were talking to me with such clarity and charisma, adults often forget what kids are truly capable of. I learned that kids can accomplish so much on their own, as long as adults provide the opportunities for them to be independent. 

Parents like to hold onto the idea that their children are their "babies," so they'll do things like pour their milk, open chip or cookie bags, fold their blankets, etc. But kids want to do those things for themselves! Or at least try to. And if they complete a task, it gets them to try other new things & take initiative. Instead of waiting for someone to TELL them what to do, they'll make choices to do things on their own.

That's why I KNOW that preschool is such a critical time in any person's life. If kids aren't socializing at that age, if they're not making friends, not trying new things, that's concerning and a strong indicator of what they'll be like in grade school. 

Blah, blah, blah... My point is that KIDS ARE INSANELY BRILLIANT. Give them the chance to show it to you. They'll amaze you.

Corn. Being happy. And random findings.

So I was sitting with some of the kiddos in the Dramatic Play area (it sounds so official, doesn't it? But they prefer that over 'Play house' or something) and I was staring at this corn:

And I thought to myself, "Why the hell would they make it look so real? And then they expect kids NOT to eat it???" Look at it! It's crazy! Thank goodness we disinfect on a regular basis...

--------------------------------------------------

I was talking to a good friend, Clare (I hope it's okay that I used your name!), and gushing about the kids again. She told me that I seem a lot happier now that when I was working at the other schools.

I told her that when I'm with the kids, they make me feel like I'm the most important person in the world, I feel like a superhero and they think I can do anything. They hang onto my every word, they laugh at all of my corny jokes... At the end of the day, I'm exhausted BUT my heart is full :D

Clare said that their love is unconditional (I've heard this from other people, too, but I can't recall who. Sorry, folks!), that no matter what I've done, if I get upset, or if I forget to do something, they'll still love me with their whole heart. It's a wonderful feeling, and I hope that everyone experiences that kind of love, whether it's from kids, a pet, a relative, or friend.

Thanks for that talk, Clare. I feel a lot better about where I'm at. Not that I really had much doubt, but a reminder every now and then is much appreciated.

I'm reminded that there is good in the world and that it's okay to wear your heart on your sleeve. Put it all out there!

Halloween and Things Girls Say to Boys...

Halloween is right around the corner! All of the kids have been talking about what their costumes will be: Batman, pirate, Spiderman, princess, ladybug, bunny... They're gonna be adorable, and you'll bet your sorry behind I'm going to post pictures of this stuff!!

They've made milk carton ghosts, spiders hanging on marble-painted spider webs, pumpkins... The room looks dynamite!

Well, we took the kiddos to a small fieldtrip to another play structure, just a couple of blocks away. One of the girls was holding the hand of a boy, like a buddy system :) It was pretty warm around this time (about 11:00 am), so she started to take off her jacket. Then she told me and the boy, "Girls wear the boy's jacket when it's cold. He's supposed to give her his jacket." Then she went on saying, "Have you ever seen a girl put her jacket in her pocket?"

-------------------------------

Yesterday, I had 3 kids on 3 separate occasions ask me to play with them. So I got pretty close to them, started talking to them or laughing, and they'd say, "Guess what, teacher? I'm sick!" with the largest grin on their faces. THREE CHILDREN!! What are the odds? I should have figured it out when one of the kids were isolated, working on an art activity all by their lonesome. A staff member must have placed them there so that they wouldn't pass it onto someone else. Let's hope my immune system has gotten stronger...

Red, yellow, green!

HA HA okay so... One of my boys had to rush to the bathroom because nature was calling. We're supposed to monitor activity, just use our peripheral vision to make sure that the kids don't fall in the toilet (I'm not even trying to be funny. Licensing would shut us down if we didn't keep an eye on the kids in the bathroom!).

Anyhoo, he rushes over to the toilet and I hear him screaming, "Alright!! It's yellow! YAY!" and he's pumping his fist in the air.

We actually went over traffic safety and he next began to say with a melody, "Red, yellow, green. Red, yellow, green..."

--------------------------------------------

We went to the pumpkin patch today @ Lemos Farm in Half Moon Bay. The kids were super cute and excited. We rode horses, the train, went on a hay ride, picked out pumpkins, fed some baby goats... It was so fun!

On the hay ride, we see a bunch of growing Christmas trees and I point them out to the kids. One boy says, "It's my Christmas," so we ask, "well, is it your  Christmas or everyone's Christmas?" He says, "No, just mine." One of the other teachers say, "Christmas belongs to everyone, not just you."

--------------------------------------------

Okay, last thing....

This kid below is such a HOOT. He runs up to me with this spiral-bound booklet (we have something similar that contains all of the children's names and they're handwritten). He says, "Teacher, this is my name!" and I tell him, "No, honey, that says 'blanket.'"

I wish you could see his face because he has this sideways smirk that's really adorable :/

Something's going around... and I don't like it.

So... one of the aides in my classroom has been home for the last two days and discovered that she has contracted STREP-freakin-THROAT. Yes. She'll be home for the rest of the week, but that's so incredibly lame.

Not too long ago (maybe a week or so), one of the children was talking about his throat hurting. We were having snack and he told us that it hurt when he swallowed. He stayed home for a day, but quickly returned back to school.

Dad told us that strep was rampant at home with his sister and another family member! OH NO!

I don't know what Strep is like and I don't want to know! Please, don't let me get sick :(

My hand is a tissue.

HA HA The rain kept us in for most of the day, which was perfectly fine. The kids didn't act like a bunch of nut cases bouncing off the walls, they were pretty relaxed. Got a couple of new kids, but they fit right in :) No crying, they ate all of their food and got along with everyone.

The only story really worth mentioning was when we were playing Ring Around the Rosie and one of the kids was holding my hand. He decided he wanted to wipe his nose, so he automatically picked up his left hand (the one that was holding mine), brought it to his nose & wiped his nose. He ended up using the back of my hand instead of his own hand. Ugh.

Hope you are having a splendid day!

Kids are talented :D

A lot of the children contributed to the art display that was put together in the District Office (for the Superintendent to see!). (This board was about 20 feet long, keep in mind. So try to patch the pictures together :)

The owls, bees, butterflies, squirrels, flowers, all made over a span of 2 months. Aren't they beautiful??

Do you believe in horoscopes?

I don't usually follow horoscopes because the future can be what you make of it! But... I still read them for entertainment purposes! I thought my horoscope from Saturday was VERY appropriate for the predicament that I'm in right now :)

Here's what it said:
"Have you been questioning a path you've taken, Libra? If so, you need to assess how good that path has been to you so far. Most likely, you are moving forward with grace and making wonderful progress. Yet it is a human tendency to wonder if the path not taken might have been better. Don't question what you already know. You are headed in the right direction, and you are doing so at the appropriate pace. You are where you are meant to be. If someone else questions your choice, remain confident. Very soon, you will have even more reassurance from the universe."

I can't recall a time when I've been happier going to work. I had a nice conversation with a friend today, and I told him, "No matter what kind of day I'm having or the kind of night I had before, nothing beats a dozen children running up to you and hugging you as hard as they can. When I leave, they tell me that they'll miss me. It's a good feeling."

"Pantalon!"

One of my kids took a stack of at least 30 newsprint papers and cut them straight down the middle about 3 quarters of the way. I thought she wasted a bunch of papers and was about to throw them away! I said, "What are you doing with those papers?!?" She said in Spanish, "They're pants. I want to bring them home to my mom." HA HA Too cute.

My first post!

Welcome, friends!

I have to thank a couple people from Facebook who urged me to create this blog (I would write your names here, but I'm not sure if you want your names public... If you don't mind, let me know!).

This was the posting that I just put up:
"We're running around the track when it starts to rain. One of the kids stop me & scream, "We're gonna die!" as another kid zooms by w/ his pants down to his ankles."


Kids never cease to amaze me, and they're just so dang funny :D

Well... since I'm already here, I might as well post my thoughts. I've been in a bit of a rut, trying to figure out if I wanna stick to this career or move on to new things. Financially, let's face it: preschool teachers don't make much dinero. On the other hand, I've never been more satisfied or fulfilled in my life.

So here's my question: What is my problem?? Should I move on to bigger and "better" things or be content with my current situation?

Thanks, folks. More to come!