Yesterday my class talked about the election and they wanted to talk to Obama and tell him they were excited he won. After I explained that he probably won’t be making a stop at our school they decided a letter was a better way to go.

Here’s their letter, word for word.

Dear Mr. Obama,

We are in kindergarten.

We go to Dugsi Academy in St. Paul, MN.

We are very excited you are president.

When you won people ran around our houses and yelled “O-BA-MA” really loud. It was fun.

We also had some questions for you. Will you answer them please? Thank you.

1. How are you? Are you excited to be president? (from Asha)

2. How many people voted for you? (from Suad)

3. Do you think you’ll get a surprise being president? (from Mustaf)

4. What is your phone number? (from Zakariye)

5. What school do you kids go to? (from Yahya)

6. Can we see your house? (from Suad)

7. How old are your kids? (from Asha)

8. Are you happy to live in the White House? (from Yahya)

9. Area you good at helping people? (from Roda)

10. Do you want to be president two times? (from Rayan)

Thank you for reading our letter!

From, Ms. Abby’s Class

They all signed their names, tomorrow we are taking a class picture to send along. I’m hoping we at least get one of those form letters back.

I love that my class is very civics minded. They love learning about our country, how it works, how voting works, etc. And they come up with these little projects on their own. I had no plans to write to Barak Obama today but it was something they really wanted to do. So we did it.

One of the teachers at our school wrote a grant that got us $10,000 to help promote healthy eating, exercise, etc. for our families.

One of the activities we are doing is the 10,000 steps program. Each student and teacher will get a pedometer to wear while at school and record their steps at the end of every day. Goals will be set for individuals, classes and teams of teachers (and the teacher teams are divided by grade level).

The kindergarten is going to kick some ass at this. Aside from the fact that my class is insanely competitive they are also physically incapable of sitting still and they never take the shortest route from point A to point B. I have 3 kids in my room that do 4 laps around the room before lining up. And then there are the kids that stand to do their work and pace back and forth in front of their table spot. And the kids that get up and switch spots about 437 times during one story. Yeah. I’m thinking we are going to win.

Last Friday the kindergarten class was working on a project that required glue sticks. About 100 glue sticks are kept in a bucket on a shelf, the class is free to get a glue stick and use as needed. All the kindergarteners were working quietly in their seats, cutting and gluing away. And at clean-up time glue sticks were being returned to the bucket, with caps on (very impressive). Then it happened. On one of the tables was a giant purple smear. Not an oops-my-glue-sticks-went-off-the-paper smear but a creation of purple, an entire glue stick devoted to this work of art. I asked the class who did it and this pain in the butt kid named Not Me was apparently the culprit. So, I collected all the remaining glue sticks and declared that there would be no more glue stick use until the artist fessed up.

A week went by. A week of me planning fake glue stick activities just so I could give them all the instructions only to end it with “but we can’t do this fun project because we don’t have our glue sticks back yet.”

Today we had another project and this one the class really wanted to do. As I got to the part about not doing it due to lack of glue stick privillages one student raised his hand and asked, “Can we just sit here until the person who did it tells you? I really want to use the glue sticks again.” The rest of the class agreed this was a good plan. And so we sat. For 10 minutes.

10 minutes of students saying, begging, pleading, with the guilty party to just come forward. And she denied it up and down.

Finally another student shouts out, “Do you want to get into heaven? Because if you do you have to tell the truth. If you keep lying, they aren’t letting you in!”

And apparently, all it takes is a little religious guilt. Because the guilty party confessed, told the class she was wrong for lying and using glue the wrong way and promised not to do it again.

And with that the glue sticks were returned and all is right in the world again.

Tomorrow is Eid ul-Fitr. It’s the celebration that breaks the fast which took place during Ramadaan, which when you are a teacher at a school that is 100% Muslim you get two days off of school.

This year it fell on Tuesday and Wednesday which means that we had school today, we’re off Tuesday and Wednesday and we go back Thursday. It’s a little odd having a weekend, then one day of work, then a weekend, then two days of work, then a weekend.

Today was really not worth having. Most families celebrate the holiday by getting together and going some place fun (a popular place around here is Camp Snoopy or Chuck E. Cheese), eating a huge pile of good food and presents. Lots of presents. So today was like trying to teach on Christmas Eve. Not the most productive of days.

…my kindergarten class is pretty good this year. Some of you may remember last year’s boot camp. Last year redefined “difficult students” and I came into this year prepared for the worst. I know that I shouldn’t let my opinion of last year’s class influence my opinion of this year’s class but you didn’t meet last year’s class.

This year however…three weeks into the school year and my pro’s list is longer than my con’s list.

The pro’s:

• They have volume control. This is huge. I can actually say 1 time to the class “use your #1 voice” and for the remainder of the work time all you hear is the low hum of 5 year olds working.
• They raise their hands before talking
• They can be trusted to go to the bathroom without me.
• I can leave the room for 5 minutes and when I come back they are in the same spots I’ve left them.
• They rest at rest time.
• They attempt to do their work before asking me for help.
• They don’t tattle (much).
• They clean up without tearing around the room and shrieking.
• It only took me a week to teach them the routine of the room.
• They remember the routine.
• When I do have to discipline the whole class by making them practice, they actually realize that if they fix the problem, the punishment is over.

The cons are few and far between. Their biggest issue is lining up. They can walk in a line just fine. They can line up in the hallway just fine but for whatever reason lining up in our classroom or the lunch room causes them to forget all common sense, forget all rules, forget their spots in line and start with the pushing and the shoving and the worrying about who gets to be first (even though we have a line leader everyday). I’m not really sure why they do this but trust me, we’ll be working on this next week.

As far as the kids go, for the most part they are great. There are only 3 that drive me crazy on a regular basis.

I have the younger sister of one of my boys from last year. And she makes her brother look like a saint. Her current favorite activities in class - starting laughing (while I’m talking) just to see how many kids she can get laughing, doing opposite of what I tell the class (for example Me: I need everyone to cross their legs, please. Her: (looks directly at me and sticks her legs straight out).), and in general making a mental list on how many ways she can irritate me in a single day.

The next kid is only going to be difficult for a few more weeks. He understands English but can barely speak it so his behavior is due to the language barrier and at 6 weeks (almost to the day) every non-English speaker I’ve had has started speaking enough English to feel confident enough to participate in the class. And we had a huge break through on Friday. He learned the phrase “what’s that?” so now, he points and asks that about 300 times a day but it’s better than him not having a clue as to what’s going on and chucking stuff across the room out of frustration. Also, next week the ESL teachers start doing pull-out work and lucky for the kindergarteners our ESL teacher speaks both English and Somali so they really like working with her.

And my third is a boy who has made it very obvious that I am clearly a serious inconvenience in his life. Some examples:

Me: A-M, please stop talking we are waiting for you.

A-M: (in a very exasperated tone) Okay. Fine. (and then the talking starts right back up again).

or

Me: A-M, you need to clean up. I already asked you once and [math, art, learning labs, journaling] is over now. You need to stop and clean up.

A-M: (eyes rolling) Uugh, okay, okay. Fine. (and continues to do what I asked him to stop).

Basically, I’m just in the way of him doing whatever he feels like doing. I’ve already told him that I was going to have to call and talk to his dad about the way he is acting and he looked right at me and said “my dad let’s me stop when I want.” Great. So now I have to fix the behavior of the parent and the kid. Well, it’s going to be a long year for him sitting in the take a break chair.

Please do not baby your children.

Thank you.

Signed,

Your Child’s Kindergarten Teacher

——

If you are curious if you fall into that category, here’s a list of the things your child should be capable of doing by the time they go to kindergarten.

1. Put on and take off their coat.

2. Zip their coat.

3. Pull up and down their own pants.

4. Button/snap their pants.

5. Eat with a spoon or fork.

6. Hang up coat/backpack on a hook.

7. Follow simple directions (i.e. put your coat on, sit down)

8. Understand what “no” means.

9. Wait their turn.

10. Some concept of sharing.

If your kids can do these things, your kindergarten teacher will be very excited.

Here’s my classroom the Wednesday before school started. At this point I’d already been working about 8 hours moving furniture and getting things set up.

And here’s what it looks like after 3 days of students being in school:

Yes, I do have “under construction” tape over all my shelves. The kids know that they can’t use those toys until they have learned how to play with them appropriately. It will take until about mid-September for all the tape to come off.

Kindergarteners:

1. “Can I off my jacket?” (Can I take off my jacket?)
2. “He has a bleed.” (He’s got a cut/scrape/bruise/any random minor injury.)
3. “I like your hair cut” (I like your hair style)
4. “Why me no?” (Why are you saying no to me?)
5. “Then you’ll get dead.” (Then you’ll get hurt - it’s amazing how many of my kids have family members who “die” over the weekend, when really they just needed a band-aide)
6. “The table lost it.” (I put it on the table and now I can’t find it

Ms. Abby:

1. Hands are not for hitting.
2. If it’s not food, it does not go in your mouth.
3. 1-2-3-4 No more.
4. 5-4-3-2-1-zero voices.
5. If I can hear you, you’re too loud.
6. When my voice is on, your voice is off.
7. I’ll wait.
8. Are you tatteling? If he’s not bleeding, crying or throwing up, you can fix the problem yourself.
9. Did you try before you asked me? Go back and try.
10. Ms. Abby is not a trash can. (For some reason they feel the need to hand me every piece of trash they find on the ground)

And as an added bonus:

The most ridiculous conversation I’ve had in 3 years of teaching kindergarten:

Me: “F, Why is your underwear in the middle of the floor?”

F: “Because it fell out of my pocket.”

One of the kids in my class is about 4 inches taller than my 2 1/2 year old. And today he decked the tallest kid in kindergarten. I’m not sure what started it (it happened during the chaos of lining up 80 kids to go outside for recess) but I looked and there was the tallest kid in kindergarten doubled over with the wind knocked out of him because my little guy sucker punched him in the gut (or at least I assumed he punched him).

When I question him later the punch was apparently retaliation for calling him short. And I also found out it wasn’t a punch. When this kid is mad, he head-butts people and because of his height, he’s like a battering ram, straight for the stomach. I witnessed his technique when another student decided to try their luck with calling him short. At least this one I was able to stop before he made contact.

This probably won’t be of interest to anyone but me, but I want to get it down so when I am ready to toss kids out the window in December I can look back and remember that at one point I did think they were cute. And just to warn you, I’ll be doing that annoying initials thing instead of real names just to be on the safe side.

First day started off a little crazy. There was some type of bus mix up (which means they had no idea who to pick up where) so at 7:55 I still had only 8 kids. By the end of breakfast I was up to 13. I had 8 girls and 5 boys which is fine with me. Last year I had 20 kids and only 6 were girls so this year is already looking up.

I know we are still in the “honeymoon” phase of school so I’m not going to pretend that just because today was good the rest of the year will be too but hey, a girl can hope right?

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