Gang signs and stuff...

With our change in population this year, we have some other changes that apparently come along. For instance, for the second time yesterday, I had a gang sign thrown up at me from a five-year-old... So that's nice. When I spoke to the child about it, it was clear that he had no idea what it meant. He said he learned it from his little sister, and it means "hi." So he's seeing it done, but with no knowledge of what it actually is. Still a little much.

My crier has been crying slightly less, but still likes to inform me, "I'm done." or "No I don't want to do that." But I just ignore him and forge ahead. And when he tried to start the tears today, I just reminded him, "Oh no, remember, in kindergarten crying doesn't mean you don't have to do it. You'll have to anyway." Then I just ignored the fake tears and asked him what he wanted to write about today. Worked well.

So I was really impressed with one child who started last week, knowing all of her letters and almost all sounds. She was one that I thought would know nothing. Came to find out that she is on year two of kindergarten right now, and will be 7 years old in November. So that explains her knowledge. She has lots of paperwork in her cumulative review, and I'm really worried about a potentially bad home life, already from my experience, and justified with the paperwork from her two previous schools from last year. I've already given her 4 shirts, because she comes in the same jumper almost every day, with no shirt under it. We shall see. Tionna take two, anyone?

I started literacy centers yesterday, and they're going so well! The kids are loving them, not to mention doing really well with the independence of them, and I am so pleased! The centers are making the first letter of your name with clay (which they will paint in their next round of centers), writing your name in shaving cream on the table (practicing upper and lowercase letters), listening to Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you see? on tape and making/ coloring your own, illustrating our poem we've been working on, creating the cover to the book they've been making, and making your name out of beans. So we're obviously working a lot on names right now. It's so fun to see how successful the centers are and how successful the kids feel!

Have I mentioned yet that I love my kids? Gosh I love my kids.