Posted by Teacher Ria in Reflections, Teacher's Corner | 0 Comments

Unexpected Surprises

I love you Teacher!

Today I woke up feeling a wee bit under the weather and with very little inspiration in my heart. Add to that, tired eyes from another sleepless night compounded by endless palpitations that was driving me nuts. I don’t really know what it was, but I just knew I was starting things off on the wrong foot. Before leaving for work, I posted a message on my Plurk page saying that I was feeling a bit emotionally, physically and mentally tired and that I could really use a hug, which my Plurk buddies readily gave. However, I still found myself wishing for something more. Like I said, I don’t really know where it was coming from, but I just felt soooo zapped of all positive energy in me and I was feeling kinda low.

Just before classes started, I checked on my Facebook page and saw a wall post from a friend who was wishing me well because of my earlier messages and I quickly sent back a reply before beginning circle time which said: “i am okay thank you very much i could use a hug and some positive energy, but im fine see you later”. Just as I logged off from my mobile connection, one of my little kiddos suddenly came up to me and just threw his arms around me and gave me a loooong squeeze and said, “I love you, Teacher”.

*heart melts*

I wasn’t really expecting it and when it happened, all I could think of was how amazing it is to work with kids. We kinda think it is us giving something to them and touching their lives to make a difference, but the truth is, often times, it’s the other way around. Today my heart was full of joy because of that unexpected surprise.

This is truly one of the priceless joys of preschool teaching.

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Term-end Analysis

Even though I have been teaching for so, so long, I still find myself surprised at how quickly a trimester goes. It feels like we just started yesterday, but here I am again, checking their papers and working on grades. Despite this term starting off on the wrong foot for me (for some reason I had difficulty getting into the groove of things, why I don’t really know, but it was not as natural and spontaneous for me this time), I enjoyed my classes very much. I also liked the outputs that came out of my various classes, especially the advocacy and information dissemination campaigns we did, both for abnormal psychology and for another subject.

My goal for these projects was simple: to campaign for understanding for their assigned mental disorder (for abnormal psychology) and to promote solutions for simple day to day social problems.

In their projects, I had the students make videos that would make their assigned issue simple and understandable to an ordinary person. I told them to also supplement these with inspirational posters that will drive their messages home.  I also encouraged them to make their campaigns as multi-modal as possible. Some of them designed pins and buttons with funny quotes and some even made board games about their topics.  There were some who even designed shirts (similar to those Cafepress funny tshirts) to highlight how simple it can be to solve everyday problems if we just try.

Those projects were definitely the highlight of my term I loved how this also engaged the students in a different type of learning activity that let them tap into their different potentials. Overall, I have to say the effort of my batch of kids this term made me feel good about teaching, especially since I tend to be a more non-traditional teacher. This term, I felt that for the most part, they appreciated that too

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Posted by Teacher Ria in Featured, Reflections, Teacher's Corner | 1 Comment

Missing my Little Cara-tot

I would be lying if I said I don’t have class favorites.

Let me qualify that statement: I have kids who I feel more connected to compared to others, but this does not mean I don’t treat my kids equally. Some of them just have the uncanny ability of tugging at my heartstrings. To be fair, I keep my emotions in check when I work with the children in class, and I make sure to have my partner tell me if she feels I am paying too much attention to one over the other.

The thing is, as hard as I try not to get attached to some other kids, I can’t help but fall for some of them. Perhaps it’s because of a certain need they have, or a difficulty we worked through together, or simply because he or she is simply adorable and can make me laugh, whatever it is, some of them creep slowly into my heart and stay there for a long, long time.

Cara was one of those little kids who touched my heart and has stayed there despite the fact that she has been gone for the past two school years already.

I guess what made Cara so special to me was that she was in the first class I taught after returning from my two year retirement from preschool teaching and she was one of my biggest success stories ever! She transformed from a very clingy (yes, with matching cry, kick and may-I-throw-you-a-tantrum daily) little girl who refused to talk to anyone except her cousin Rafa and her nanny to a confident and sociable child in a few months. At first she would not allow me to hold her and would really cry if her yaya was asked to wait in the nanny area already.

Posted by Teacher Ria in Classroom Escapades, Featured, Lesson Plans, Outside the Classroom, Preschool | 0 Comments

When Nature Has Other Plans

Often times in a preschool teachers life she will find that no matter how well in advance she has planned her lessons, things happen that change the course of this discussion. In my personal experience, this has happened countless times, both for the good and the bad. Sometimes these changes are due to faulty equipment or at times due to a more pressing interest in another topic or stimuli, whatever it is, the teachers job is to adjust to these changes and not get caught up with the “plan”.

When I was starting out, I occasionally struggled with that. It took some time for me to really embrace the idea that no matter what I do or say, if the children are intent on something else, I better just go with it. And what I realized from this is by going with the children’s flow, I would find they learned better and they remembered these lessons even years later.

One example of these sudden changes was when I ran into Mother Nature as I taught my kids about animals and bugs. As part of our Math lesson, I had them go through an investigative bug hunt. The task was for them to look for the plastic bugs and pictures of animals I had hidden around the playground and to count the number of legs these bugs had, then we were to chart this and compare which had more or less . Armed with a magnifying glass and a record sheet, we set out in search for these little critters.

Posted by Teacher Ria in Featured, Reflections, Teacher's Corner | 0 Comments

When Students Grow Up

fellow bloggers with SM Winema Project Head, Sharon Yu…

yes…she used to be my student!

One of the most rewarding things for me as a teacher is seeing my kids grow up to become their own people. Over the years I have received updates from parents bubbling with pride over their child’s latest accomplishments and every time I get these messages, I feel a surge of pride rush in me. Even though I know a lot has happened since they were in my class, I can’t help but feel I am part of that growth and progress as well, even just a little bit.

In the past two years, my very first preschoolers have graduated from elementary school and are now in high school. It’s amazing how quickly time flies and in my head, I still think of them as the little kids I used to carry around!

My college kids have graduated too. I guess that’s even stranger for me than having the little ones grow up! For one, a guy from the very first class I taught in the university is now my colleague in the department. More than that, he’s a very accomplished researcher. I also have found myself “working” with former students in a totally different capacity now. Since I have gotten into this blogging thing, I have run in to two former students from an advertising/marketing class I once taught. The last time I saw one of them, we had a long talk about the movie Inception and about Psychology. And you know what, for some reason, I felt so tongue-tied and clueless all of a sudden!!!

In any case, seeing them grow up has truly been a testament to why I do this job

Posted by Teacher Ria in Teacher's Corner | 0 Comments

Keeping Kids Safe In School

One of the biggest things I worry about as a teacher is my kids’ safety. Be it during play time or dismissal time, I want to be sure they are as safe as possible. This is why I always tell remind my co-teachers that we should never have our backs turned to the kids. Perhaps I may be hypervigilant about this, but it has always been one of the things I am overly attentive with. For example, even during dismissal time, I feel uncomfortable leaving the kids with their nannies in the waiting area because it’s not very child-friendly. For one, it’s hot. Secondly, it’s cemented and quite a small area. That’s why I always ask my kids to stay inside the library or play area while waiting.

I have had my fair share of accidents in school, despite my vigilance. The worst of which was when one little girl ran down the steps and hit her head. Even though the step was somewhat padded, because of the pebble wash under the padding, she got a HUGE bump on her forehead. What made things worse was I was unable to reach her mom immediately and the child’s nanny did not inform her as well that I wanted to talk to her until late in the evening. That was definitely the worst experience ever.

The thing I fear the most, though, is accidentally losing a child from the school premises. Thankfully, we have strict guidelines and procedures for pick-up time and during class hours to ensure that the kids are not taken without our knowledge, even if this is by their parents. We make sure that one of us will physically hand-off the kids to the parent/driver or whoever is assigned to pick him/her up.

Here are other safety tips and reminders for all of us teachers:

1. Childproof your school furniture, including electrical sockets, table corners and doors.

2. Have nanny-safety seminars once a semester to remind them of rules and reminders about kid safety.

3. Empower your teachers with CPR and emergency training.

4. Make sure your fire extinguishers, first aid kits, and emergency sets are in place.

5. Install a security system (such as CCTV’s) as well as heavy duty Kwikset locks/handles and barrel bolts that kids cannot manipulate on their own (yes, even a four year old can manage to unlock doors!) so there’s no way they can’t get out alone.

6. Do emergency evacuation drills periodically.

These are just a few safety tips and reminders. Do you have other suggestions?

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Posted by Teacher Ria in Teacher's Corner | 0 Comments

What are we teaching our children?

A few months ago, I came across this pack of candy that I thought was quite cute. It was a play on one of the popular cigarette brands that said “Sucking Does Not Kill”. I liked how, in it’s small way, it implies that smoking is dangerous to ones health while the candy, well, it’s a better alternative, right?

However, days later I came across this one in a local grocery store:

I was quite shocked and angered by what I had seen. This actually encourages young children to think smoking is cool Grrr.

Posted by Teacher Ria in Teacher's Corner | 1 Comment

Things you don’t want your teacher to know…

I’m sure there are a whole lotta things you hide from your teacher, such as your little notes about him or her, or the caricatures you doodle to make fun of them, but of all, I think this is one thing you don’t want your teacher to know:

Free essays, eh? Hmmmm.

I got this in my email inbox not too long ago, after I assigned an essay to my students. Definitely not the kind of thing you want your teacher to see.

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Posted by Teacher Ria in Arts and Crafts, Teacher's Corner, The Library, Tips and Tricks | 2 Comments

My Concept Wall

It’s been over a month since classes started and I realized I still have not posted what my classroom concept wall looks like. With no further ado, here it is!
The caterpillar is actually a recycled one from my Toddlers days but I love it so much I decided to keep it, even if my students don’t really need it. For the calendar, I decided to up the ante by having the kids master the concepts of yesterday, today and tomorrow.

My favorite feature, however, is the reading train. My co-teacher painted that over the summer There are a series of pockets which currently hold our various word lists. An alternative I was thinking of is tracking titles of books we read throughout the month. Fun idea, huh?

Join in and jump aboard the reading train!

Posted by Teacher Ria in Teacher's Corner | 0 Comments

Child-proofing and room safety

One of the most common accidents that happen in school is what we call in Tagalog “nakanto”, or when a child hits the corner of a shelf or a table. One way we address this in our school is by making sure the tables we get have rounded edges, but these are not really a dime a dozen, right? I was once able to buy those plastic office furniture kid safety pads (those plastic thingies that you slip to the corners of a table) but we lost two of them. Now, I can’t seem to find replacements In the meantime, we placed cut-up sponges in the corners.

Another common classroom accident are fingers caught in the door We were able to find a rubber foam stopper that helped eradicate this problem in school. It’s looks like a butterfly and it helps block the door from closing completely, so tiny fingers don’t get caught even though you close the door. Will post a picture of it soon!

The scariest room danger, however, are electrical outlets. It’s like no matter what you say, children seem to gravitate towards them. I’m glad we were finally able to find those socket blockers so now I feel much better about it. Before, what we could do would be to cover up the outlet itself by putting a shelf in front of it or hiding it behind posters and charts.

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Posted by Teacher Ria in Multimedia Center, Teacher's Corner, Teaching Resources, The Library | 2 Comments

Learning Position Words on P.E. Day

One of the highlights of this week in the Seniors Class was P.E. Day. However, rather than it being a typical P.E. day, I decided to integrate vocabulary building into the activity. Keeping in mind the song “Going on a Bear Hunt”, the kids and I played games that let us go over, under, through and around things!

The kids had a blast! I guess I can say I did too…even though I was dripping with sweat the whole time through since it was quite a warm day. I was huffing and puffing my way through it too, especially since I know I’m not very fit nowadays! The activity was quite a workout! Admittedly,  activities like these sure can beat even the best weight loss supplements in the market! Maybe I should do a little more of these and soon I’d see results…imagine that…teaching kids plus losing weight! Woot!

Anyway, for those not familiar with the song “Going on a Bear Hunt” , here’s how it goes (it comes in different ways, but here’s what I often use)

Going on A Bear Hunt
I’m going on a bear hunt
I’m not afraid!
What’s that?
Tall grass!
Can’t  go under it,
Can’t go over it.
I guess we will have to through it!
Whew!

I’m going on a bear hunt
I’m not afraid!
What’s that?
It’s a great big tree
Can’t  go under it,
Can’t go through it.
I guess we will have to climb over it!
Whew!

I’m going on a bear hunt
I’m not afraid!
What’s that?
It’s a bridge
Can’t  go under it,
Can’t go through it.
I guess we will have to walk over it!
Whew!

I’m going on a bear hunt.
I’m not afraid.
What’s that?
It’s a river!
Can’t go over it
Can’t go under it?
I guess we will have to swim through it!
Whew!

I’m going on a bear hunt.
I’m not afraid.
What’s that?
It’s a deep dark cave!
Can’t go over it
Can’t  go under it
I think we are going to have to go in it.
Shh!

I feel something furry!!
It has a big nose!!
What’s that??? (pause)

IT IS A BEAR!!!!

Run out of the cave
Swim back through the river
Climb back over the tree
Go into the house and slam the door. BAM!!
I wasn’t afraid. Were you?

Check out You Tube too, there are lots of fun versions of it. This is my favorite:

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Posted by Teacher Ria in Teacher's Corner | 2 Comments

Theives among us

When I was a preschooler, I stole a red crayon. I will always remember how I had gotten caught with that elicit crayon and how I got a bad spanking for it. Not only that, I got a pretty long time out for it. Back then, I wasn’t really aware that taking things that weren’t mine was bad. After that incident, however, I knew better than to take things that were not mine.

Nowadays, students (as well as other people around)  in schools steal more than just crayons. Just last week, we received a memo in the school warning us about keeping our things safe, even inside our offices. Apparently, a department near us had an incident wherein someone’s laptop and other things had gotten stolen.

I guess because it’s our workspace, we take for granted that things are safe, but this incident served as a reminder to me to be more cautious, especially given how difficult times are now so many resort to stealing to make ends meet. It worries me sometimes because I am the type of teacher who cannot leave home without my laptop. I’ve actually thought about getting a laptop insurance policy, but I figured more than losing the actual laptop, it’s the data in it that matters most. Because of that, I started backing up all my files and making sure that I have equipment and gear that can keep my gadgets secure.  Also, I took down the serial number of my gadgets so in case of anything, I can have something to trace it with. Honestly, because of the incident, I began to appreciate the tiresome task of getting a laptop pass when we enter school!!!

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Posted by Teacher Ria in Classroom Escapades, Featured, Teacher's Corner | 2 Comments

The Seniors Go Investigating!

The first week of school has come and gone and I’d like to think we got off to a good start!

Like I mentioned in my previous post, majority of my students came from my class last school year so getting to know you activities are not as extensive. Also, since they are mostly familiar with the school, touring the facility was nothing new to them.

As such, I decided to make our school tour more than just a “getting to know my school” activity. I decided to do a thinking exercise to get our learning process started. I also thought that this would be a good way to assess their present capabilities and also gauge what my the two new additions to my class can do.

I started out with a drawing activity with the kids making a picture about what they think they can do, see, find or use in Playschool.

Here are a few examples of their responses:

Then we charted out their ideas and finally set off around the school to find out more about their hypotheses. After finding out if those things they drew were present in school or not, we also had brief discussions about what these were for, where it could be found and how to use these things. At the end, we had this chart:

It was a fun activity, although it was so hot so the kids and I ended up so sweaty and exhausted afterward!

This is definitely the kind of things I will miss when I “retire” from being a preschool teacher. Like many of my readers know, I am planning to make this year my last teaching year because I am no spring chicken anymore! I can feel the age creeping in. Although I do hope I can still do some consultancy or administrative work in the preschool level in the future. However, while it may be physically gentler for me, I’m sure it will be an adjustment to me, especially when it comes to the nitty-gritty details of the job such as filing business credit reports, wading through paperwork, attending to payroll, and making sure the bills are paid on time. Plus of course making sure the teachers get their benefits and the school turns a profit. Now that I think about it, it appears that teaching the kids may be a wiser decision!!!

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The Power of Information

I believe very strongly in the power of information. More than any weapon, information empowers and individual to make the right choices and to affect change in their lives. This is why I believe in including an updated version of health education in the school systems, including talking about sex, drugs, alcohol and it’s consequences in one’s life.

While many may argue that talking about these things only spark their curiosity, I  would argue that it quells the curiosity as answers are given. Because these things lose it’s enticing qualities, it can be seen in a more matter-of-fact, direct point of view. Of course I think that boundaries should be set and observed while discussing these things. Also, it should be age-appropriate. For example, talking to adolescent girls about proper weight loss and the pros and cons of using diet pills such as Lipovox allows them to have a more realistic view about body image and issues surrounding it. This helps them realize that what friends or movies say may not necessarily be correct.

Of course this should be taken with caution. For me, my mom was always very open about issues and concerns. Given that she is a smoker, she never gave me falsehoods about it, which I think contributed to the reason why I never did it myself.

Empowering people with information is a preventive measure. Rather than solving the problem after it happens, by giving people the right information at the right time gives them better opportunities for the right choice.

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Posted by Teacher Ria in Teacher's Corner | 2 Comments

First Day of School Activities

Tomorrow marks the opening of classes for most schools. While the day can be marked with excitement, it can also be the most stressful and anxiety-provoking days for teachers, parents and students alike.

For my preschoolers, what I try to do to ease the stress is to welcome them to a warm and nurturing classroom, but not one that is too overwhelming and loud. Lucky for me, this year out of my nine enrolled students, eight of them were classmates last school year so the adjustment is less difficult.

Some activities I do to make the day fun are as follows:

• Name-tag making activities. Using pre-printed name plates, I allow my kids to decorate their name tags which I then place in their tabletops to mark their places.
• Parent-child singing activities. This is especially true for the younger kids. What I do is have mommy/daddy/yaya join us in a brief circle time session where we sing hello and introduce ourselves. Then, after a few minutes, I ask the adults to move to one side and just watch from that end. While this is happening, I discourage to much interaction and picture taking, but that’s quite difficult!
• My First Day of School Portraits. I let the kids draw their portraits about how they felt about their first day of school. For younger kids, I pre-print a happy face and just have them color it but for the older ones, I let them draw free hand. We also take pictures that we can print later on.

One thing that really helps with the adjustment to the first day of school is to have parents be relaxed about the idea of leaving their kids behind. Remember, parents, if you are anxious, the kids feed off of this

Have a good first day of school!

Posted by Teacher Ria in Reflections, Teacher's Corner | 0 Comments

Seniors Class Here I Come!

Just a few more days and classes officially open! Here are some photos of the school’s face lift.

Of course, genius me forgot to take photos of my own classroom hehehe! Will update that soon. I’m kinda looking forward to the new school year (I say ‘kinda’ because I’m still struggling with the having to wake up early part!) because I will be handling the seniors class (4′s and 5′s) again. It will be the first time since around 2006, if I remember correctly, for me to handle the older kids again. Much as the younger toddlers and juniors are a lot of fun to work with, I like the fact that the seniors are so much more independent and conversational. I love listening to the banter they exchange, plus they are really developing their own personalities more distinctly at that age. They’re more concrete in expressing their emotions and ideas, which is a joy for me.  They’re also able to translate this to actions, words and drawings more effectively too. Their drawings and artworks are so endearing too! In fact,  I love receiving their little personalized gifts such as drawings and notes from them. These are things I always cherish and till now, I keep them in a box. The last thing I’m looking forward to this school year is the fact that many of my kids from last year will be coming back, so that should be a blast! So for now, Teacher Ria is counting down the days till Wednesday, the first day of school!

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