Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Kids Just Wanna Have Fun . . .

While sitting at my daughter's gymnastics class yesterday, I was thinking about just how much we have squeezed the fun out of school. Watching her be so happy and laughing while she was learning the new routine made me jealous of her teacher. I seriously thought about quitting my job and becoming a gymnastics instructor. (If you know me then you know that is pretty funny. I may have been a cheerleader when I was in school, but all my coordination left after having two kids. I'm lucky if I can get through a day without tripping at least twice!) The point is that I miss seeing my students laugh and play.

Kids need to have fun. Let me say that again - they really NEED to have fun. As teachers, we put so much emphasis on learning the standards so that they can pass the state assessments that we have taken out all of the fun. I saw a funny political comic the other day about how we are just creating "children of the core". It's true. Even though our children come in very different, we are expected to have them exit our classrooms at the end of the year knowing all of the same material and we truly have taken all of the fun out of it. Recently we even had to take away recess. We can sneak it in every now and then, but the fact is there is too much to teach and too little time. My eight and nine year olds are having to sit in a classroom all day long and learn. What kind of a childhood is that? It's not much better than going to work all day long.

How do I add fun back into the classroom?  Dancing. It's pretty simple. If the students work hard and get all of their required work done in time, I play a Just Dance video for them at the end of class. They are pretty easy to find on YouTube. The kids enjoy them because they are current pop songs and I enjoy them because I LOVE seeing my babies happy. Their true personalities get to come out. They get a much needed brain break and they get to develop socially.

Sometimes I will even throw them in when I start to notice that I am losing them. I always find something positive someone has done - "Oh, my goodness! Tommy has written so neatly today! Guess what? He earned the whole class a brain break!" The children then get 3 minutes to recharge their brains and have fun and come back ready to learn.

There are other brain breaks out there - just Google "brain breaks". However, I really enjoy watching my students have fun and get to be themselves through dancing. I warn you though, the ones who you think are quiet and shy will truly show out and be the craziest dancers!


Wednesday, November 13, 2013

You're Gonna Get Sick . . .

I was a pretty fortunate kid when it came to illnesses. I made it through twelfth grade without missing a day of school. Yes, you read that right. I did not miss one day of school. I never got sick, at least on a school day, I never got lice and I never even got pink eye. My body was filled with amazing antibodies that kept me healthy. That is, until I became a teacher.

If you want to know what's it's like to be sneezed on, just step into a kindergarten class. Five year olds are notorious for blowing their snot all over anyone who comes near them. When I first started teaching I figured I must be immune to all of the germs since I barely ever got sick. I was so wrong. I never thought it was possible to run out of sick days until I actually did my first year.

My second year I decided I was going to face the battle head on. I bought every product on the market to ward off any germs that I might come across. Needless to say, I once again ran out of sick days. Was I doing something wrong? How would I ever get to enjoy a personal day off without being stuck in bed? I had to figure something out.

Eventually, things got better. I realized that your first few years just stink. Your body needs to figure out what to do with all these new germs. I still get the occasional cold, but nothing like when I first started out. That's the good news.

The bad news is that there is always something new. A few years ago, I hugged one of my precious students and once I let go of her I saw the dreaded lice crawling in her eyebrows. I'm not lying when I say that is the worst thing a teacher with long hair can ever see. Yep, I got lice for the first time ever and what was even worse was that it was on my birthday weekend.

I have had my share of sicknesses go around the schools I have worked at - scabies, pink eye, fifth disease - you name it, I have seen it. Is there a sure way to escape it? I wish. Should you just avoid all contact with your students? Ha - good luck with that one! My tips for you are to sanitize your classroom on a regular basis, eat a healthy diet (yes, chocolate is healthy), and just know that part of the wonderful teaching career is that you are gonna get sick.