The children have been SO loud this week. One theory is that they have created a calling tree and they are scheming at night how they can make their teachers cranky. Another theory is that it is January – the worst month of the year. Regardless, towards the end of the day yesterday, I was trying to teach math to a group of about 11 kindergartners. We were sitting on the carpet and I was telling an enthralling tale about my farm (this would eventually lead to a sorting lesson) and as I looked around, not a child was listening to me. My EA was having a similar problem in the pod. She later reported that one kid was eating a penny, one kids was shaking a bag of pennies, and one kid was banging his work-tray on the table. I expressed very sadly to my students how frustrated I felt that no one was listening, and I didn’t know what to do anymore. I was hoping to guilt them into behaving 
but no. The loudest response:
Maybe you should just give up.
To which I of course responded: maybe I will.
Also, I was recently reminded of an awesome teaching moment from last week. I don’t think I shared it on here. But if I did – you will be fine if you read it again.
We were brainstorming sentences with our new star word “to”. Several children had offered up sentences. Then one child suggests: “I like to learn.” What a suck up answer. I mean – I’m so glad I’m instilling a love of learning into these kids. :) Not to be outdone, then next kid plays on my interests, saying, “I like the Twins.” awesome sentence! Fails the assignment though. I don’t ask much. Just for them to use the word “to” in a sentence.
And finally… we learned about kids in China getting red envelopes with money in it for good luck for their birthdays. We did a follow-up project involving fake paper money inside a red envelope. Apparently a group of 5 or 6 kids planned to go to the movies together that night. They would be bringing their newly acquired money with. Good luck with that, kids.
