Let’s face it, just go ahead and say it out loud, teaching virtual kindergarten is hard as heck!

Indicative of life really but, man teaching virtual kindergarten is hard, really hard! At times it’s downright awful, gosh awful! But then something happens, you get a text from a cohort or you make a simple statement that changes someone’s day for the better and gosh awful is good, at least for that moment. And, if we are really lucky something amazing happens and even the good takes a backseat to great!

The Good in Teaching Virtual Kindergarten…                    

If we so choose, we can find goodness in everything. I recently read an article on toxic positivity, specifically in the teaching profession. What author Julie Mason penned on the topic was absolutely accurate. When I say find the goodness, I’m not talking about pushing down the gosh awful realities, pretending that they don’t exist. They do, they are very real and extremely harmful. But in everything we can find some goodness, even if it’s a tiny speck, it’s still good.

As a virtual teacher, especially in the beginning, my good list was short, very short, less than a whole hand short! It went like this…

1. I still have a job.
2. I am getting to live my dream of working with a specific co-worker I have wanted to work with for the past 12 years.

That was it. And of the two, working with Joy kept me going when I wanted to throw in the towel.

Now, a whopping two and half months on the virtual journey, the list has grown.

1.  I still get to work with Joy!
2. I have begun to make connections with my students and their families.
3. I have started to master the learning platforms we are using.
4. I had two whole nights where I didn’t have work to do at home.
5. My duties at my school site have been reduced so I have less interruptions and can be more productive.
6. I have developed great working relationships with four new cohorts.

These are the specks of goodness that I cling to when the gosh awful rears its ugly head. Which is pretty much every day when teaching virtual kindergarten.

The Gosh Awful…       

These are the things that are weighing me down. Well, not just me, my whole team. These are the things we can’t seem to get away from. The Things we struggle through on a daily basis. The things that make us wonder if it’s all worth it.

1. Excessive work hours. We’re talking between 30 and 40 hours of overtime a week. Just to keep our heads above water.
2. Constant changes. Weekly, sometimes daily changes in learning platforms, policies, and leadership.
3. Becoming an instant IT help line. Only problem there is we don’t have enough knowledge to problem solve our own issues, let alone the parent/student side.
4. Having to create a digital curriculum from the ground up. I love creating so this isn’t so gosh awful unless you don’t have the time to make it quality because you are only working a week ahead of your students.
5. Negative Nelly. She’s everywhere isn’t she? Never invited but always showing up. And always the loudest voice. She’s a strain, a drain and a time waster.
6. Lack of understanding. No one gets it because no one has ever been here before. These uncharted waters are really miles and miles of deadly rapids.

If the gosh awful was all we had, all we saw, all we felt it wouldn’t be worth it. Not worth it for our physical health, our mental stability or our professional demeanor. At some point in this journey each has suffered.

Why do we do it? Why do we go back day after day, after day? Why battle through the gosh awful for just the occasional piece of the good? Because at the most needed moment God sends us the great!

The Great in Teaching Virtual Kindergarten…                   

Let’s make sure we’re on the same page before I launch into my list of the great. It’s not me! It’s not me suddenly reaching the panicle of greatness. It’s not me doing something that causes the great. The great comes in those moments that happen to edify our spirit, to push us over the hump or to give us the renewed energy we need to face the gosh awful.

The great is like an awe-ha moment in a child’s learning. The great gives us pause or stops us in your tracks. Sometimes it even brings tears to our eyes because it touches us so deeply.

The great in my virtual journey…

1. The Mom who told me that she loves watching the videos of me teaching. She appreciates the way I interact with my students as if they are sitting right in front of me even though she knows I am talking to a screen. (Let me put this in perspective, I teach to a green child’s refrigerator from my housekeeping center.)
2. The Mom who says she loves getting to see firsthand how her son is learning. She’s loving the opportunity to get to see a side of his education that she’s never really gotten to see before.
3. The child who ends nearly every video with “I love you teacher!”
4. The child who can’t be silenced during a virtual conference because he has so much he wants to tell me. When asked to wait he said, “I just can’t I love her so much!”
5. The cohort who soothes my heart when I feel like I have failed.
6. The support that six women give each other as together we work to ignite learning in 125 kindergarteners.
7. The video clips of five and six year olds showing evidence of their learning in true kindergarten fashion. Seriously, they can be hilarious.

These, these moments when the great shows up! These are why I keep at. Why I know that we can do this. Why I know we can survive the gosh awful.

Of the three, we see more of the gosh awful when teaching virtual kindergarten than we do of the great but we can train ourselves to look for the tiniest spark of the good. We must grab hold of the good so that it sustains us through the gosh awful and onto the great.

My classroom is a mess!

Learning tools and activities are still stashed in boxes, having been tossed on shelves in a speedy effort to close down my classroom in a matter of hours instead of days. Tiny chairs remain stacked, tables flipped one on top of the other, book baskets sit empty, looking abandoned instead of over flowing with readers. Cubbies filled to the brim with miscellaneous odds and ends from all over our once living classroom, instead of colorful backpacks and leaky water bottles.

It’ October, not August, it shouldn’t look this way. It shouldn’t be so silent.

I sit at my desk, now there’s a foreign statement for a kindergarten teacher. But I do. I sit at my desk from 8:30 to 10:55 when I head to my lunch duty where I spend 30 minutes interacting with kindergarteners. They aren’t mine. I’m not responsible for their academic learning. I don’t even see them every day. Yes, we chat and laugh and I teach them life skills, like how to open their milk cartons and stab oranges with the end of a spork. But they don’t fill my room with laughter and awe-ha moments. I turn them back over to their teachers at 11:30 and return to my silent room to once again take up my place behind my computer for the remainder of the day. I leave around 4 ish but I’m not finished. I have hours more work ahead of me.

I hear you. Don’t do it. Don’t take it home. You’re contract ends at 4 you need time to recover and to “self-care”. I hear you. And I should heed that advice. I’ve given it to so many new teachers over the years.

But this year…

I can’t. I won’t. I am working against the effects of COVID and I will not let this virus win! I will not fail the children in my charge! And right now, that means extra hours, tired eyes, tight shoulders, stress, so much stress and a mind that, unlike my classroom, is never silent.  

My classroom may be silent, but my computer and phone are on fire! I am supporting 20 of my own families and 5 teachers as together we endeavor to teach, love and grow tiny humans virtually. Honestly, knowing where we came from to where we are now. We are rockin’ it! It’s not perfect but we’re making it. Together, we’re making it.

In the last two and half months we have learned a new program, dropped that program, become experts on two new programs, learned to make videos like professionals, figured out how to assess squirrely kinders on-line, hold meetings on Google Meet,  gathered and sorted data, made changes midstride, been frustrated, had successes and celebrated milestones. And been ever so thankful for each other!

The year isn’t over, not even close. More changes will come but there is only one thing that truly matters – are they learning?

The answer – yes, yes they are.

In the end that’s all that matters!

So take that COVID!

It seems like Word Families are the focus in kindergarten right now, at least at our urban school. Cute Word Family hats parade up and down our halls on the heads of our kinders. Even in my pre-k class I have a student currently working on word families! This exception to the rule came to me as a fluent reader! By fluent I mean I handed this four-year-old a Curious George book the other day at nap time and the whole thing was read, no help, the whole book!

Since moving down to pre-k three years ago, Word Families, haven’t really been on my radar. Well suffice it to say they are now! I use them not because this child needs help reading but to provide practice with word manipulation. You know changing letters to make a new word.

That said, I have been updating and redoing my Word Family Unit. Eeek! So exciting, I truly love creating these units and it’s so rewarding to watch them have a positive effect on my students’ learning.  I really prefer to upload units as a finished project but I haven’t posted anything new in a while and don’t want you guys to think I have vanished. I haven’t, just been uber busy like the rest of you.

        Our Word Family Unit will consist of the following for each word family we upload.

• Teacher Reader – Full Color

• Student Reader – Black & White, prints 2 readers at a time

• Word List – to use for homework

• Circle & Write

• Alphabetical Order

• Configuration

• Finish the Word

• Word Search

Pages that I print as a double sided worksheet are in one file. For example, Circle & Write and Alphabetical Order I make a double sided worksheet so they will be in one file. You don’t have to use them this way, it will just help you find them more easily if you know how I created them.

As always we encourage you to make these printables work for you and your students.

Enjoy!
Kasey

Oh you guys! I hate cleaning!

I enjoy the benefits of clean spaces but I hate the work! However we must accomplish the tasks every once in a long while. Therefore, spring cleaning is coming early to Milton & Prescott. Not our website but our Pinterest page.

When I started Milton & Prescott in 2016 I changed my personal Pinterest account to a business account to take advantage of all my followers. Good move maybe, maybe not, but it’s done and now I post all kinds of stuff to that page. Well no more! When you follow Milton & Prescott you will get only educational related pins. Well that’s the plan. It will take me awhile to get everything organized and settled into good categorizes. But in the end you will no longer find bathroom decorating tips or delicious recipes on Milton & Prescott’s Pinterest Page.  Please bare with me as things change and pieces get moved to better places.

Want to know something else?

I’ve been working on some new printables that will be posted soon! I prefer to post all items of a set at once instead of dragging it out over several uploads. That way you have what you need when you find that special something for your students, and you don’t get caught in a “where its the rest of it” situation.

I hope all is going great inside your classrooms. I hope your students are growing and your sanity is still in place. Until next time……..

Enjoy,

Kasey

Do you dread parent-teacher conferences?

The long hours and weeks of extra work. The time away from your family. The missed conferences, the late arrivals, the ones who never come, the hard topics, the gut wrenching stories, the tears, the frustration. Yet through it all life continues, student’s must be taught, goals reached, lesson plans created and executed, dinner made for your family, soccer games, gymnastics, ballet, and somewhere in there you might get to sleep.

Conferences require much from parents and teachers a like. Despite all the craziness that erupts during this period of time it is one of my favorite times of the year.

You enjoy conferences?! I do! I truly do!

First of all I get a kick out of bragging on my students. I enjoy telling parents about all the wonderful, funny and heartwarming things their children do at school. Like the young lady who shared the deceased butterfly she found on the playground. Without a pause or hesitation she passed it off to each child who asked to see it up close. Or the young man who issues sincere compliments to all, brightening their days. And the child who came to school unable to write their name who now write’s it perfectly and with such pride. These stories give parents a glimpse into their child’s daily school life. It brightens their hearts and calms those last lingering fears.

Secondly, I love chatting with parents on a personal level. Simply having a stress free moment to chat person to person is all part of creating a strong bond between school and home. It’s so very important. So important that words cannot adequately describe it’s truest value. Far too often these days teachers don’t have time to take the extra moments needed to solidify their relationships with their parents. Increased class sizes and fifteen minute conference times no longer allow teachers and parents enough time to engage beyond your child’s okay or your child is failing.

Lastly, if you have spent the previous months working to build a parent/teacher relationship and you take time with you parents at conference, you will learn more about each child in your class than you thought possible. The struggles parents are going through are real, heartbreaking and altering to the students living them. This knowledge gives us better direction when dealing with behavior issues, changes in learning pace and even regressions. And sometimes it allows the parents an avenue to share their struggles and unburden their hearts. If I can be a safe place for my parents to get a little support I’m happy to help, for in doing so my students benefit.
Next time parent-teacher conferences come across your calendar ready your heart and mind to approach it a little differently. The effects it will have not only on you and your parents but more specifically on your students is well worth the extra effort.