Back to School

Well, we are back to school... again.  After what seemed like a second winter vacation, it looks like we may have a full week of school!  The kids are more wild than they were last week!  I haven't been raising my voice much, but it is already tired after one day... yikes.  As I was walking through the halls, I realized that I could hear ALL of the teachers teaching.  And they weren't yelling or angry.  They were just speaking normally... loud.  Maybe I teach with more volume than I technically need.  I will try to use a more conversational volume tomorrow.  See how that works.

On a more exciting note, starting next week, the Kindergarten is getting into their "Ocean, whales, and ocean animals" unit.  This is really super exciting for me.  I sometimes like to coordinate my lessons with their units and WOW am I excited.  These are only some of the things I have planned for the next two weeks:

At the Bottom of the Sea (song with dance and instruments)
Swimmy, by Leo Leoni (book)
Aquarius, Music for Creative Dance Vol IV (song. with book, the class will make larger animals by working together, --similar to the moral of the story in Swimmy)
Aquarium, by Saint-Saens (mvt of larger musical work)
Charlie Over the Ocean (song with game)
Baby Beluga (sing and act out animal mvts)
Whales, Music for Creative Dance Vol I (uses whale sounds and underwater-themed music... not sure what I will do with this yet)
The Whale Pokey (Hokey Pokey with fins)

SO exxxxcited!  Sometimes I think I am destined to be a K classroom teacher or daycare/preschool teacher JUST so I can have units and create activities to go with them. haha.  Maybe someday.

I teach a class of 3-4 students with autism twice a week.  They are WONDERFUL... I have fallen in love with all of them.  But I am working on ME more than them.  I have a hard time explaining my instructions to them.  They need a different delivery than I am used to.  So I am working on that.  But I am proud to admit that they have come a long way so far and I am just excited to see where they go.  This week and probably next week  we are working on ALL NONVERBAL cues.  I am starting with huge peices of solid color poster.  Green means go and red means stop.  Should be easy...  We will see :-)