Today was Ephraim’s first “frown face” day. His teacher wrote me a long note explaining why he was in time out twice. Let’s see: hitting, not sharing, throwing rocks, pulling a kid’s shirt while the kid was at the water fountain. Mama Bear was not happy.

Now, Ephraim is only 3, and 3 year olds, of course, are all learning getting-along skills. Plus he’s in a class of 16 3-year-olds. However, we had trouble with him throwing rocks and sometimes hitting at his last school, too. I and talked to Ephraim when we got home, and he admitted everything. We talked a lot about treating other people kindly instead of hurting them and following the teacher’s directions. I showed him the “frown face” his teacher had checked, and he pointed to the “smiley face” and said, “I want to have a happy day.” I told him I did, too, and that the next time he got in trouble at school, he would get a spanking when he got home.

Am I being too hard on him? At his former daycare, his teachers did not send home behavior information daily. I think they expected that 2-year-olds will just have to be in time out sometimes, so they didn’t tell me every single time. Just the really bad stuff. But now, since he’s at a real school, I guess I feel like I need to be more serious about it. I mean, they could kick him out! I doubt they would since he’s a teacher’s kid, but you never know.

Madeleine made it through her first week of homework. She gets a packet of homework on Fridays and has a week to get it all done. It was quite a bit for Kindergarten. Fortunately, it wasn’t a bunch of mindless worksheets. It was almost all hands-on, interactive activities. Unfortunately, that meant Mama had to help and oversee it all! Here was her homework list for the week:

1. Go over phonics sheet every day. Had to name each letter and name something that started with that letter. It had all the capital and lowercase letters in random order.
2. Practice writing her first and last name 4 times. She had a model and handwriting paper. (The sad thing is that we couldn’t find one pencil in the house. She had to do it with a pen.)
3. Look around the house for red circles and blue squares and have a parent write down what you find. (My favorite find? The red foil cover on a Jello cup!)
4. Have your parents write down why they gave you your name. Attach a baby picture with it.
5. Cut out pictures that start with the same sound as your name (from magazines) and glue them in a collage.
6. Read every day (with a parent.)

Phew!!! She did great. I forgot the baby picture. Which she reminded me of the second she saw me after school today. Mama Bear just can’t remember everything! Baby picture is currently in folder ready to go to school tomorrow.

Teacher Bear was in full swing this week. I have used so much Spanish (with parents) since I’ve been at Old Center! I have got to find a book or a class or something to brush up on my verb tenses. I am pretty much talking to parents all in present tense. I remember quite a bit of vocab, but all that verb conjugating in high school evidently didn’t stick.

The kids love to see me because they know they get to visit my room for a while and have more individual attention. It’s also been fun to get to know some of the regular education students in my push-in classes (for some classes I spend time in the homeroom with the ELL kids as well as pulling them out for English time.) I finally finished my teacher apron. This year I purchased a teacher apron with “Mrs. Sorrell” screen printed on it. I had all my students put their handprints on it with fabric paint. It has 3 large pockets which are very convenient for holding stickers, stamps, pens, keys, notes, etc. I love it! Only everyone thinks I’m the art teacher instead of the ELL teacher. 🙂