Another Storytime Review:

Tony Diterlizzi has been a favorite illustrator since the Monster Manual and it was his name that caught my eye looking through the library. It was The Spider and the Fly by Mary Howit. I gave it a quick flip through and it had great pictures and bugs, so I knew the kids would love it. I got it with a few others, and put it in the to-be-read pile. I usually read everything myself before reading it out loud, but the black and white cover stood out amongst the others and got the kids’ attention immediately. They wanted to hear it right then, that day. So I did.



The illustrations are amazing. They are like an old black and white movie from the 30s. There is so much detail in everything from the Spider’s gothic mansion to all the period costumes and all the character’s little bug features.



The poem was fun to read, and the message was clear, even to the little ones: Don’t go off with a stranger just because he talks nice.

The kids could TELL the Spider was up to no good. Even if they didn’t know what spiders do and what they eat, the illustrations show an arachnid monster, smartly dressed and smiling, but all fangs and grasping hands under it. As if that’s not enough, there are poor transparent little ghost bugs, the Spider’s previous victims, trying to warn the little Fly away. The kids agreed with the Fly when she kept putting the Spider off and then were disgusted when she let the flattery entice her inside.



They knew better than that, and she should have too.

I had at least one other teacher warn me about reading it to little kids, dismayed at the unhappy ending. The kids I read it to enjoyed it though. They liked it because it was spooky and a little macabre and they enjoyed the concept of consequences. The Fly did NOT do what she was supposed to and she got eaten. Pretty harsh punishment, but at least she has the previous ghosts to sympathize.

Gotta Hand it to Em

Sometimes, the K3s won't do something unless I do it first.



Not that I mind.

Y for Yarn Yaks. Yes.

Letter Y. Y Yes. The Ys have it.

We could've yodeled. We could've yawned. Instead we made paper plate yaks and gave them yarn hair.



Adorable! And then there's these two...



And maybe it's just me, but don't they look a lot like these two?

Sometimes the Library Gods smile.

We had been doing a garden unit for two weeks and had read every garden book I could find, so I figured I’d grab something that looked fun for the last Friday and give the little guys some eye candy. They love anything with monsters in it, so I snagged Frog Belly Rat Bone by Timothy Basil Ering




It’s about a boy who lives in a dreary concrete world and wishes to find a treasure more than anything.



When he finds a treasure, he had to create a monster to protect it and names it Frog Belly Rat Bone.








I won’t ruin the ending, but it turns out that this was a gardening book after all. Just an especially cool one. They kids loved it so much I let them make some monsters of their own. I let them use the scrap box and glue sticks. They had to tear the shapes without scissors, so no fuss, no muss, and no whining that it was too hard. I think they came out pretty well. (also note the paper plate fish...)

Definitely to Bee.

Because not to bee is no longer an option.



I've thought of like 15 bee puns since I started typing this and I've decided to spare you. Just look how cute all the little stripey bees are and try not to laugh at the thought of how terrified these poor little arctic children would be if they ever were to see a real one.



We made bees, butterflies, and paper plate fish last week. Because it's spring. Sort of.

An Actual Conversation

I was arrested by masked vigilantes yesterday. I didn't remember until I checked the camera.



See?

I was just standing there, minding my own business, when my arms were grabbed and pulled behind my back.

Them: You're under arrest!

Me: Hey! You got nothing on me!

Them: You're going to jail!

Me: What'd I do?

Them: You beat a nun!

Me: I... whuh?

Them: And now you'll go to jail forever!

Me: Wait... a nun? What nun? Where...?

Them: *maniacal laughter*

Me: I'm not making masks for you guys anymore.

Them: Ok, you can go.

How four year olds got it in their heads to apprehend nun-assailants I do not know. All I know is it was hilarious. Nice to see they have their priorities in line too.

Argh.

Augh. The woe of the plague-ridden. I had been doing so well not getting a cold, but this one was crafty and waited until I was asleep. You know how they say you eat spiders in your sleep? I must’ve gotten one that was a plague bug in disguise. It wasn’t there at midnight, but was in full swing by 8 am. Urgh. There are things happening in my sinuses that I have never known before.

I’ve blown the outside of my poor nose too raw to hold tissue to before, but this time, the inside of my nose just hurts all the way to my eyeballs every time I so much as sniffle. Is not good! But I only have two more conferences before I can go home. Too bad they’re an hour apart. Nnnngh.

All right, enough weird noises out of me. Here, fresh from the lurid imaginations of sweet children, creatures of their own design. I made the clay a little too wet, but they did all right with it.





Sea and circus life forms abound, and a few snowmen too, to be painted as soon as they dry.

I Have Found This To Be True

And without the one, the other would not exist.

Be that as it may, guess which kind I seem to have the most of in class?

Battle may be lost, but the war goes on.

They say that if you have to raise your voice to a child you have already lost the battle.

Well, bring on the crows and scavengers, because this voice of mine? Was RAISED.

Now, I usually have to shout a little just to be heard over the commotion. We’re a noisy bunch. But today, we reached a whole new low in social interaction: bear-baiting. Only instead of a bear, they chose the biggest kid in class. Not fat, just big. Husky, we’ll say. And ¾ of the class surrounded him and started chanting his name and poking him with their fingers.

What the hell is THIS?? I thought, already on the move. The kid naturally didn’t appreciate this treatment, and before I could get there, he lashed out, swinging fists and yelling for them to leave him alone. They scattered, giggling, and then closed around him again! One grabbed him from behind, and held his arms, and another one dashed up and punched him in the stomach!

And I exploded. I roared. EVERYbody got time out for that one. Except for like the five kids who had nothing to do with it and were peering from across the playground in horror at this bellowing creature who had stolen their teacher’s clothes.

Once they were all scared and quiet, I chewed them all out and let them go back to play in groups of three and four while I lectured the others. Grrawr.

Life went on.

Later in the afternoon, with the three year olds, I had to take two of them to the office. Three year olds! Babies! To the office! For biting. And not at the same time. The first one happened at story time. This year’s batch of three year olds is incapable of sitting through a story unless it’s Where the Wild Things Are or Wolves in the Walls, but we were gonna try. And one of them hauls off and bites the kid next to him. Not for the first time. We’ve talked about this before. His dad and I have discussed it. And my temper was gone.

So I yelled again. Marched him out in tears to the office. Came back to a huddle of babies all bug-eyed.

“Why were you so mad?” asked one of the more outspoken ones.

“He’s not allowed to hurt you guys!” I snapped, still kinda loud. I hate it when they get hurt on my watch. It just wigs me out. “NOBODY is allowed to hurt ANYBODY!”

“He hit me too,” offered one.

“And he yelled in my ear,” said another.

“And THAT’S why he’s in the office,” I said. “No fighting in school! No fighting, no biting, no pinching, punching, kicking, or calling names! NOW, let’s try this again… If you give a mouse a cookie…”

The kid was brought back from the office, very contrite. He apologized and was very well-behaved for the rest of the day. Then, at clean-up time, one of his classmates (this one again) jumped on another kid’s back like a jaguar and bit him on the side. There were screams. None of them mine, thankfully.

I didn’t have to yell this time. I didn't have the energy anyway. I just marched him out to the office too. Luckily his aunt was there and she chewed him out for me. There were more tears and promises to be good.

Tomorrow has to be better right? I can’t take too many more days like this one.

No, Neigh, Never

I have a horse named after me.

It's a weird, long-necked, three-legged horse drawn in orange crayon, but it is named after me.

This week we did letter Hh, and our animal was the horse. About three years ago, I made a horse poster with pictures of horses and ponies from the library's old Ranger Rick magazines and the kids always argue over which one was 'theirs' and wanted to know their names. So I had to make names up. (That one's Roscoe, that one's Dixie, that one's Charlemagne. They call him Charlie Horse for short.)

For an activity, I had them try to draw a horse and think of a name for it. One of them was named after me.



Get a load of the little Sleipner there. His name is Goonie.

The Beast What Stares

Formed from an unholy combination of orange and purple play-dough, this creature was given shape during a crumb pick-up from under the tables. Too contaminated to ever be allowed back in the bucket with the clean play-dough, but still malleable, it was granted eyes from the bead box. I'll let it dry and if anyone asks, I'll say it's a tailypo.

We had a huuuuge (by preschool standards) debate over what a tailypo looked like after I told them that story. Some thought it was a dinosaur, some thought it was a fox, some thought it was more like a tiger. The fact that we stayed on subject long enough for that is incredible for three and four year olds.

a waste of good suffering

This is hilarious to me…

I have to write a comparative paper on different psychologists for my Social/Emotional Development class and first up is E.L. Thorndike.

So far I’ve learned that he locked cats up into puzzle boxes to see how they escaped. Kind of a Schrödinger meets Hellraiser kind of a thing. Kind of. That image was funny enough by itself. Add to that how often the general chaos of working in a preschool is referred to is ‘herding cats’ and boom! Insight! Why bother keeping them in a herd when I can just funnel them into some sort of maze?

I can set up a lawn chair at a good vantage point and call down hints to the ones that can count to 20 or know their colors. They’re safe, active, and involved. It could work!

I haven’t read far enough to find if Thorndike suddenly disappeared and became a new paradox of his own. (Is he inside the cats? We won’t know unless we open them, but we won’t because every time we think it, all their yellow eyes focus on us and just burnnnnn…Has anyone else read Felidae?)

Speaking of focus, back to work.

Is that a rabbit over there?

In other news, I have given up working around the three year old attention span and am now making it work for me. A bus went by the window and you would've thought it was a Macy's parade float shaped like a unicorn with Hannah Montana's face, ridden by Transformers firing pixie stick cannons the way they screamed and flocked to the glass.

"A bus!" they screamed as if every wish of mankind had been suddenly, beautifully granted. "Teacher! A BUS!!!" Just like the ones you ride twice every day, I considered saying, but sarcasm is wasted on hysterical K3s.

"Uh-huh," I said. "Wow," I said.

"You're not even looking!" despaired one. Eternal rapturous joy had come and I wasn't even paying attention.

"Sorry," I said. "Doing this right now."

I was suddenly faced with the most belligerent of the flock, who was glaring at me.

"I can't BELIEVE you missed it," he growled. I had offended him, all his ancestors, and all future descendants. How dare I even have eyes if I was to so shamefully waste them.

"There's a picture of a cat on the wall," I said. His head whipped around like Linda Blair's.

"Where??"

"There by the calendar," I said, pointing, He forgot me, he forgot the bus, he probably forgot the rest of that day, but he did lure the herd away from the window to stare at the picture of the cat I got off Google images for Pet Week. Gotta love Google.

I'm thinking of redoing the room in a nice rubber padding.

We've had bloodshed two days in a row down in the preschool.

Yesterday, a coat being threshed went wild and the zipper nicked a very small cheek. There was some very small blood that required a very small band-aid. There was also what I suspect was an already badly chapped lip freezing to a cold bus window and getting yanked off, resulting in a ghoulish mess. Both victims were pretty stoic for three year olds and it was taken care of with minimal drama.

Today, though, there was a bludgeoning. We have some of those wooden blocks with the metal snaps on them. The kids like to make block-robots and walk them around jerkily, saying "I.AM.A.ROBOT." I ask for the directives and they have to come up with a function. My favorite was the waving robot.

Child: "I.AM.A.ROBOT."

Me: "Greetings! What is your directive?

Child: "Uh....Oh! I.AM.A.WAVING.ROBOT. I. WAVE.AT.YOU." and then he wiggled the little arm at me. I laughed and laughed. I loved Wall-E after all.

Today though, not so funny. One little guy,(this same one, actually) wielding one of these blocks, friggin' clubbed his cousin across the back of the head with it. I broke it up and made him apologize, but the cousin didn't stop crying so I checked his head for owies. I thought his black hair was just sweaty until I realized there was red on my fingers. The poor kid had a bleeding gash across the back of his skull.

I feel so bad when they get hurt on my watch! I suppose I could bubble-wrap the room and make them wear those little straitjacket/mitten ensembles, but then they would be miserable too. I guess we all have to get tough and stay vigilant.

I'm not malicious, just clumsy!

I knocked a child down Friday. Not on purpose!

He had left the toy cars to go play at another center, but when a classmate tried to play with the cars, he just wigged out and flew into a screaming, hitting rage. I pulled him off and told him How We Do Not Behave. It didn't go over well.

The first thing he did was storm off to sulk and cry in the floor across the room, which is fine. But then he built up to another rage and took off his shoe and charged back to club the other kid like a baby seal with it

I intervened, or tried to.

It was my intention to simply get in the way, all secret service style, but I misjudged the distance or the oncoming speed of a selfishness-powered three year old and ended up bowling the poor kid right over. He looked up at me like I was an ogre and I just knew there was no way I could explain that I hadn't meant to knock him flat mid-berserker charge. Then he started to cry, so I tried to help him up.

He was having none of it and he crammed his shoe into his mouth and started screaming at me around it. I recognized this as Too Crazy To Reason With and went straight into authority mode. I said something about if that shoe wasn't out of his mouth and back on his foot and he didn't stop acting that way Right Now, he would be sitting with me for the rest of play time and wouldn't get to play with anything else.

He made an angry face at me and whined and sniveled awhile longer, but he did it. Then I asked if he was ok and said sorry for knocking him over. He made me check his head for owies and I didn't find any so he went back to play, all happy again. Hunh,

A Squeedly-spooch, it ain't...

I witnessed a collision today. Two three year old boys, running utterly amuck towards each other, with all the world in which to manuever in, yet they smack straight into each other.

One cried exactly as long as it took me to say "Oh, poor baby! Are you ok??" Then he was fine. The other clutched his stomach and said weakly, "That hurt my tapeworm!"

I wasn't sure I had heard right. But that's what he said. So I want to know what big brother/uncle/cousin told that child he had a tapeworm and charged him to take care of it?? Cuz that's just crazy. Even for here.

Keeping Away From Sharp Objects

Halloween fast approaches, but not fast enough when you're three and four. To pass the time, we're making tear critters. Last week, we made the spiders. Today it's ghosts. No scissors required, just paper to tear and a glue stick. No fuss, muss, or bloodshed.