Behind The Scenes!

 I was checking my email and I came across an email from Anonymous. Anonymous wants to know why my blog posts only consist of the perfect outcomes of the things we do in Kindergarten. So I dedicate this next post to my dear friend... Anonymous.

We have been working on a Pinterest inspired project where you take paper snowballs and use one snowball for each letter of your name and you build a snowman. In Math we have been working on measurement. I thought it would be a great way to Order Length with our snowmen and here we are ordering them smallest to largest. You will notice the picture here is not perfect. In fact, the light above us in flickering on and off all through the lesson, I am walking around with my phone snapping pictures and teaching math while one child is having a bloody nose. This lesson was planned and planned well in advance. I even purchased a book to go along with my objectives. I guess that free 3 day shipping was a heck of a deal because the book never arrived so I guess that is not...perfect.

I planned to have a cool math related bulletin board with our snowmen measurement activity once we were finished but for goodness sake, halfway through the lesson, I was starting to doubt if our snowmen would actually all fit. Once again... not perfect. We had to do some problem solving to figure this out. I could have just given them a solution to the problem and moved on. I didn't. I knew if I did my Math Friends would never forgive me. I would not have forgiven myself either. I guided them through the process while my inner voice was reminding me of The Zone of Proximal Development.  

We were able to finish our lesson and it was time to staple up our project to create that perfect bulletin board. As the children were independently working, I was on the floor, on my stomach, making sure that all of the snowmen were going to hang...perfect. As I am rolling around on the floor stapling, Diego comes to help me. Diego is never far, ever. He is supposed to be working independently but he notices that I am on the floor, rolling around and my stapler is jammed. All I am thinking about is that I really need to get this job done and off the floor in case I have an informal walk through which would be... not so perfect. Diego notices that I am in some yoga position he learned about on Sid the

Science Kid. He laughs so hard that he starts to create a stir in the room. The other kids start shouting, "look, the swan pose!" I laughed so hard I was paralyzed and I could not get up or move...not so perfect.

I gave up on perfect a long time ago. I have never been able to pull that one off. I teach my class to respect the uniqueness in each of us. We talked about this just yesterday. I am fortunate that the children in my class care about me even knowing my flaws. Even when I am on the floor rolling around or in my now famous swan pose, they tell me I am the best...and that is just perfect with me!