Classroom Volunteer

(Photo credit: Matt Petit)

Picture Explanation

I must admit the photo has nothing to do with the topic I'm about to discuss. I just picked it because I have gotten so used to posting things with pictures, I feel at a loss as to how to do it otherwise. Our wedding photographer came over to the house and took some pictures in our living room. He brought the canvas background and special lights, which give it the studio feel. To the trained eye, you can see it's been a while since these were taken. The key is to look at the hair, how long Zahra's is (pre-August hair cut), and how much shorter Willie's locks are here. But anyway, on to the main event...

Room 4 Kindergarten Help

This morning, I volunteered in Zahra's classroom from 8 to 9 o'clock. (School starts at 8:00.) Mrs. Conton had two tasks for me to do. The first involved cutting 24 oval shapes (which were far from perfect; I don't think cutting curved shapes could be described as my forte). The second task had to do with some preparation for the October calendars the kids are going to make. I had to fold large sheets of blue construction paper in half, hole-punch the top, cut a piece of yarn, and tie said yarn in a bow through the holes. (This one I did a better job at, maybe because of all that practice putting our wedding invitations together!)

As I was cutting the oval shapes out of construction paper, Mrs. Conton asked me to supervise a table of kids practicing writing their names. (She was working on assessments and pulling kids up one at a time to her desk.)

It was interesting to watch what Zahra goes through each morning. When you ask her to elaborate on her day, she doesn't usually have much to say. I'm not really sure why she doesn't talk about school very much, as she certainly has the verbal skills to do so. She still seems to be happy when I drop her off in the mornings and when you ask her in the afternoon how her day went, she invariably replies, "Good!"

When the kids first walk in to the classroom, they are seated in front of the cubbies. If they have anything for Mrs. Conton (lunch money, permission slips, et cetera), they are to pull these items out of their bags and hand them in. After that's done, the kids put their bags in their cubbies and then sit on a carpeted area in another part of the classroom. There are different pictures and words up on the wall that correspond to different things they go over each day. There's a September calendar up and a chart that talks about which day was yesterday (Monday), which day is today (Tuesday), and which day is tomorrow (Wednesday). Then they sing a song about the days of the week to the tune of the Addams Family theme. I thought this was pretty cute. No doubt the origin of the tune is lost on 5-year-old kids, but it was a cute way for them to learn the days of the week. ("There's Sunday and there's Monday, there's Tuesday and there's Wednesday..." and then the chorus is, "days of the week" click-click "days of the week" click-click, where the kids either snap their fingers or making a clucking sound with their tongue, Zahra doing the latter.) Also, one student is chosen to describe what type of weather is outside for that particular day. There was some debate among the kids over whether it was cloudy or foggy, but the chosen student had picked "cloudy," so that's what description was posted on the wall for today.

At some point in their morning routine, the class is interrupted by the loudspeaker mounted in the corner of the room. The kids are asked to please stand and say the Pledge of Alliegiance. Mrs. Conton walks around helping some kids remember to place their hands over their hearts. After they finish, they all sit down and continue.

Mrs. Conton goes down the attendance list and asks whether or not kids are going to buy lunch. When she's finished with this, two kids get to take the list to the office. It's these very lists that my mother-in-law will use to figure out how many lunches to cook for that particular day. Some kids buy lunch every day or some kids might only buy when there is a meal they like (of course you know chicken nuggets and pizza are popular!).

The class goes over the letter of the day. Today's letter was "L." There is a chart on the easel that shows the letter in upper and lower case and several pictures of things that begin with the letter (lion, lemon). Mrs. Conton models how to write the letter and has the kids write the letter in the air.

Eventually the kids break up into three groups and go to different stations at different tables. I was asked to look over the kids who were writing their names. (This was when I was working on cutting out those not-so-great ovals.) They all had the kind of Vis-a-vis markers you would use on an overhead projector. (Ah, just the sight of them reminded me of the earlier days of school. I don't really remember any professors using them in college, but they were definitely something we saw a lot of in high school!) Each student had a sheet of paper that had their name written on it a few times and this was inside a clear sheet protector. The kids were supposed to trace their name with the overhead marker and then continue the practice by writing it several more times on the lines below. Some of the kids finished quickly and I'd ask them if they were done. They seemed so surprised and even asked, "How'd you know my name?" Pretty cute. I told them I could read it on their papers. Then they were like, "Oh... yeah."

Another group was working on the letter of the day worksheet and alphabet-writing practice. The last group were supposed to be drawing a self-portrait and something that they could sell that began with the first letter of their name.

It was neat to see Zahra among the other kids, working diligently on her letter Ls. When she got to the table where I was supervising, she didn't seem to be very focused on writing her name. I'm not sure if she was just like this today, or because I was there, or if this happens often. I'm sure we'll hear more about her particulars when parent-teacher conferences happen next month. (I think that's got to be one of the reasons that Mrs. Conton was doing those student assessments.)

I'm scheduled to volunteer the same hours every Tuesday and Thursday. I'm sure I'll have more to report about Zahra's class as the year goes on. (I didn't realize I'd have so much to say about one hour this morning!)