Wow, the number of employees at the school these days!

So, I went to have lunch with my son on Monday, and he was at the nurse. He's averaging about 1 trip a month to the nurse, but never gets sent home. I'm not sure if he's a hypochondriac in the making or what (though he was sick one of those times).

Anyway, I found him in the nurse's office, by way of his classroom. I walk in, two happy meals in hand. The place is packed, and the kids are eyeing my meals. There are probably 6 kids in there, and two employees, plus one para with a sick kid. My kid's not even been looked at. They can't figure out why I'm there. You can see it in their eyes, "Did we call her already?" So I tried to explain. That whole explanation came about 5 minutes after I walked in though, because they were busy!

I don't know about you, but when I was a kid, my mom volunteered in the nurse's office. I don't remember there being a real nurse at the school, but maybe there was and she was a helper. The nurse's office at my elementary school was a room off of the main office with tile floors, a small desk, and a doctor's office cot-type thing. That's it.

The modern nurse's office seemed quite different. First of all, there seemed to be an actual nurse. Now, I don't know if she was LPN, RN or what, but she looked very official in her scrubs. Plus, she has a paid helper. I can tell she's paid by her nifty name badge. Frankly, it looked like she needed all the help she could get. The office had 3 doctor's cots in the main room and a couple of chairs, though it was a little crowded. Plus it had two separate rooms. I guess if you're really sick, they isolate you in there. Who knows? Anyway, I was impressed with the layout set aside for the school nurse.

The good news is, paid assistants mean no volunteer requirements in the nurse's office. I would hate that. I don't like touching people anyway, much less sick kids who I'm not biologically required to serve.

What does the nurse's office look like in your school? Is it plush? Do you volunteer there? Are my memories of kiddie nurse's office way off? Who knows? You do. Comment.

Elementary Mama on overload

Just an update for those of you keeping score:

The P/T conference went great. My child is doing fine in school, he's just a little "physical," which we clarified means not aggressive, but handsy. That is possible. A friend at church said they've caused it by being so affectionate all the time. Could be. Who would have thought that one of my kids would be handsy. Huh.

Elementary Mama is on near melt-down status today with way way way too much going on. So instead of missing another day of posting, I've decided to refer you to a site I think could be an excellent companion to this one: I'm A Kindergarten Teacher, the blog. Now you can support equal time in media by checking out both sides of the coin: http://imakindergartenteacher.blogspot.com/

Hoping to come back from the quagmire of my life tomorrow... Here's a tease: The School Nurse, not just the mom from down the block anymore. Discuss.

The big day

So this is it. Parent/teacher conference day. I think my hopes for the conference will most likely be quickly dashed. Here's what I expect:
- A full report of our recent "trouble" issues. Why? How much? Is he on the road to juvie or what?
- An otherwise glowing report of my student and his honor potential
- Special treatment and acknowledgement for being an "involved" parent
- The teacher will not be trying to push us out as fast as possible, but instead LOVE talking about our son and his class

Right. None of that will happen. If I'm lucky, we'll get a report card, some small discussion of his behavior, and a few special art projects to go.

I'll update tomorrow.

Classroom chaos

Well, not chaos exactly, but when my son reports not one, but two exciting things in one day of school, I know that things must have been crazy! I am sure the teacher is counting the hours to the three half/off days coming up this weekend, though she has to meet with parents to get those, which may be worse.

Apparently there was a bit of a smack-down yesterday in kindergarten, where one kid, a close friend of my son's, hit another kid hard enough to give him a sizable bruise on his upper arm. The provacation? The other boy blew on him in line. The punishment was missing all of center time, according to my son, but I'm wondering if there wasn't more to that. Surely the punishment for socking a kid would be significantly worse than for touching or talking in class?

And, as if that is not exciting enough, another kid vomited! Whoa! This was towards the end of the day, and at a different table. Attention media: sickness in the schools! (h1n1 is probably another post for another time, but for now, let's just say that illness is taken pretty seriously around the school district.)

At least I got some news from his day. It was almost as good as gossip!

I need help!!! Comment please!

Okay, so yet another evening elementary school activity is on the horizon: literary night. Apparently there are activity stations and a reading of some story by some author. You know, good stuff. Especially for my new reader, right?

The exact day I sent in my RSVP (I know, right?), someone in the civic organization I'm in set a meeting for the exact same time, 30 minutes away. And it's a biggie. Very important. Presence required.

So what do I do? How important IS literary night anyway? Is it going to be like museum night, when we were the only ones there? Or is it going to be like school picnic night where everyone was there? Please, weigh in. Lend me your ears-- no, your advice. Please!

Sucker!

I have learned in my short experience as a grade school mom that PTA is a relentless marketing machine. Their strategy: remind kids of upcoming events and announce them the day of with special take-home stickers! That way, each child comes home announcing "It's Culver's Night!" or "It's skating night!" or whatever, with such triumph and jubilation, that your brief, but firm explanation of why you weren't planning on attending has the impact of a sledgehammer. As a mom, I picture their little dreams of popularity and camaraderie dashed upon the shoreline like waves upon the rocks. And I, am the dreamsmasher.

No longer can I think of myself as the fun parent. Or imagine myself as a staunch supporter of the school and its many programs, for I refuse to engage my child in every possible marketing scheme, I mean, school outing that comes along. I've suddenly become a hater.

So, I caved. We went. You know what? We were one of maybe 10 families there. No exaggeration. Of the hundreds of students in the school, only 10 of us succombed to the marketing machine. Drat.

What do you do? Do you feel like you have to attend every school function? How do you say no to the tears welling up in their little eyes as you insist that they will not be the only one of their classmates not attending? I'm open to suggestions. Perhaps the fact that none of his classmates attended tonight will help with future outings. Wishful thinking, I know.

A new kind of teacher

When at school yesterday, I noticed something startling about the teachers: they were so cool! They were dressed all hip and trendy, in appropriate and professional ways, and talked to the kids using terms like "buddy" and "friend."

When I was a student, most of the teachers seemed so OLD and wore seasonal sweaters and maybe, on spirit day, wore mom jeans. I don't remember even placing them in the same category of hip-ness as my mother and her friends. Many seemed way older, and the ones who weren't, were still sort of teachery.

My experience at the kids' preschool was tainted by teachers dressed to be messy and change the proverbial diaper or kool-aid spill. The really disconcerting part is the odd way in which they spoke to the children-- all soft and smooth, encouraging calmness and properly focusing our emotions. Now they talk all the time about being safe and understanding our feelings. Last week I saw a 2-year-old throwing a fit in the hall and the teacher, in a voice like butter, said, "Now, it looks like you're not feeling very patient right now, but it's important that we are patient and help mommy put on your coat. Are you feeling impatient?" I stood in awe, wanting to see if that technique would work.

At elementary school, I was in awe at the teachers. Now, more of them are my age, so my perspective has definitely changed. But even in my trendy-mom volunteer finest, I felt dowdy compared to my son's teacher, in her black dress, knee-high boots and tights. Whoa. And when they spoke to the kids, it was a tone of authority and camaraderie, not condescending or overly benevolent. It was great.

I asked my son if his teacher always dressed so cool, and he said, "Yeah." I'm sure a lot of my perception is a difference of perspective, but it couldn't hurt for the kids to learn from teachers who are a tad more hip than ours were.

I am now, I mean NOT, my mother

Today was my first voyage as a library volunteer. I dressed in what I would call responsible, yet stylish, mom attire. But when I walked out of the door, it hit me: I'm my mother.

Not that being my mother is bad thing. But I had this immediate flashback to walking into the library in elementary school, and seeing my mom in her responsible, but stylish, mom attire. (Of course, those were the 80s, so her clothes featured bigger hair and bigger glasses.) Wow. Sitting on the other side of the desk is a totally different perspective.

I happen to volunteer during my son's library time. So I'm feircely alphabetizing, while trying to keep one ear, one eye, on my son. Is he being unruly? Is he answering the questions? Is he a hand-raiser or not? But more importantly was the wave and the "That's my mom!" I got when he entered the room. Ah, approval. Whew.

Is that what my mom was thinking as she sat behind the desk? Was that really all about me? I know that it was, and even then I knew she was wanting to help out, but that wait for approval, the one eye out for the books being selected. I had no idea how proud she must have been to see me there with my class, to get a short glimpse inside the walls.

Well, I managed not to embarrass myself as a volunteer, I think. I spoke when spoken to, I knew my alphabet, I worked hard. We'll see what they think the next time it's my turn.

How Many Kids? AKA Total Chaos?

At the start of school, our kindergarten class was 23 kids. I think. The snack list requested 25 snacks. At our introductory tour (new parent hazing), they informed us that 25 was the most possible by state law-- if all 3 classes had 25, they'd add a new section. Maybe. Something like that.

This month, the snack list said 24. They lost a student? Someone transferred? Teacher no longer needs a snack? Whatever. 24 it is.

Then tonight at dinner, my son started talking about the new letter experts-- pairs. The Monday Mail had warned us of letter pairs, so I was expecting SHHHHH. But then he dropped it: "We have more kids in our class than letters!"

Well, I'm pretty sure that is a miscalculation of some kind. But still. How many kids are really in that class?

Field Trip

We had our first field trip on Friday. When I was a kid, it seemed like field trips were these special, amazing things. We always seemed to go someplace that was unusual, places we didn't go with our parents once a month. Apparently that is no longer the case. My kid's class went to a local children's museum, a place we have season passes to and go to year round. In fact, we went again on Saturday. How fun is that?

Either it means that as parents, we're more fun and go to cool places with our kids, or as schools, we've cheapened out and run out of imaginative ideas. I think I'll choose the former-- I'm just a cool parent.

Shouldn't these instructions be easier?

My kindergartener came home with homework last night. Fortunately, the Monday Mail warned us of the impending homework, so we were watching for it, checking the backpack at 5 pm instead of 6 am.

This is not his first homework. Actually, they sent some home last year as "practice," which means you don't really get a grade, but you can do it if you want. Obviously this is a young kid phenomenon. Older kids know that if there's no credit given, no homework will be done.

The homework was working on -op words. There were these little squares at the bottom with different letters to add to the -op. Fine. I've seen similar worksheets already, so I knew what the result should look like, but as a good kindergarten parent, I read the directions. Whoa. The directions said something about upper case letters written on back and cutting them out and moving them around. What?!! That's not what we're supposed to do is it? There aren't any upper case letters! And what's with the cutting? How do they write on the lines if you cut up the back? Good grief.

I decided to give the sheet to my son and see if he knew what to do. I'm not sure if he actually knew, but I let him do it the way he wanted.

Shouldn't these directions be easier to follow? And if we aren't supposed to follow the directions as written, a little note might help. Last week when he was sick, he came home with a pumpkin man with dotted lines around the separate pieces of the guy-- shirt, shoes, pants. No instructions. I told him to color it, cut it out, and stick it to some construction paper. I'm pretty sure that was wrong, because the shoes and hat were all together and didn't look good cut out. But oh well, no instructions to me means "make something up. it doesn't matter." So we did.

Am I dumber than a kindergartener? Why am I having so much trouble figuring these out? I think maybe I'm a little too anal-retentive about getting the assignment perfect. There's probably some C-student, laid back mom somewhere who doesn't even care as long as their kid's name is on it. A happy medium is probably what I should be striving for...

Good technology

Yesterday, since I bagged school technology, I am going to comment on a technology I think is amazing: Artsonia. Artsonia is a site that publishes kids art for parents, grandparents, whomever to review. I can only imagine the monumental task of scanning in all of the creations, but it's really great to see what they are making and be able to share it with people anywhere. It's highly secure, and you have to approve all comments before they are posted. My son loves seeing his artwork online and reading comments.

Of course, you can purchase all sorts of products with your kid's art emblazoned upon it at a small fee, but your school gets a portion of the sales. I have yet to purchase, but am considering buying a few sketchbooks for him for Christmas. He loves seeing his work, so I think that could be a really fun way for him to continue to develop his skills.

Put me down as a fan of Artsonia.

Going green has me seeing red

Our school district is professed to be "going green," and therefore the Thursday packet, an accumulation of news and non-news handouts, is scanned into a pdf file and a link is sent via email to parents. This seems like a fine idea. Though there is so much paper coming home anyway, I hate to think what it was like pre-green.

Unfortunately, the technology doesn't seem to be working in their favor. The pdf files are always scans of the flier itself-- not a electronic file converted to pdf, but the typical black printing on color paper flier that has been scanned in. The files that we download to view from the school website are HUGE. Last week, the PTA Needs Help handout nearly crashed my computer, and it rendered my Adobe useless until after reboot. Seriously. Even scanned documents shouldn't be 10 MB.

This leads me to thinking that surely I'm not the only one having this problem. Does no one else notice this? I've decided it's one of two things: 1) No one reads these documents. 2) None of the technologically savvy parents want to mention the problem because they don't want to be "volunteered" to solve it.

I don't either. So, I guess I'll continue to reboot my computer and silently curse the PDFs that are targeted only to the 6th graders.

Letters to Teacher: Again

Here I go again, pestering the teacher. This time, it's a discipline question. At the root is the same old "What are you doing over there" issue I complain about daily.

My son came home from school both Thursday and Friday of last week with reports of being in trouble-- in the new lingo, this is called "having to sit down." In both instances, my typically very sweet son reported picking on other kids and kind of being rowdy during the popular Center Time. He loves center time, at least I thought he did, so I was surprised.

Naturally, I'm concerned. Not so much about the incidents reported-- and don't get me wrong, I'm thrilled that he reported them!-- but about the change in my little guy. I don't think of it as being in his nature to be distracting or disobedient, so I'm surprised at reports of his causing enough problems to be sitting down. Is he bored? Is he in with the wrong crowd? What's up?

So, I wrote the teacher again. I'm sure I'm on her list of people she's thrilled to hear from so regularly. She probably has a rule set up in her inbox with a folder marked "Problem Parents." I'm hoping it's a more generic folder name, and not one specifically made for me.

What would you do? Would you email the teacher to find out more, or just let it lie and wait for the parole officer to come knocking? Advice, please!

Just when you think you've got it...

Got my son all ready for school this morning. Reviewed the new weekly schedule white board to confirm: PE day. Then my son says that yesterday was Art. No it wasn't, it was music, I said. The calendar says so.

"No mom, we skipped a day on apple day. So it's art."

Great. Just when I felt secure in my happy world of white-board organization, I come to find out that the schedule can be *gulp* changed.

How does one ever keep up? On top of missed days for illness, four short or off days this month, and now the risk of ever-changing special days, will I ever be sure again? The 3 day cycle is the one bridge I have to understanding a part of what is going on over there all day. Now it's questionable too. Once a trust is betrayed, as mine has been, it is not easily rebuilt. I guess we'll wing it, like last month when we had no lunch calendar. So much communication sent home, so little information absorbed.

Reading no-no

I'm just dying for my son to start reading. Since this is the primary emphasis of Kindergarten these days, reading with your child at night is highly-encouraged. No problem, I think. We read all the time. Except when I'm at a meeting. Or we're late getting home. Okay. We're good at it-- you'll have to trust me.

My son has a long attention span, so we've been reading some "chapter" books. By we, I mean me. He does follow along and read the "popcorn" words, when I remember to let him. Sometimes he even reminds me, as in "Mom, 'it' is a popcorn word. I can do that. And I. I can do that too."

When he was home sick, we were reading a Magic Tree House book. We've just started those, thanks to some advice from a friend/kindergarten teacher we know. He really seems to like them, but they do have very few pictures, which took some getting used to. We were getting towards the climax of the book, and I was reading quite fast, which I am prone to do, and suddenly:

"MOM! You stopped reading! You're reading to yourself and not to me!!"

Oops. I wanted to say something like, "Well, if you'd read yourself, you wouldn't have this problem," but that doesn't seem very nice. So I apologized and went back to where I left off (about half a page) and started again. I think it really hurt his feelings that I would read without him, but I honestly didn't realize I had stopped reading aloud.

We just got the October book list, so I guess we'll get lots of practice.