Happening now...

I was looking around our little space Wednesday afternoon and making mental notes of what the kids were doing.

Since that stupid bitch and her shitty substandard programs are coming into MY school, I want to be prepared by having lists and commentary on paper to make assorted educrats happy.

You can bet that she will have spread a ton of her own private brand of educratic fertilizer at the district level before she ever walks in to my building.

I'm going to be under observation by district educrats a couple times, I'm sure.

And they'll be looking for any excuse to dump my program because Fluffy, although she's a lying asswipe narcissistic piece of crap, can speak fluent educationalese.

And she blinks and giggles her fake little laugh and touches people on the arm and shoulder and drops names.

Of course the people she's trying to impress have no idea how much of a fucking jerk she is. They don't know about how she shits on people and then blames them. How she pretends that she's trying to 'make it better' when she has no intention of doing anything constructive. She only understands destructive.

I'll be working on lists over the summer and putting it in a binder.
::sigh:::

I have to use words like 'cooperative learning' instead of 'having fun together'.
'Low-organized physical activity' instead of 'playing outdoors'.
'Book report' instead of 'sharing gross facts from Ripley's books'.

Too bad I can't just say 'respect for children'.
That pretty much covers everything.
And Fluffy's programs won't be able to use that concept in any words, ever.

Too bad the educrats in the local school district have more respect for hand-flappy narcissistic bitches who speak educationalese than they do for kids.

Okay, so Wednesday's the day I have the largest attendance, 14 kids.

The way I set things up divides the room into activity areas. The corner with the furniture (chairs and footstools and a little round table) gets the book cart.

That area also ends up being the house/restaurant area while we're not reading.

I have a dramatic play box.
Tracy calls it 'the family stuff' which I think is adorable.
"Susan? Can I please get out the family stuff?"

Included are old computer keyboards, remote controls, old cell phones (no batteries) restaurant order pads, baby dolls (the kids are expected to treat them like they'd treat a real baby, which helps us keep our things nice.) We have plastic plates and goblets and teacups. Tablecloths, cloth napkins. Baby blankets and little hats. We have triplets now, I picked up twins at Sprawlmart last year and found a single one this week at Goodwill.

Same set, different clothes.

I had a few rugs out.

One of the rugs had the dollhouses and the bin of furniture and dolls. Amelia and little Sophie were playing there. Kaysie was reading a book, Kellie was sitting at my table watching Colin draw Zentangles and trying to interest him in conversation. He was answering her in monosyllables when he answered at all, mostly he just focused on what he was doing. 

The bigger rug had three bins of LEGO around it.
Juan, Esme and Drew were busily building and conversing.

Another rug had the bin of blocks. Stevie was lying along the edge of it, happily building a castle and singing Jingle Bells.

There's a table and art cart in the corner of the room.
Alex and James, Hayden and Will were all drawing with stencils, comparing their creations and laughing at fart jokes because that's what they do.
(Studying anatomy, low-organized health instruction, haha.)

There's something for everyone. And even with all those activity possibilities, there's still more to choose from. Origami and games. Chess, checkers... pretty much any game you can think of from easy to teenager . Pattern blocks and fake food and magnetic building blocks.
We also have a ton of do-it-yourself projects, paper mosaics, pom critters, pipe cleaners, watercolor paints, whiteboard markers. String and yarn and googly eyes. Rhinestones and sequins and glue. Special colored pencils and gel pens. Blending stumps and graphite pencils. Books about Zentangle, circle art, Ed Emberly's Fingerprint Drawing book with stamp pads.

It makes me happy to have all that stuff ready just in case a kid wants to make/create. Makes them happy, too. They know they're allowed to get things out when they want to, as long as they take care of things and then return them to their proper location.

I have games that are 10 years old that still have all the pieces.
Game boards in good condition.
I expect good stewardship.
The kids help each other remember, too.

All the things we have are educational, but I admit the educational value of it is always the last thing I consider. When I think about bringing a new item into the mix, I consider whether it will be fun, if I have room for it in our existing bins and cupboards and if they'll use it more than once or twice to make it worth the investment.

See, the thing is, you can't stop a child from learning.

And the Fluffy method of writing it all down and making portfolios about the kids  actually limits their learning. Breaks down what should be natural and fun into just another way for Fluffy and her minions to control children.

I know I've been granted a temporary reprieve.
It's not a good time to become complacent.
I'll need luck.
And educrats with open minds.
Which is a contradiction in terms.
::sigh::