Vocabulary - Mercurial!

Seriously. Best teacher induction yet.

Mercurial is now a word in my working vocabulary!

mer⋅cu⋅ri⋅al

–adjective

1.	changeable; volatile; fickle; flighty; erratic: a mercurial nature.

2.	animated; lively; sprightly; quick-witted.

3.	pertaining to, containing, or caused by the metal mercury.

4.	(initial capital letter) of or pertaining to the god Mercury.

5.	(initial capital letter) of or pertaining to the planet Mercury.

I've used the word 4 or so times since the new teaching induction meeting. I would love to be described a mercurial... not in the evil villain way... but in the animated, lively, sprightly, quick-witted way!

In terms of early-childhood vocabulary, story time is the time we teach new terms. We are currently reading The Kissing Hand, and so NOCTURNAL is one of our vocabulary words.

Between our English-Language Learners, our children with Speech and Language disabilities, and our children who have extensive working vocabularies, I would love more resources as to how to differentiate vocabulary instruction in an early childhood setting.

Assessment

In discussions of assessment, we watched a clip from CLUELESS, for some comedic relief about how parents and students view grades and assessment.

One point that was brought up was that as teachers, we need to pay attention to the student, not the number -- for early childhood, my colleagues and I realized that we need to pay attention to the student, not the demographic.

Given that I have 2/3 of my students on IEPs, and 1/2 my students are "at risk" - it is easy to categorize different students and view their progress and assessments in conjunction with demographics. The truth is, I teach 30 students each day (period). My teaching and assessment and observations need to reflect nothing more than 30 happy students.

The other point I took away from class was to see things for the long term - which I find kind of funny because my kiddos are ages 3-6. Our "long-term" means kindergarten and early elementary school. Nevertheless, it is good to remember that Rome was not built in a day, and all accomplishments are progressive.