JOYS of teaching Kindergarten :)

I have taught my sweet class of five-year-olds for twelve days now, and I love it. I cannot imagine myself teaching any other grade now.

Every day, I learn something new. I learned how to hang students' art work on bulletin boards without tearing their work when it comes down. You hang it with masking tape & put a drop of hot glue on the tape that faces the wall.

I have hundreds of stories already to share, but I have two personal favorites.

Wednesday, I decided to teach our first science lesson. We studied "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom" all week, and I brought a coconut to class. The students sat in a circle on the carpet with a crayon & a chart with the five senses on it. I had a chart enlarged on the board. I walked around the circle holding the coconut for "seeing" the coconut. We passed it around the circle for "feeling" it, and we passed it around again and shook it beside our ears to "hear" it. Of course, that leaves smelling & tasting the coconut. I have to say, I had no idea how to crack a coconut. I knew I needed a hammer, and I knew it would be a little messy. Of course, I had no idea how messy it would be.

I put the coconut down, and I took that hammer, and the first time I hit it, it just spun around on the carpet. The students thought that was hilarious. They laughed & laughed each time I hit it and it didn't crack. Finally, I decided that I would just hit it as hard as I could because if it didn't open, my lesson would be a waste. I smacked that coconut so hard, the milk shot across the carpet, and several students got wet. They LOVED it!!! I passed around one half of the coconut and let them smell it, and I went around and forced the students to taste it. Oops, all along we were documenting our observations on the charts using pictures. It intimidates them when I write words. So, the end of the experiment, each student got a brown circle and they had to draw a smiley face if they liked the coconut and a frowny face if they did not. We made a bar graph with these coconuts, and it turns out 14 students actually liked it!!

The students are still talking about that hammer & coconut days later. :) Coconut science experiment=success. Next time, we're putting a shower curtain on the carpet though. :)

The next story makes me cry every time I think about it.
I have a student who will not talk. She did name the colors, shapes, & letters she recognized during an assessment I gave her, but she will not talk in front of the students. Well, I teach Writing Workshop every afternoon before nap time. It's important for the students to put their stories (that they love to share) in "writing." A few are already getting the idea of using words they do know how to write (their names, Mama, Love, etc...), but for the most part, they are drawing illustrations and writing using squiggles & random letters. After the students write, we meet on the carpet, and I select a few students to sit in the author's chair and read their stories to the class. Friday was the first day I introduced the author's chair to the class. I had a talkative student share, a quieter student next, and finally, this little girl who just smiles and never says a word. She was SO excited about sitting in the chair. She held up her story, and I asked her to read her story to the class. She just smiled. I asked her if she drew herself in the picture, and she pointed to herself. I asked her if she had brothers, and she pointed to them in the illustration. I asked her if she'd like to tell her story using a puppet, and she nodded. I gave her an elephant puppet, and she just smiled and smiled holding that puppet. No words.

Well, after an author shares, I ask the students to raise their hands if they want to ask the author any questions or praise their stories. Usually, I have a few hands up, and I end up having to coerce a few other students to think of a compliment. After this little girl's story, every hand was in the air. This made me nervous, until I started calling on students. They all wanted to share their compliments. Their compliments were, "I love that you wrote your story about your big family!" "You used a lot of pretty colors in your picture." "I can see your writing all the way on my square. Thanks for making it big enough for me to see!" "I want to meet your brother just from "hearing" your story!" etc...

My assistant, Miss Smith, and I were absolutely floored. The students loved on sweet shy girl without coercion, and I don't think she stopped smiling the rest of the afternoon.

Teaching Kindergarten has its REALLY tough moments (watch the kids around scissors, glue, & crayons for real), but moments like those are so sweet, it makes the tough moments completely worth it. :)