sixty days into teaching Kindergarten.

Sweet Mrs. Margaret Ann Kennedy made me realize that I hadn't updated this since the twelfth day of school! We are now on day sixty. Every day, when we flip the number on the 100s chart for how many days we've been in school, I ask the students if they feel "___ days smarter." They always say, "Yes ma'am," but I don't think they realize that it's really me that feels sixty days smarter. They do not know how much they have taught me about everything: teaching, life, motherhood, God, etc.

Ole Miss equipped me well for this first teaching job, but nothing could have prepared me for 21 5 & 6-year-olds with VERY DIFFERENT needs. I have one learning very basic fine motor skills: cutting, tracing, learning to walk up & down stairs, and how to not potty in her pants, and I have one reading fluently. Of course the remaining nineteen fall in between, but their needs are all very different, too! The biggest challenge? Teaching the boys how to use the urinal and keeping the girls from piling into the same stall.

I have an absolutely amazing group of co-teachers at my school who are so giving & encouraging. One of the problems with first-year teachers is feeling isolated & not having the help they need. I do not have this problem at all! Teachers are coming into my classroom quite frequently to check on me or ask me if I need anything, and it has been this way since the very beginning. I am very blessed to be here. I know this was a God-thing, being placed in this small little Mississippi town to learn how to be a teacher. I have two great principals who have loved on me & encouraged me, five wonderful co-Kindergarten teachers, & a sweet class of students who love to "show-off their good behavior."

So, a basic overview of exciting Kindergarten events & lessons we've survived thus far:
1. 50s Day (on the 50th Day of school)
2. Field Trip to the Circle Y Pumpkin Patch (so much fun!)
3. first tornado "drill" (was a REAL tornado)
4. opening up a pumpkin to pull out the pulp & seeds & count (that pumpkin had 400 seeds!) The kids loved it.
5. learning about Pablo Picasso. The kids retain this info exceptionally well. They can locate France, Spain, & the US on a world map now, say a few French words/phrases, & tell you Picasso's style of painting & collage.

and so much more, but this is my fall break day, and I have got to get busy writing my lesson plans for the week. We are learning the letter Mm, and we are studying our second artist: Henri Matisse. We are reading Where the Wild Things Are & If You Give a Moose a Muffin. We are going to paint with marbles, draw a picture of a monster contained in a jar, graph M&Ms, & make a collage inspired from Matisse's "Ivy in Flower."