what summer?

I do not know where this summer is going!

One week off, Vacation Bible School, Kindergarten orientation, one week off, professional development, working for MS Southern Baptist Convention (Super Summer Prep), trip to Chattanooga to see Anna, more working with the Baptists, lead SUPER SUMMER camp, one week off, and.... two weeks of professional development, and school starts.

This doesn't even include the to-do list I made of things needing to be completed before school starts, & I've only checked two things off of it.

JUNE

__ Collect environmental print for word wall

__ Write school supply lists & welcome letters to parents of incoming pre-1st graders.

__ Write scope & sequence for next year's transition to 1st grade class

__ Write curriculum map for first semester

X Set-up my annual notebook (that will contain lesson plans, ideas, evalutations, data, graphs, copies of newsletters) (DONE!!)

__ Make newsletter for first week of school


JULY

__ Mail welcome letter/school supply lists to parents of incoming pre-1st graders

__ Organize/inventory classroom library

__ Set-up Reading Wall

__ Write lesson plans for August

__ Set-up grade book

__ Organize furniture in classroom (was moved out so custodians could wax floors)

__ Buy extra school supplies


AUGUST

__ Set-up students' FISH (Family Involvement Starts Here) notebooks

__ Schedules for paraprofessional & myself

__ Make copies of August poems for notebooks; write August poems on chart paper

__ Make name tags/tags for coat hooks with students' names

__ Make desk name plates with students' names

X Make website list for computer center (DONE!!)

__ Copy first day of school book for each student's personal libraries


I deserve this extra stress for making a to-do list this early in the summer. I knew better!! :) Actually, I'm trying to avoid what I did last year. Last year, I had NO IDEA what to do to prepare for the students so I spent weeks organizing/decorating my classroom & no time on the little things that all piled on me the day before school started.

I am so blessed this year to have 16 sweet come-back kids. These are my students who have had a year of Kindergarten & need one more year to catch-up/get ahead before first grade. I am blessed to be getting a paraprofessional to help me, and I am praying for her every day because we will have quite a group on our hands. :)

Our year will be divided in half. August-December will be Kindergarten Math/Language skills; January-May will be 1st grade math/sight words/Language skills. Guided Reading will begin after we cover our 26 letters & sounds the first six weeks of school. Kindergarten is getting leveled books for the very first time this year, and we are excited!!! I am also bidding for a few sets of books to keep in my classroom for students to read independently or check-out to practice at home.

This year is very experimental. We have never had transition classes. They may work. They may not be as successful as putting these children in a regular Kindergarten classroom, BUT nonetheless, we're going to be learning in Miss Hurst's classroom and making the most of every day. My goal is to reflect more & write more down so this time next year, I'm not thinking, "What did we do last year?" I literally cannot remember the first six weeks of school last year because they were so CRAZY! Good thing I have my old lesson plan book & my e-mails to my mentor teacher to jog my memory. I'm making a lot of changes to the year, too. Obviously, something did NOT work in the way we taught Kindergarten to my students, so I'm taking more of this mentality as I teach this year....



Of course, a teacher cannot make changes to the system, but if I continue to teach these National & state standards & am preparing my students for these "standardized tests," I am "doing my job" according to everyone.

However, my students' parents want their children to not only show growth on test scores but to show growth in other areas of their lives. A child should come to me with talents, abilities, & strengths, & I, as his/her teacher, should take these areas and strengthen them further. I should also take their weaknesses & struggles and show the child how to make small goals for him/herself to work towards until weaknesses turn into areas of growth and mastery. The first project I have planned for the new year is to discuss one thing each child wants to learn this year. They will draw their dreams for our year on a star & "write a sentence" (in their sweet Kindergarten writing) & these stars will hang around the classroom. We will revisit our dreams & when a child has mastered his/her goal (ex: learning to write numbers to 100), the star gets put on a "Super Star" bulletin board & a new dream goes up. Oh, and Miss Hurst gets a star, too. I think my first goal for the year is to learn how to use a grade book properly!!! :o)

My ultimate goal for this year is not to have the highest Terra Nova scores on Kindergarten hallway, and it's not to have the perfect group of students all reading on Level J. My goal is to have students who LOVE coming to school every day because they love to learn new things. A successful year for me would be a year where every student discovers a strength & talent he/she did not know existed, and where every student experiences growth in a weak area he/she DID KNOW existed.

Bless them, many, if not all, of my students know they're in my class because "you can't read yet" or "you were bad last year." I pray every day that these labels can be torn away as we begin our school year and as my students unite together as a community of learners.