Creative Minds

For our math lesson a few days ago I gave them some pattern blocks and had them arrange them into different patterns. I gave them an example of a flower and then let them play with the pattern blocks and this is what they came up with: Pretty creative for kindergarteners!

A Lion

A fish

A flower

A car

dishes falling into the sink!

A tree!

School Supplies

I have added a list to my blog that informs parents of the supplies that we will be needing for our classroom. With the economy doing poorly our school funding for supplies and necessary classroom materials has greatly decreased. Anything you can do to help out would be greatly appreciated. I will continue to add to the list as I see a need and if I need something by a specific date I'll make sure that I make that known on the list. I'm sure that as the year goes on the list will grow. As of right now I have pretty much all that I need for awhile. The things that I listed are those items that I believe we will run out of first.

Thanks for anything and everything that you do!!

Mrs. Franklin

The First Day!

On Wednesday morning I was greeted with 17 eager little faces awaiting the start of their adventure in education. I felt a little more prepared than I did last year but I soon discovered that you can never be completely prepared for kindergarten. This new group of students brings with them new and interesting challenges.

My first day was met with much anticipation, preparation and excitement on my part. I have always LOVED the first few days of school. After about an hour spent with my new kindergarteners I realized that an entire day with them may just end up being very stressful, for them and myself. I was right - not even halfway through the morning I was getting comments like, "Is it lunchtime yet?", "when to we get to play?", "this is boring," "when do I get to go home - I think my mom misses me too much for me to be here," "when do we get to eat all of those m&ms that we brought", "when can we do art?" It was about 10:00 am when I realized that it was going to be a very long day!

Luckily we didn't have any issues with lunch or missing students which was nice and the afternoon went a lot more smoothly than the morning. As the end of the day approached I was acutely aware of the fact that this year is going to be a lot different than last year. I have a new crop of kindergarteners that are at very different academic levels and that this year may be a bit more challenging. But with that said I anticipate and hope that with the difficult challenges ahead of me I will be able to see the rewards at the end of the year and look forward to how much they will learn and grow.

The second day was a lot better than the first which was extremely encouraging. It gave me hope that this year was going to be just fine! I will adjust to each of them as they adjust to me and we will have a whole heap of fun learning so many new things. I can say now that I really look forward to teaching this group of youngsters and am glad that I have the first week under my belt.

My wonderful group of kindergarteners!!

It has Begun!!

Kindergarten is a little over a week away but my room has begun to take shape. I revamped and rearranged a few elements in my classroom to make sure that I utilize my space more efficiently. I am in the proccess of going through stacks and stacks and stacks of books. I am putting them into categories and throwing away some that are really old. I decided that this year I would not have an overwhelming amount of books for the kindergarteners to look through - it was too much and what I ended up with was a bunch of ruined books and destructive looking bookshelves at the end of the year. No Thanks!

As I approach the beginning of the schoolyear I am not as stressed as I was last year and am looking forward to getting my new crop of students. I know that this year I will be better equipped with the skills to teach these youngsters more efficiently and effectively.

Now to the task at hand - preparing my room which has always been exciting for me but stressful as well. I will post pictures as soon as my room is complete.

The End!!

Well - this school year has been a whirlwind of new learning opportunities. Teaching kindergarten which is a grade that I told myself I would NEVER teach has turned out to be a grade that I enjoy. I would not have said that the first few months of school - it was challenging and I was left feeling completely unfit for the job. However, as the months continued the more and more I began to enjoy teaching them, laughing with them and playing with them. They taught me many lessons in patience that will forever be etched into my mind and used frequently in years to come not only with my students but with my own children as well.

I have accepted to opportunity to teach another bunch of kindergarteners this coming school year. Part-time has proved to be such an amazing experience as a mother who loves to be home with her own children as well as teach. My own daughter will be gracing the campus of our elementary next year as a kindergartener and it will be fun to step along side her as she begins her journey through education, especially at the school that I'm come to respect and love. I'm looking forward to another adventure with a different bunch of kindergarteners.

I don't know how long I will be teaching kindergarten - honestly as much as I enjoy teaching the young ones I also extremely miss and my heart longs to teach the upper grades again. I call 4th grade my teaching niche!! Who knows if I will end up there again soon but I hope to. I miss it tremendously!

As for this coming school year I hope to do a better job with this blog - making sure that I blog not only about our experiences in the classroom but also about different lessons that I teach, what works best with my group of students, different strategies that I use for the different temperments and ability levels in my class. It may seem strange but I learn best by teaching things myself and if I'm writing down strategies somehow I convince myself that they work :) That is my aspiration for the blog next year - not only that but to have something that the parents can look at and read and feel like they are aware of what is going on in their child's classroom.

Well, without any more blabbering I'm going to end the blog for this year. A shout out to all my parents who worked so hard alongside me this past year to make sure that their students succeeded. And a last farewell to all of my 20 kindergarteners whose faces and smiles I already miss so much. I look forward to watching them grow and who knows - maybe someday I'll teach them again in the upper grades :)

Have a great summer!

Mrs. Kara Franklin

Graduation!!

Well - the year has come to a close - and I'm late in posting the last few entries for this year. Whoops!

I survived my first kindergarten graduation - I was nervous because I had to get up in front of a bunch of proud parents and grandparents and tell them how wonderful their children were and how great and challenging of a year it was. I hate getting up in front of people! It went well though and I couldn't help but be proud as I saw each of my little students march across the stage to receive their diplomas from the superintendent.

They were such a blessing to me this year! And I'm thankful that each of them were brought into my lives!

Here is a picture of my cute kindergarteners - not all were in attendance!

Track Meet

My kindergarteners participated in their first Melba Elementary track meet this past week. It was great weather and we had a lot of fun. I was very proud of the way they gave their best effort and encouraged and cheered each other on. Way to go guys!

IRI - check!

I have been dreading the state IRI for awhile now, especially since the winter IRI did not go well. Our kindergarteners in the winter scored an average of 44% and the state average was 75%. Needless to say we had a lot of ground to make up. We worked really hard and yesterday they took the spring IRI - they each left the room one at a time as I crossed my fingers and prayed for each one individually. With kindergarteners each day is different and they can test great one day and terrible the next so I just wasn't sure after a four day weekend how they would perform and I was nervous. I knew that they knew their stuff, we've drilled and practiced and drilled and practiced and drilled and practiced! But whether or not they would prove that they knew their stuff when tested would be a different story.

After the test was finished and all of them were back in their seats ready to keep learning I breathed a sigh of relief - it was done! There was nothing more I could do now to make their scores reflect what they know.

I anxiously awaited their results and received them around 2:00 pm. I remember closing my eyes as I opened the attachment that held their scores, took a deep breath and then eagerly scanned through the results. I have to say that my immediate reaction was one of disappointment. I was foolishly expecting all of them to get a 3 (which is the highest score) - not because I personally wanted to look good but simply because I knew that they could, each one of them has proven in the past few weeks that they are capable of a 3. However, much to my dismay 3 of them scored a 2 and one of them scored a 1. I overlooked the fact that 80% of my class scored 3's which is amazing. It was also frustrating that the three that scored 2's came within a few points of scoring a 3. MAN!!!!!!!!

In hindsight I know that if they were to test on Wednesday some that scored 3's could easily get 2's and so on. Who knows? The scores are what they are and I'm proud of them all for doing their best.

And thank you to the parents who worked with your child at home in preparation for this test. Your efforts definately paid off. And I have to say that I'm glad it's over! At least until next year!

Mother's Day Gifts

So - this year I was at a loss for a Mother's Day gift. I was late in thinking about it and was stressed last week when I only had one day to figure something out. However, the lovely website "The Crafty Crow" (one of my faves) gave me some great ideas for homemade Mother's day gifts and they were adorable. I then only had to purchase some small matchboxes and some ribbon because I had plenty of scrapbook paper of my own. The total of this gift out of my pocket ended up being around $7.00 total. Incredible!! I think this just may be a staple gift for years to come. And their school pictures fit perfectly in them.

Happy Mother's Day to my kinder moms!! Thanks for all that you do!

Hoedown in Melba

So - Last night I spent the evening watching my cute little kindergarteners dressed up in their western finest perform in the spring program. The theme was western and man was it upbeat and lively. When you came in the doors you were greeted by the 5th graders doing line dancing and loud western music - it was great. There were plenty of cowboy hats, bandanas and overalls to go around and if you were to look closely you probably saw each foot taping to the upbeat tempos that resonated through the gymnasium. It was a sight to behold. The set design was great and the kids had so much fun performing. I was very proud of them!

Easter Egg Hunt

I'm all about Easter Egg hunts - anything that's fun and makes people happy!! We didn't have a specific time period set out in our monthly schedule for an Easter egg hunt but my room mom and I decided that it would be a fun thing to do. Unfortunately it rained outside so our hunt was inside - but the kids really have a good time.

There were plenty of eggs to go around and we keep finding hidden eggs around the classroom even this week.

Empty Easter basket

Logan found one!

Jeff can't reach!

Telissa's stash!

The Things They Say

So this morning my students were coloring a worksheet on the letter "Jj" and one of the boys says to me, "Mrs. Franklin guess what? My grandpa can't play with me anymore." To this I responded, "well, why not?" and he says, "because he has diarrea."

Today we were standing in line for music and one of my students asked whether we were going to music or P.E. I told him that we were going to get to go to music today and to this he replied, "Ahh man, I'm never going to be a music teacher."

A few days ago during the morning journal writing the class seemed fairly quiet which is nice in the mornings. However, one little boy broke the silence and with complete seriousness said these words to the other students sitting at his table, "hey guys, guess what? My mom doesn't know that I turn into a werewolf at night." And instead of laughter (except from me) the other students go into what they turn into at night - it was quite comical. We had everything from clowns, black ninjas, vampires, bats, spiderman and spongebob.

Haven't had some funny ones in awhile so it was refreshing to hear them today chat about cute little innocent things.

Kindergarten Catch-up

Sorry I haven't posted anything since Valentine's Day. Life somehow got in the way and my "free-time" was rendered more useful elsewhere.

However, we have been having classes regularly and we have been learning quite a lot. I've been focusing the majority of my attention on preparing them for the spring IRI and making sure they are confident with their abilities to be able to survive first grade.

I will be posting some pictures of our Easter party and any other fun activities that we do this spring.

Valentine's Day

We've accomplished the celebration of our first Valentine's Day at school. I had forgotten that Valentine's Day was never a big day for this little guys until this year. It was a lot of fun to see them open their valentine cards and gasp at the candy that came with practically every card (who started that tradition?) - anyways it was a fun afternoon full of candy, cards and games.

Questions!

So - I'm starting a unit called "By the Sea" and I introduced this unit by asking them what they already know about the ocean. That went pretty well. Then I asked them if they had any questions about the ocean or anything that they wanted to know. When they asked their questions I was into "the teaching moment" and didn't really react one way or another to their question I just simply wrote it down on the board. Well, after school I as I was copying them onto little "fish" to put on the bulletin board I realized that some of their questions were very cute so I decided to post a few.

1) How long is the ocean?

2) Do fish get sick?

3) Can squid stretch their arms?

4) Do humpback whales have spouts?

5) Can sharks get as big as a boat?

6) Are the sea creatures cold-blooded?

7) Can you go under saltwater?

Oh the Things They Say

We were getting ready to play a game for birthday parties and Ryan saw that someone was moving chairs around. He got so excited and exclaimed, "Hurray, are we going to play High School Musical chairs?"

"Mrs. Franklin, your breath smells like Ramen Noodles." - Dawson

Ryan's joke:

"Why did the pencil cross the road?"
"Because he was dumb"

Letter Celebration!

On Monday we had our first party celebrating the first 5 letters that we have extensively studied and hopefully mastered. We celebrated learning the M, P, D, S and A. It was an activity involving centers which is one of my students favorite things to do. I was lucky enough to have a couple moms join in the fun and help us out - thank you Mrs. Hunter and Mrs. Christensen. I was also lucky to have my mom come out to help as well and she brought my daughter Addison who will be in kindergarten next year. She had a lot of fun doing the centers with the kids. I also had help from Mrs. Friddle. We had so much fun celebrating the letters that we've learned. At each center the students had a book read to them, they did a craft and had a snack all of which correlated with a letter than we had studied. I look forward to our next letter celebration party!

The Letter Mm:

making Marshmellow "M"s

snack: M&Ms

The Letter Aa:

craft: Alligators

snack: ants on a log

The Letter Pp:

craft: pyramids with sugar cubes

snack: popcorn

The Letter Dd:

craft: ducks

snack: donuts (sorry I guess I didn't get a picture of them eating their donuts)

The Letter Ss:

craft: snakes

snack: sugar cookies

Thanks to "No Time For Flashcards" blog for all of the great ideas for the letters. I did learn that I will need to incorporate a drink of some kind next time as well as try and make sure that all of the books are about the same length. Other than that it worked out great and I was very pleased with the result.

The Things They Say!!!

Before Chandler and Jeff went to recess they approached me with these pretty alarming facts:

Chandler: "Guess what teacher? My dad was born in 2001"

Jeff: "Oh yeah - my dad was born in 1891" - totally serious!

Apparently I hold the record for the youngest and oldest parents in my classroom.

Today in a discussion about lightning:

Dawson: "Lightning never hits our house because NO ONE can even find our house. Only Jesus can find us."

This lead into a discussion about Jesus at a certain table during transition time in which Jeff said:

"Oh yeah - I have a bible about him."

These kids are just too cute!

Christmas Program

I tell ya - it is tough working part-time and trying to keep up with this blog. I wish there was more time in each day.

On Monday, December 21st my kindergarteners participated in their first Christmas program. They were all dressed so extremely cute and they sang their little hearts out. I wish I could've gotten better pictures of them but my camera was not cooperating.

I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas and I wish you the best of luck in the year 2010. I know that I'm looking forward to my continued journey working with my kindergarteners and am excited for the things we will learn in the coming months.

Waiting patiently for their turn to sing.

Singing so sweetly

Wishing everyone a very Merry Christmas!