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!