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!