1 Day Down, 179 to Go!
Today was the first day of school, and also my first day teaching kindergarten. Making the leap from 5th and 6th grade to kinder has been quite an adjustment. While I like the shorter teaching days (I teach for 3.5 hours and assist the afternoon teacher for 3 hours), and am glad for the easier grading, I'm also mourning the loss of my history curriculum. History is a great love of mine, and I had the best time teaching Ancient Civilizations and US History. I believe kindergarten Social Studies consists of topics like what it means to be a good citizen and maybe a lesson or two on police officers and firefighters. All important things, to be sure, but not really my area of interest.
The other adjustment has been how I will relate to my students. I'm one of those teachers who tends to call her students "Dude," and I'm not sure how it will fly the first time I let a "dude" slip with 5 year olds. One of my 5th grade colleagues said that me teaching kindergarten is "like Rodney Dangerfield teaching kindergarten." I'm not quite sure how to take that. (I get no respect, I tell ya!). Since this teacher likes me, I think I'll take it as an observation of my playful quirkiness, rather than an actual criticism.
Adding to my kinder-anxiety is the fact that I have 3 kids with severe food allergies in my class (both from ingestion and contact), 2 of which are life-threatening and require epi-pens. Fortunately the parents of two of the kids are pretty reasonable an practical about the difficulties presented by a kindergarten situation. We've been working together to make the classroom and playground as safe as possible for their children. The third parent... well, let's just say that the jury is still out on that one (although I think a verdict of "crazy" may be imminent).
Despite these anxieties, today went surprisingly well. The kids were all pretty sweet and seemed to enjoy being in class. There was one "Oh crap!" moment when I had the kids sorting school supplies on the big carpet while I brought students to their cubbies one by one. After I led a child to her cubbie, I turned back to the carpet to see kleenex tissues flying in the air. Sitting in the midst of this tissue downpour was a little girl, gleefully tearing kleenex from every box around her. I so did not anticipate that! When I asked her to stop, she looked up at me in confusion and said, "But they're my Kleenex."
Kindergartners will certainly keep you on your toes.
Hopefully tomorrow will go even better and by the end of the month, the kids and I will have our routines down. I think it is going to be a very interesting year.
The other adjustment has been how I will relate to my students. I'm one of those teachers who tends to call her students "Dude," and I'm not sure how it will fly the first time I let a "dude" slip with 5 year olds. One of my 5th grade colleagues said that me teaching kindergarten is "like Rodney Dangerfield teaching kindergarten." I'm not quite sure how to take that. (I get no respect, I tell ya!). Since this teacher likes me, I think I'll take it as an observation of my playful quirkiness, rather than an actual criticism.
Adding to my kinder-anxiety is the fact that I have 3 kids with severe food allergies in my class (both from ingestion and contact), 2 of which are life-threatening and require epi-pens. Fortunately the parents of two of the kids are pretty reasonable an practical about the difficulties presented by a kindergarten situation. We've been working together to make the classroom and playground as safe as possible for their children. The third parent... well, let's just say that the jury is still out on that one (although I think a verdict of "crazy" may be imminent).
Despite these anxieties, today went surprisingly well. The kids were all pretty sweet and seemed to enjoy being in class. There was one "Oh crap!" moment when I had the kids sorting school supplies on the big carpet while I brought students to their cubbies one by one. After I led a child to her cubbie, I turned back to the carpet to see kleenex tissues flying in the air. Sitting in the midst of this tissue downpour was a little girl, gleefully tearing kleenex from every box around her. I so did not anticipate that! When I asked her to stop, she looked up at me in confusion and said, "But they're my Kleenex."
Kindergartners will certainly keep you on your toes.
Hopefully tomorrow will go even better and by the end of the month, the kids and I will have our routines down. I think it is going to be a very interesting year.
Sounds like quite an adjustment for sure!
Isn't there one of the Ramona books where she gets great joy from tearing Kleenex out of the box? Hmmm. You don't have a Ramona on your hands do you?
It will be interesting to hear the year long challenge of the crazy mom. We have one of those at our church who is allergic to bananas and laytex. She won't let bananas near her, won't go into the church kitchen if there is even 1 banana present and had the audacity to ask us (for years) not to put real Poinsettias on the altar at Christmas because of her laytex allergy. No Poinsettias at Christmas, in a church? Really.
I was thinking of Ramona too. It's in Ramona and Her Mother I think and Ramona actually gives a box of Kleenex to Willa Jean, Howie's little sister, to entertain her... :)
Good luck, it certainly sounds interesting!
I'll be looking forward to reading about your kindergarteners, as I have a kindergartener this year! It may give me some insight into what he may encounter!
Good luck!
I'm guessing you'll get a lot of fun posts out of this year. Enjoy them! And now it's only 178 days!
I think you're going to love it. ;> And "Dude" can be used in kindergarten. No worries.
Hang in there, sounds like its going pretty well. And I just spent the weekend with a peanut allergy kid...it's nerve wracking to say the least!
did you ever see kindergarten cop?