Two Writing Teachers have a Slice of Life Challenge every Tuesday. Here is my contribution for today:Yesterday I found myself vastly irritated as I picked up a substituting job to be a extra person at an elementary school, only to be switched to a full day of kindergarten. A FULL day of kindergarten. First off, you should know that kindergarten teachers must be angels from Heaven as us mere mortals could not possibility be kindergarten teachers every single day. Its just not possible and maintain sanity at the same time. Even though it's the end of the school year and kindergarteners now have an almost full year of schooling under their belt, I can't tell the difference in behavior. The problem is that their behavior is fine for a large group of 5 year olds but to be in a classroom setting with rules etc. it makes me crazy. I find it amazing what the summer between kindergarten and first grade accomplishes in their maturity/behaviour.
So, the irritation came from not having time to mentally prepare myself for the full day of kindergarten. Then it was one of those classrooms that had stuff EVERYWHERE which I'm sure works great for the teacher but it makes my sense of stability and organization off-center. Last week I was in a kindergarten room for 1/2 day (which is usually all I pick up for kindergarten - I know my limits) and the classroom was much more calming (for adults).
Now on to the children - I actually have no reason to complain as the day went pretty smooth for the most part. One young lady exhibited remarkable talents in writing and drawing. I was simply amazed. They were to journal a sentence and picture on jumping. She wrote a story with most of the words spelled correctly or very close to correctly and drew an extremely good picture. I hope the school and her parents foster this sign of intelligence so she doesn't get lost in the cracks. Seriously, her ability is amazing especially compared to the rest of the class.
Anyone have any tips for managing a kindergarten classroom for next year?
I think you hit it when you talked about the difference between the two classrooms. Even if the stuff everywhere thing works for the teacher, it is important for young children to be able to see the way things need to be put away and ordered. I am a preschool teacher and I know that my classroom space has to be orderly if I want to help the kids learn routine and be able to moderate their own behavior.
ReplyDeleteI am a stacker, not a filer. My desk can get pretty messy! and I sometimes have little messes crawling out from under my desk or my carts. When I taught Kindergarten (one year...I'm no angel!) I did find that I had to keep all the kids areas cleaned up really well. I think the biggest thing to remember when you are managing any class is that things are very different for substitutes, and things in May/June are just like things in December! :) The anticipation of summer creeps in a takes over.
ReplyDeleteI too am a stacker, but having a 5 year old myself I have to say I couldn't handle classroom of 20 of them. I would imagine the key would be structure...lots of structure.
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