Thankful for Kindergarten

As this is Canadian Thanksgiving weekend I thought I would share what I am thankful for in Kindergarten. As a teacher who has been teaching for thirteen years I never saw myself as a Kindergarten teacher. I thought these teachers were a special breed that I just didn't fit into, Kindergarten teachers are always so soft spoken, nurturing for childrens' basic needs, and generally happy. I am all of these things except soft spoken, I have a bit of louder personality! When I had my son, I began to see myself as being more of that Kindergarten personality. So this year I did it! I took the plunge and took a new job at a new school teaching Kindergarten! It has been a lovely 6 weeks so far, and I feel I have learned so much and now I only see myself as a Kindergarten teacher! Here is what I am thankful for...

I am thankful for my classroom, as small as it is! We make it work.

I love when the students go to our art shelf and help themselves to what they need to create. This has taken a few weeks but the students are loving using all of the items on this shelf.

I am thankful for the wonderful thinking that our students do everyday! We explore new things and discover as we go. One of the first things we explored was this cricket, that our students thought was a grasshopper.

I love that our class works together so well. Don't get me wrong, we do have our share of challenging students, but every child is so caring and loving towards eachother. Here we are decorating the number 1 with things that make us special.

I am so thankful for the wonderful buildings students create! I love asking the children what they have created and how they did it. This structure was almost as tall as the student himself, it was fun to measure if the structure was taller than other students in the class.

One thing I am not so great at teaching is Math (yes teachers have a weak subject area too). Here we are using ten frames, I admit I was moving a bit too fast with this activity. I was so thankful the students tried this math activity with the ten frames.

I love how our students can make excellent choices! We often create charts like this to show what the students liked that day.

I am thankful for how my choice there is in the Kindergarten program. We read a story and then students chose if they wanted to do do this activity or not. In the good 'ole days every student would have to do many activities they did not want to.

Look at what the students can make with building blocks! I would have never thought of this! After this creation we sorted and counted the blocks we used to make this.

The last thing I am thankful for is my amazing partner and Early Childhood Educator. We are truly partners and we work well as a team! She has such great ideas to share and we always have the best interest of the children at heart!