I’m tired! I’m worn out. It’s the night before Thanksgiving and I feel like I missed the mark this year for my kinders. In the past, I have done tons of fun Thanksgiving activities! We dug deep into history and built a Wigwam, a Cabin and a Mayflower from appliance boxes. We acted it out, learned poems and had a Friendsgiving in our rooms. This year, we made a Turkey placemat with our hands and watched Charlie Brown Thanksgiving. I sit here angry with myself. I love my job! I love my students and I LOVE the magic of kindergarten. But I am STRUGGLING…struggling to find the energy, struggling to get creative and struggling to get out of this rut. I want the MAGIC back. The amazing crazy creative kinder magic that made me fall in love with this grade 8 years ago. But the truth is the super exciting activities take time, money, and help. Sometimes they take away from learning to read and math, but aren’t’ they important? Shouldn’t we help our students love school? Shouldn’t we slow down and have some creative fun? I want my kids to love school, to wake up every day excited to learn. The problem is most of my sweet ones came to school with ZERO knowledge about letters, reading, or numbers. I still have 4 kids who don’t know numbers 1-10, and that’s a problem. However, if it's not fun, I doubt they will learn it! I am desperate to find ways to bring back the magic and help my kids grow.
I work in a tough district. My kids have dealt with many difficulties in their short lives. Many of them won’t have a “normal” Thanksgiving. Some of them will be eating very little till they get to school next Monday. We are bombarded at our school with ideas and ways to make our kids grow. Sometimes we spend so much time talking about what we could do, we don’t sit down and get it done. We get lost in the day to day survival. The kid under the table, the kid who refuses to work, the kid who screams, the kid who has to be at the front, and the kid who won’t talk. In the middle of solving these problems this year, which we are making great progress...most days; I think I have missed precious moments. All of my students need me, they all have a purpose, and they all can learn. Maybe I need to take our class chant to heart, maybe I am the one that needs to remember, ‘I am strong, I am brave, I am brilliant, and I have a purpose.”
When I see all the great kindergarten activities on Pinterest, I want that for my kids too! They deserve it. It's not fair that they miss out on some of these activities because I am stressed about growth. I MUST find a happy balance. There is no way for any teacher to do every little thing! Kids need the structure, they need to learn, but they need to play and have fun. I want my students to learn by doing, I want them to LOVE learning. I am going to do better. I refuse to let this rut continue. My kids are going to learn this year and they are going to LOVE it! I want them to know that they have the power to achieve anything they want. I am not going to let the fact that we are an urban district stop me. I am going to focus on the positive. Forgetting all the craziness that surrounds us and focus on what I can do for my class to make their kinder year an unforgettable experience that they will cherish. We started the year with Magic...Now to just get it back!
