A Letter From a Student

Last week, a student wrote me a beautiful letter...just to let her teacher know how much she is appreciated...A perk of teaching - the unconditional love of your students :)

How do all these teachers have time to take pictures!! I'm trying to get in the habit, so that I can share new games & ideas that we are exploring in my classroom...however, by the time I've remembered, the activity is over!  This is something I will work on...as a learning blogger :)

My Kindergartners absolutely loved a math twist on our traditional A,B,C BUZZ game!  Normally, the kids can grab letters, word families, onsets/rimes out of the beehive to create words of their own.  To review our numbers, we dug for number bees in the hive instead!  If they could read the numbers on both sides of the bee, they got to add it to their net/pail!  Then, we practiced 1-to-1 correspondence by counting our bees in our buckets.  So simple...but the kids are begging to play it every day now!

On a final note, I'm waiting to hear if I will be a first grade teacher next year!  I love Title I, but I miss having my own classroom :(  So many different benefits & drawbacks to each position...But, I believe whatever is supposed to happen, will happen.  I'm so lucky to have a teaching job in a wonderful school, with so many great children :)  My first year of teaching will be over in a month!  I can't believe it - time flew!  

Push a Penny

As a 1st year teacher, I am trying to do all the things that I said I was going to do as a student.  I mean, as you learn to be a teacher throughout your education, you think, "I would never do that...", or "I'm going to change the world!"  I want to make sure that I am constantly reflecting on my teaching and my actions - I don't want to lose sight of the big dreams I had as a learning teacher.

With this in mind, one of the simplest things I wanted to do to reflect on my days (besides my blog of course!), is to take the time to write down the memorable things my little kiddos say!  Sometimes it seems impossible to take just one second to write down a clever remark from a student.  But, I have managed to finally write one down to help me remember (knowing me, all the thoughts are lost after the day is over anyways...)!  As I was teaching a segmenting lesson to my Kindergartners, I explained our next activity:

Mrs. Hardin: "Okay friends, we're going to play "Push a Penny."  For each sound we hear in the word, we will push forward a penny.  Then, we can see how many sounds it has!!" (I begin to pass out 5 pennies for each student.)

Kindergartner: "Mrs. Hardin, why can't we play "Push a Quarter?" (in the most sincere voice ever)

Mrs. Hardin: "Because I don't have that many quarters!"

The smallest things can make you smile as a teacher.  I want to always remember the things they say to brighten my day.  The most important thing we can remember as teachers is to never forget that we can learn from our students.  I learn something new from them everyday - whether it be a new approach to connecting them to the materials, or how important a smile or a simple "hello" is to a child in need.

I am hoping to start posting materials this week!

Meredith