From College to Kindergarten

Let's be real - who hasn't said

I never want to grow up?

Growing up stinks..

 I wish I could be a kid again..

 We've all said that, right? Thankfully for me, I can act like a kid all day long. Student teaching with kindergarten has been...well, I just don't know the word for it. Adventurous? Wild?

I don't know what I was thinking walking into kindergarten the very first day. I thought I would get to play most of the day. ERRR wrong. These kids are so bright I can hardly believe it. Kindergarten has changed so much. They know their even/odd numbers, can skip count by 2's 5's, and 10's, coins, who the president is on each coin, they are such good little readers/writers, and the list goes on and on. Here's some things I've made for my little sharks.

While learning about coins, students colored their own and made a graphic organizer. They drew bubbles from the coins and stated what they knew about the coin (copper, 1 cent, Abraham Lincoln, Lincoln Memorial, etc.) Sounds boring but they loved it! Thank you, Pinterest!

Most schools celebrate the 100th day of school. We celebrated the 101th day of school and had a Dalmation Party...(101 Dalmations, get it?) We painted Dalmation t-shirts even! They could not believe that Pongo and Perdita were in their classroom! Let's just say half the kindergarten was running around the school trying to find the dalmations. Bless them :) Anyways..here's the 101 things they had to find. As you can see, we didn't find all 101 of them.

They were so wild when looking for these!

And finally our guest visitors - Odd Todd and Even Steven. I can honestly say.. I don't think I could have taught odd and even numbers without their help. Steven came to visit first. Todd came to visit the next day. We then read the book Even Steven and Odd Todd by Kathryn Cristaldi.

They are super challenging when it comes to getting them to stop talking, switch stations, etc. My teacher and I decided that we needed to implement a behavior system. Every time they do something good, they get a star. Currently they get stars for raising their hand (they love to blurt out answers, we call this "stealing learning"), sitting criss-cross applesauce, and for freezing when its time to switch stations. 10 stars means 10 minutes of recess! Needless to say, we've never made it to 10. Maybe next week... :)

I have learned so much from being in kindergarten..from both my awesome co-op teacher and my awesome kindergarten class. And my favorite thing about kindergarten?

I can be a kid all day long!