The Beginning

Today marked the beginning of my teaching adventure! At 9:30 this morning, my first group of Kindergartners were dropped off at my room. I read them The Dot, then reviewed the main six colors to make sure that they all knew them, then we played "find the color"* (instead of using the Elefun game since there were only three colors and I didn't get a chance to make sure that the fan would blow the construction paper ones out). As the final project for the first class, they made a color wheel or at least started one. The second and third classes went better as I had figured out the procedures better and was able to hold the reigns sooner. We also skipped the color wheel making since it seemed a little above most of their skill level. We may still try it next time since we'll have more time, although next Friday we will concentrate on music!

The teacher who taught music last year showed me the music/art closet yesterday! There is SO much! During prep time after the Kindergartners, I went through the closet and pulled out everything I think I want. The teacher also brought me the music for all of the grades, especially fourth grade and sixth grade. The fifth grade will be participating in Hope of America, so they will work on those songs along with learning the recorder (which I will be relearning this weekend - sorry neighbors!). The sixth grade will be more music appreciation and learning to play the ukulele (which I will be learning along with them, lol!). Kindergarten - fourth grade will be singing and playing singing games during music. There are also a bunch of fun musical instruments for them to play with. I suppose the second grade classes who surround me would appreciate having my door closed during these jam sessions, lol!

(The cupboards, tables, the bookshelf, a drawer, and my desk all have music books, CDs, instruments, etc. on them! This is my main project for next week.)

*cut smallish strips of colored construction paper (2"x3"?) and throw them around the room! The children are then assigned a color to go find. We mainly worked on complementary colors (these colors like to sit across from their friends) by my stating one color and telling them to find the complementary color pieces on the floor. One little girl got trampled in the rush, so we then discussed that we go around people instead of diving over them, lol! The little girl was OK after a few minutes and got to pick the next color.