The Meaning of Oviparous (and other Kindergarten tales)

This time last year I was questioning whether I even wanted to teach anymore. After being back in a classroom for the past seven and a half weeks, I can unequivocally say, "yes! I do want to teach!" I spent this time in a kindergarten classroom while their teacher was on maternity leave and got the opportunity to work with some really wonderful kids.

I'm not quite sure how to frame this post, so it might not be as cohesive as some of my previous entries. I just wanted to share some things I learned, I taught, and experienced.

One of the most exciting draws for me (other than that it was kindergarten) was that I would finally get to see true Balanced Literacy in action. We read one big book a week for shared reading, had small groups for guided reading, worked in literacy stations (no more must dos and may dos!), and did word study that made sense for the group (as opposed to a certain order).

As part of Black History Month, each class decorated their door with relevant people. Our class had chosen Gamecock football players. Most of them were very excited, except the handful of Clemson/Georgia/Kentucky fans :-) Thanks to my lovely assistant Sue, she helped the kids make this awesome door:

During President's Day week, we learned lots of facts about George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. In one of my Guided Reading groups the next week, we were doing a storywalk through a book about hugs, and why different people need them. The child on the page looked sad and the student said that maybe he was sad because someone died. He then told me that "my brother died. He stopped breathing. Now he's with George Washington and Abraham Lincoln because they both died." Talk about a text to self connection! We sat there for a second, taking in what he had said, and then the girl next to him commented, "Maybe George Washington gave him a one dollar bill!" :-)

For St. Patrick's Day, one of the experiments we did was putting food coloring in water and then putting in a white carnation to see what happens. Unfortunately, as you can see, the green coloring did hardly anything! Maybe next time I need to put more in it...

As part of the Everyday Math series, we did lots of graphs, which I think is perfect for young ones, as they are generally very visual at that age. Here is the one we did for "Type of Pets." I had a graph for the Smartboard that I had previously made for other classes. This group had SO MANY pets, not to mention so many different kinds, that we had to change it constantly as we were going!

One of the science units I had to teach was Oviparous Animals. If you are like me, you have never heard the word "oviparous" in your life. Just for fun, as I was introducing the unit, I held up the word and asked if any of the kids could read it (not imagining any of them could, of course.) Immediately a hand shot up. He not only read the word, but could also tell me that it meant an animal that lays eggs. He told me he learned it in preschool-- I want to send my future kids to that preschool! This is the same student who wrote a book about amoebas, and told me that the elephant bird from "Horton Hatches an Egg" happened because it had elephant DNA and bird DNA.

Anyway, as part of that unit, we had to hatch eggs in our classroom. When I first found that out, I pretty much freaked out. I don't really do well with animals, unless it's a cat... and I enjoy looking at them on TV and at the zoo :-)  Well, it didn't turn out to be too bad, and the kids were OBSESSED with them. All they wanted to do was go look at the chicks once they hatched. Who can blame them? Look how cute they are (the matted looking one hatched a day after the rest of them):

 

I could go on and on about how much fun I had and how many ideas I got for my future classroom, but I will just leave you with my parting gift from the class, by way of my assistant :-)

Thank you Ashley!