Three Feet Tall

            Since kindergarten, I have wanted to be a teacher. Everything in the classroom thrilled me. Throughout my thirteen years of schooling I have kept my dream to be a kindergarten teacher alive. After room sixteen’s door opened, I could clearly see the teacher because everyone else in the room was only three feet tall. For the most part, I could not see the original wall color because every inch was covered with exciting colorful posters of the alphabet, numbers, shapes, and pictures. This is the room where I completed twenty-three enjoyable hours of service learning and where I gained an incredible amount of knowledge about teaching kindergarten.

Instructing the upper and lower case letters “Rr” was an amazing learning experience where the students showed fine motor development. I set up the students’ literacy centers to work on the letter R and instructed the students differently at each table. The first table had to write the letter “Rr” on the worksheet. The second table traced the letter “Rr” with glue and placed rice on the “Rr”. The third table made a raccoon out of the letter R and colored it and the fourth table had to circle the pictures that all started with R and write the lower and upper case letters “Rr”. The students enjoy the literacy centers because they get to do things individually and be creative. I found that about half of the children could not write the letter R. I helped those children by placing my hand around their hand and showing them how to write it, and then allowed them to practice it on their own. After they completed each letter on their own, I cheered and praised them. They smiled and were proud, which made them want to finish the worksheet and write more. Just like the number “3”, seeing the student’s faces light up when they could write it on their own was such a profound feeling.

Nutrition is a major part of everybody’s life; especially with children. In the kindergarten classroom, instead of giving the children cookies and candy, my mentor teacher gives her students prizes at the end of the day if they turn in their homework. The students get to choose from a huge bucket of stickers, stamps, and small toys such as jewelry, cars, and action figures. I believe this helps teach the children that good deeds can be rewarded by items that are also good for their health and nutrition.

From a table away, I observed a boy who was working on a math activity. The directions for the activity were to sort the colored bears into the colored circles. There were five colors of bears and five corresponding circles, but all the bears were mixed up in the bucket. After looking in the bucket and at the page with the circles, the boy began to sort out the bears. I could tell he was really concentrating and using his problem solving methods. The boy finished the activity in a few minutes and was very proud of him self. It is amazing to see the children progress, especially since a couple of weeks prior; the boy could not finish the math sorting activity.

There are many things that have an affect on children.  Television is one topic that can have a major influence on children. While working on a project to help my mentor teacher I noticed how children can bring their television influence to school. I made die-cut boats and fish on sticky paper with the students’ names on them to personalize each of their cubbyholes. It was during the organizing of the cubbyholes, that I noticed that the majority of the students’ backpacks were television characters.  They also do this through clothing, shoes, and school supplies.  If a child has the new gear of that time and others do not then that can have a negative effect on those who cannot afford the latest television influenced items.

Out of the 26 students in the kindergarten class, two of them were ESL Spanish speaking students. I am currently completing my ESL endorsement to help Spanish speaking students, but I was so surprised when I heard that you cannot teach in Spanish in most of the public schools. As a teacher, you can only give directions in Spanish after you have said them in English. The two ESL students struggled with directions and instructions all the time. They would get this blank look on their faces and it would make me so sad. While my mentor teacher was instructing the whole class, I was assisting the ESL students by translating the pictures on the page in Spanish then English. Seeing their progress in language development and understanding was very rewarding for me.

Emotions can play a pivotal role in the day of a kindergartener.  They can be good and bad.  I observed a young girl, Mary*, upset and crying all day because she left her folder at home that morning.  Mary said she was so upset that she was not able to do any other work.  Since she was not able to turn in her homework that day and would not be rewarded with a prize, Mary choose not to participate in physical education or music class.  When Mary’s mom came to pick her up, she brought the folder that was missing.  Mary was so excited, turned in her homework and got the prize after all.  In just a few moments, she had forgotten how bad her day had been and was now playing with her friends, having a great time.         

My eyes have been opened from this first service learning experience.  I have learned so much about myself and what I can be as a teacher. I am excited to be involved in more new and different situations in my future learning. I now realize that a kindergarten teacher not only has to teach the standards, but also the basics about manners, people skills, common sense, and behavior in and out of the classroom. I found that most kindergarten students love school and are excited about learning, which makes my job as a teacher even more rewarding. Through these experiences of classroom management, teaching styles, and learning styles, I will grow and learn as a teacher to better myself and my classroom.

*Names were changed

All the pictures are from Microsoft Clipart Online except for the Letter R picture it is from a personal collection