As I went into the kindergarten year, I knew it would be stressful in a way. I was already burnt out from just coming off my engineering degree and preparing to dive right into my masters (which is really hard for me to actually “get excited and into” though fake it till ya make it right?). I knew the one goal I wanted for this year was to make learning fun. In my master program, one of the courses sis about designing courses, how convenient right?
The Kindergarten Objective:
Well I learned that just like with engineering you have to start with that goal in mind. And always keep coming back around to it. So, I wrote it down and every day, every assignment I think back to it. How do the little things compare to the overall goal for this year. Is this one sheet of paper, this one Abeka video, this one sit in a chair going to help us with the goal? Here is my kindergarten homeschool teacher year goal:
As I teach kindergarten the goal is to make learning fun; to inspire a life long learner and give a good foundation for math and reading.
A little windy right? Well let me dive into it a little more because this has been a really big deal to me and has helped me to keep my cool while teaching kindergarten. (My daughter actually told her uncle I was a great teacher the other day, say what???)
Before we started kindergarten I knew I wanted it to be a fun experience. I wanted learning to be fun, if learning starts out as a fun and positive experience then your child will grow into someone who enjoys learning and actively seeks it out on their own. You have a life long learner. Life long learner’s are more likely to be your critical thinkers, the kids who learn to think for themselves. This was something that I honestly struggled with through k-12 school. In public school I was a great student. One of the top in my class upon graduation. But, I was also a regurgitative learner. I “learned” I spilled that knowledge out on the paper. And there was no real application of it. I hit college and that was where the big league for me started. I was no longer top of my class. I was barely middle. I had to learn the skills of critical thinking.
We weren’t being spoon fed the answers that those of us with a photographic memory could bounce right though with no problem at all. It really put the breaks on things for me. Eye opener.
There are multiple kinds of life long learner’s. Am I a life long learner? Yea. Am I a fear life long learner or a love of learning life long learner? I’d go with the first one, for awhile. And the later now.
My Fear Learner Experience:
While my experience when I was young young before school was great, following the daycare instructor around and helping her teach classes. My parents always got me fun books that they red to me, stimulating toys, etc. When I hit (public) school age I sat in my chair and never spoke, we never moved. Only the bad kids spoke and moved. I’m not hating on the teachers or the public schools. When you pack 30+ kids in a room like my classes were and tried to teach them if even half of them talked you had an issue. They were moving dots left and right, threatening to call parents and sending kids to the halls. Through school k-12 I had days where I stay so still for so long without moving, or speaking that my legs skin stuck to the chairs and my lips stuck together. I literally would get piece’s of skin off my lips when I popped them apart. I was the wallflower type so for me I was literally a statue in the room (I got made fun of a lot starting pretty young so this became a way of not getting noticed). I remember suppressing a cough once in like 4th grade for so long, the teacher ended up noticing and rushed me to the nurse thinking I was having an asthma attack. Well, guess the goal of not interrupting class that day backfired.
My motivation for being that great student was that I didn’t want to draw attention to myself. I didn’t want my parents called, I didn’t want to disappoint anyone. I didn’t want to interrupt anyone. I literally had perfect attendance for these reasons…sick or not. I thought that in high school if I was never gone then I would never have to make scene in all my classes going up asking the teacher for work. I would never give anyone another reason to make fun of me. I “never” got sick…heck I could have had my arm cut off and I probably would have hidden it in high school just to be there and not disappoint or not draw attention with my absence.
Motivator Change:
In college I had a little different motivator to achieve. If we are honest here, which I think we can be, I didn’t want to go to college. I wasn’t really a life long learner but a fear driven fake. There is a whole story of how I actually ended up in college, BUT that is for a different blogging time. In college I had the motivator of…I must achieve because I must be able to provide for my daughter. No mater how much I hated learning. I finally figured something out thou, and it took me, a few years of college to do so. I can’t learn the way everyone else does. Everything can’t be the exact same note taking style with every class, it can’t be the exact same study room. I don’t have any of the same study methods. Life is constantly changing, I have this constant learning “change” and it’s something that I had to come to terms with and be on with. For one class, recording it and taking a walk while listening to it back might work as studying it. For another class, sitting in my car right before I went to pick up my daughter from daycare and talking the notes out loud on a voice recorder might help. For another class simple just staring at a formula sheet for a bit until it was in my head helped (photographic memory). But so much of college was critical thinking that it was like I had to constantly fire these different sensors of my brain. I often studied in my car, in a off the beaten path lab. While taking a walk. The motivator (my daughter and the need to provide) was there though to try and actually figure about what worked before the statue mode with regurgitative learning was gone.
For years and years now I have just been grasping at knowledge, out of shear necessity that I was eventually brought around to the concept of life long learner. Now, it’s not such a bad thing. When your not burnt out to the brim.
The “Moving” Classroom:
I didn’t want my daughters experience especially since I was running the show to be ANYTHING like this! What kids lips should ever stick together and legs should stick to their seat? The first week we tried the desk thing to see if she liked it…we quickly gave it up for the most part. Now we do what I very unofficially (mostly bin my head) call the moving classroom. By the end of the day it basically looks like school just exploded all over our home
We do each class in a new spot and take our supplies with us. So here are the classes we do each day:
- Bible
- Phonics
- Writing practice
- Skills development (sometimes)
- Math
- Learning Development (sometimes)
- Story time
- Desk mat review
- Extras
So, some places that we do school:
If it’s just a video that we are watching it is really flexible. It can be pretty much anywhere! An example is we set up the bed like a mini classroom, we had class in the bath once, we have class on this giant puff pillow (where my daughter does a yoga pose with her legs up in the air? Meh why not, whatever? I have learned to just go with it. She is actually retaining knowledge like this…)
Other places include the pop up kitchen Classroom (also science lab). The couch. And we do do some things at the desk. I like to do writing practice at the desk because it gives a stable surface for the paper. My daughter sometimes likes to do math on the desk because we use alot of Legos and she likes to set them up! By shifting around the “classroom” I have also found that school isn’t boring for her. Getting a change of scenery can be fun especially if you are little and get to pick out where you want to have you next class and how you want to have it set up. I will be adding in so many more tips on how to make kindergarten fun this year! But one thing I saw was a recommendation on the modernfarmhousefamily Instagram which I screenshot-ed and I’m going to add here! She is a GREAT homeschool resources and has amazing tips on her Instagram.
So, that covers my first goal and background and reason behind it. Create a happy life long learner from the very START!
For my other goals (reading and math) I’ll be showing you assignments we do throughout the year as well as Wednesday and Friday this week to dive more I to them! This week is Goals Week ladies! Oh but one last little thing…
My daughters Favorite Part of Kindergarten so far!
For this post I asked my daughter her favorite part about kindergarten, it is music class. Specifically the part where we singer mary had a little lamb with instruments. I’m marry, she’s the lamb, and she chases me around the house while we sing! When she told me this it made me smile, we actually only have music class once a week. It’s one of our “extras” along with science, social studies, and art. Those are the extras we are doing right now.
We have fun event like things throughout the week that I want to work in more of! Last week we did virtual library story time! Loved it! We were joined by seven other groups virtually! Just some fun stuff like that.
Thanks for stopping by to learn about making learning fun for part one of our kindergarten objective…
It’s never to late to form your objective and start re-planing and organizing around it. That’s the thing about an objective, you have to be always evaluating why is working!
Brie
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