Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Again it's been WAAAY too long since my last post.
Lot's has been happening.  School has started again and with it, my new role as kindergarten teacher.  I'm privileged to have a great teaching partner and we're slowly figuring things out together.  This class keeps us on our toes, but boy are they fun!

I've forgotten how much fun it is to teach kids the beginning steps to reading and writing!  It's so fun to see them accomplish things they didn't know they could do.  It's only week 4 of the school year, but already we're seeing sentences and kids making progress.  Just about all of them now know the words I, am, see, a, like, the, can, and is.  You can actually do quite a lot with just those few words.  We've also been having fun with patterns in math.  In Bible, we're moving through chronologically covering creation, Adam and Eve, and Noah. 

This biggest frustration has been deciding what to teach-- there are so many great ideas and resources for early literacy out there.  How do you decide which ones to choose?  This is the question I keep asking myself.  My desire is to be the best teacher I can be for this group of kids, but how do I choose what's best.  This is where I pray desperately for wisdom that comes from the Lord.  Am I going to get it right every time? Certainly not! Can I trust that my best efforts will meet my students where they are at?  WIth God's help, yes, I believe I can!

One of the great privileges of teaching at an International Christian school is that we can invite the Lord into our classroom.  We can talk about him, sing about him, pray to him, meditate on his word, and we can appreciate his creativity as we look around our classroom and see a snapshot of the diversity of His children.  What a blessing that is!