Something that really stood out to me on my first day with the morning and afternoon kindergarten classes is how creative my TA is with teaching the letters of the Alphabet for kids to put words together. Upon being introduced to the class as Ms. Abella, my TA used gestures and actions to represent the letters of my name. For example, the ’A’ in Abella was represented by holding up an imaginary apple to their mouth and making the sound ‘AH’. It was such an interactive and fun way for kids to learn how to put words together and enunciate. Another part of this activity was the pictures my TA drew as visual representations of the letters- The letter S on the board was drawn as a snake for kids to make the ‘Ssss’ sound association. To put it all together, my TA wrote a note to the class that said: “Dear Class, it is so nice to welcome Ms. Abella to our classroom. Love, Ms. Beeksma” on the board. The kids raised their hands and got to choose a letter from the entire note to enact/draw together. I can see how this technique has helped the kids tremendously in their reading since most of them are very strong and expressive readers.
I truly enjoyed my first day! I had my “absolutely! I would love to!” moment when my TA asked me to read a story to the class. I was very surprised with how attentive and empathetic they were to the characters and the action in the story. I did not expect to meet TWO kindergarten classes since there was a morning class and an afternoon class- but that just made it double the more fun I got to eat lunch with the other teachers in the staff room as well and it was so interesting to hear about their journeys as teachers- Definitely look forward to tomorrow!
I truly enjoyed my first day! I had my “absolutely! I would love to!” moment when my TA asked me to read a story to the class. I was very surprised with how attentive and empathetic they were to the characters and the action in the story. I did not expect to meet TWO kindergarten classes since there was a morning class and an afternoon class- but that just made it double the more fun I got to eat lunch with the other teachers in the staff room as well and it was so interesting to hear about their journeys as teachers- Definitely look forward to tomorrow!