The Beginnings...

Last year one of my good friends decided to do a blog of her life as an intern...and I thought it was a fantastic idea that I wanted to use.
So here it is...MY blog of my internship in a Kindergarten classroom full of 19 adorable, sometimes off the wall, information absorbers...also known as my students.
I finished my one a weeks a couple of weeks ago, and I can say I only got a GLIMPSE of what my coming semester will consist of. Being there every day I can only imagine will be a completely different experience than only being there once a week.
I look forward to seeing my kids every day. I fell in love with seeing these kids every week--I fell in love with having hugs and compliments and having them ALL want to sit with me at lunch.
They're hard to work with sometimes but the idea that I am helping mold these kids education is what makes it so amazing and worth while.
These kids are JUST starting out. They have the next twelve years to look back and either say "My Kindergarten teacher was who I remember" or "I really didn't like her all that much"--I'd like to say my kids will say the first. I want to be the teacher who makes a difference NOW, in the beginning, sort of like my OWN kindergarten teacher did--because 18 years later I still keep up with my kindergarten teacher.
I want to see these kids who are difficult to work with come out at the end of the year and say they enjoy school.

My first project with these kids is to work on their behavior--to have them hold each other accountable to how they act in class. I will have a behavior jar in which they will receive a marble in the jar each time I catch the ENTIRE class behaving and on task. When I say entire class, I mean the entire class. If, at the end of the semester, they reach a certain goal then they will receive a pizza party.
This will be no easy task for them at first--it's a RARE occasion that these wonderful little 5 and 6 year olds are ALL doing the right thing at the same time--but I do hope that this will teach them the value of doing something well, and the value of holding each other to doing well.

So begins the every day internship on January 9th--for now I continue to relax on my Christmas break (or at least try to) and prepare for the next 3 months of working with young, moldable minds.