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I know how you feel!
By Jen

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I am in a somewhat similar situation. However, lucky me, I am student teaching in Kindergarten at a year-round school this summer, before I start my job. Fortunately you did your student teaching in 1st, that will help.
I would suggest starting off your first couple of weeks with a lot of simple, fun activities, get to konw you stuff, art projects and music/movement. Also practice procedures for things. This will help them to settle in and focus on the socialization process. That is what their job is to learn -- before they can start with academics. I don't know how typical the experience I'm having
is (I am working at a low-income school, where the students haven't had much previous school exposure), but the kids have to be taught how to sit on the carpet properly, how to line up, how to take turns, how to say excuse me when trying to pass someone, etc. That is their "content" learning in the beginning. Also a lot of early focus on their name is good, how to recognize, write it, etc. You can come up with a lot of good activities based on comparing names, looking at the first letter of names, practicing the sounds of letters in names, etc. Here is the 1/2 day schedule my student teaching class uses.

8:00 - 8:30 -- opening, song, nametags (they wear them for a long time because of all of the name practice), flag, song, calendar, interactive writing

8:30 - 8:50 -- free exploration math centers

8:50 - 9:00 -- song or fingerplay, explain centers

9:00 - 10:00 -- centers (language arts, fine motor, math)

10:00 - 10:20 -- recess

10:20 - 10:35 -- either independent reading or independent writing

10:35 - 11:00 -- free choice (this is where you can include a dramatic play center, our other choices are painting, computers, play dough, blocks, writing on white board with markers, listening to story with book at listening center, puppets, etc.)

11:00 - 11:15 -- clean up, read-aloud, practice weekly poem

11:15 - 11:25 -- children watch educational video while being excused in groups to gather things for going home.

Hope this helps! I will be doing a full-day kindergarten with no aide. The class I'm in now, has an aide for an hour, plus a parent all day every day, and 1-2 student tutors. So even though I'm getting this experience, my experience will be quite different I know. Good luck and keep us posted on how things go!

 


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