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Kindergarten Teachers Chatboard

Young children and Old MacDonald

by Kathleen

Sep 16, 2015

What Do Young Children Really Need? Ask Old MacDonald an article by Abby Connors

I learned that “Old MacDonald” satisfies important emotional and developmental needs for young children. For instance...

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Special Website to visit

by Francie

Sep 13, 2015

Today is the LAST day to enter Caring Classrooms' AMAZING Contest! We have 5 spaces available on our DonorsChoose giving page (full funding guaranteed), we will be awarding FOUR $50 DonorsChoose gift cards, FOUR $50 TeachersPayTeachers gift cards, a subscription to Spelling City, a subscriptiion to Flocabulary, and a BizWorld kit!

How do y...See More

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Class size

by Michigan Mary

Sep 12, 2015

In my school, we now have 26 kindergartners with one k teacher and no aide whatsoever. What are your class sizes and are there any state laws to govern this? With the push for early childhood education / preschool, I feel like kindergarten is falling through the cracks. How about you? Any research out there about this?

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maureen My granddaughter's K class has 16 I think and there are two K classes at her school. None of my other children, grandchildren ever had had more then 18 in their classrooms. All attended public or parochial school for their K years.

I taught Montessori multi age so I had children ages 2 1/2 though kindergarten age in the same classroom. I ...See MoreMy granddaughter's K class has 16 I think and there are two K classes at her school. None of my other children, grandchildren ever had had more then 18 in their classrooms. All attended public or parochial school for their K years.

I taught Montessori multi age so I had children ages 2 1/2 though kindergarten age in the same classroom. I would have anywhere between 24 to 30 each year. However, since that approach is so different from traditional schools, the more the merrier number wise. Our K students were the "seniors" and actually were like having several "assistants" in the classroom. It is like comparing apples to oranges between my classrooms and what my children/grandchildren experienced for a K year.

None of my kids ever had two adults in their K classrooms, but at the current school there is so much parent involvement, the teacher seems to have ample help from parents and grandparents when needed. As far as I can tell, my dgd is the only one who is already reading and many don't even know their letters or phonetic sounds. The teacher has her hands full, but when I enter the classroom in the morning each day, they are all working diligently on their seat work

Our state has played around with numbers in the early years for many years now. Once we actually had a law that said that no classroom could have more then 18 students in grades K through 3rd. Great concept and there seemed to be proof back then that class size made a huge difference(early 80's) However, when I questioned the larger class sizes at my dd's elementary, I found out that the schools were getting around that requirement. What the district did was add all the numbers of students in a grade in the district and made sure they had an 18/1 ratio overall although one teacher in a smaller school might have just 10 students and another teacher in another building might have 26. People wonder why many don't trust schools doing right for the children and that is a perfect example of when the schools had the $$ and the support for class sizes to benefit the children, they found a way to beat the system.

Sep 13, 2015

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DonnaR/CA On 9/12/15, Michigan Mary wrote: > In my school, we now have 26 kindergartners with one k > teacher and no aide whatsoever. What are your class > sizes and are there any state laws to govern this? With > the push for early childhood education / preschool, I feel > like kindergarten is falling through the cracks. How about > you? A...See More

Sep 13, 2015

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Behavior Management System?!

by Kat_Kong

Sep 6, 2015

Hi, I am a 1st year Kinder teacher but was a sped teacher for several years. The school I am at has said we must use a color-coded behavior system with clips. Kids start every day on Green, one infraction they move to yellow, another to Orange and another to Red. If they are on red at lunch they miss 5 minutes of recess. The system resets at noon a...See More

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Flacka If you felt that this was a good system and it worked for you, then stick with it. I used something similar but built in rewards as well as "punishment" . That said, each teacher in school put their own spin on this school-wide plan.

On 9/06/15, Kat_Kong wrote: > Hi, > I am a 1st year Kinder teacher but was a sped teacher f...See More

Sep 11, 2015

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Brigance assessment

by Mary-Ann

Sep 9, 2015

Curious if anyone uses the new version of the Brigance kindergarten readiness assessment? Do you like it? We switched from the older version to the new version and are finding it way harder (ie - test results are a lot lower). Wanted to know what others thought about it.... Thanks in advance for any feedback.

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Phonics Program

by Keeper of the Dumplings

Aug 30, 2015

Hello all! We use a very outdated, unappealing phonics program in our district. My principal is all for trying something new - yay! Can you please share if you are using something for phonics that you like? Thanks very much!

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Alicia On 8/30/15, Keeper of the Dumplings wrote: > Hello all! We use a very outdated, unappealing phonics > program in our district. My principal is all for trying > something new - yay! Can you please share if you are using > something for phonics that you like? Thanks very much!

We use a program called reading street

Aug 30, 2015

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Mary-Ann My colleague and I use Itchy's alphabet. Love it! If you google it, they will describe it much better than I can. I like how the formation of the letter is tied in with a picture that kids can relate to (example to make a 'b' you first draw the bat, then the ball).

Sep 9, 2015

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Daily schedule

by JCM

Aug 23, 2015

I struggle with planning a day that is balanced and fun for the kids. I would love your feedback about your developmentally appropriate full day schedule. For instance, do your kids come right to morning meeting in the morning or do activities at the table? Any sample schedules would be great!

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Cabbage I start my morning with fine motor centers that I rotate each day and change every two weeks. I love this work they can practice and it is totally adjustable in the time frame. If something comes up they can work a bit longer.

On 8/23/15, JCM wrote: > I struggle with planning a day that is balanced and fun for > the kids. I would lov...See More

Aug 28, 2015

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DonnaR/CA On 8/28/15, Cabbage wrote: > I start my morning with fine motor centers that I rotate each > day and change every two weeks.

What types of things do you include? This is a great idea!

I started out this year differently than I did all year, last year. Last year, we went directly to Morning Meeting. However, with kids coming...See More

Aug 29, 2015

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3 Attributes of a Great Principal

by Teachers.Net Gazette

Aug 25, 2015

Teachers.Net teachers listed 3 (sometimes more) attributes of a great principal. (We were especially struck by the 2 shortest entries, those posted after "Mutual respect and trust needs to be nurtured," about 3/4 of the way down the page.)

What would you add to the list?

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