new new new new

It's a new year, with new instructional strategies, tomorrow, a new student, and at the end of the month, a new principal. Life is never boring, that is for sure.

Today we had a lot of fun with the new year during calendar time. My kinders, bright as can be began telling me what each of the following years will be. They said, "next it will be 2015!" I replied, yes, when you are in first grade, it will change to 2015 in January." I then cursed the moment that those words came out of my mouth as we spent the next several minutes with them saying, "and in second grade it will be 2016, and in third 2017, etc. etc." I've got some good ones, no questions.

We shifted our language arts centers around a little bit today, and things seemed to go well. I have moved from three centers to four. This way, groups are smaller and I have added accountability to my reading groups. Now, advanced students partner read with lower level students, assisting them with sounding out words or using context clues to determine what is happening in their stories. Their next center is reading reflection where they write in their journals about one story that they read. Right now, this consists of "I read...". As the semester progresses, I think that my more advanced students will be able to add on a little more detail.

Our anchor chart for partner reading

"I read Can Melvin Scoot. Rita Ran to Rosie" One reading reflection with a picture of happy partners reading together!

At the end of our new center rotation, we debriefed how everything went. Overall, the kinders loved it. They liked reading with partners and they really liked writing about their books and drawing pictures. As of right now, I think we have a winner. We'll see how things go when they aren't so new anymore.

Another new for today was finding out that I will have a new student starting tomorrow. From Nepal. Now, between Mrs. S and I we can take care of English, Spanish, and Navajo languages. Neither of us speak Nepali though (surprising, I know). It will be a new adventure for the new year. One that I am both excited and frightened by. I'll be challenged by the fact that this little girl does not speak English and that the traditional alphabet for Nepali is Devanagari (say what?). But, I like challenges.

Does anyone out there understand the Devanagari alphabet?

My final new for the day was my principal announcing that she will be retiring in two weeks. Between state/district shake ups and family commitments, she decided that it would be best to leave now before the district requires principals to commit to five to seven more years with the district in conjunction with a turn around plan that has been set up. For now, our head teacher will be completing an internship as our interim principal, which is great. As for next year, there is no telling who might be walking through those doors with the title of principal. But honestly, as long as I am allowed to teach my kinders, I'll be able to go with the flow pretty well - but I am hooked on my kinders and don't want to leave the grade level any time in the near (read years) future.

And so, I'm heading out from school early-ish today and soaking in the new. Tomorrow I'll tackle the endless pile of paperwork/planning/organizing that comes with teaching.