Year-End Wrap Up!

Looking back over the year, I see how much all our students have grown. They are taller, their faces have changed, they have made new friends and learned how to follow the classroom routine and enjoy trying new things! I have also made progress toward my goals of implementing more technology in the classroom. Even though I have not added new applications for each unit we used throughout the year, balancing life outside of school has a way of slowing down the pace of reaching my goals. The reality of my students needs, and the goals of our program to add more "pre-academic" focus forced me to spend more time on developing strategies to work on vocabulary, receptive and expressive language, social skills, letter recognition and sounds, rhyming, more pre-math skills etc. Professional development does not follow a linear path plotted at the beginning of the year - it takes its own path as needs show themselves throughout the year. These are all areas needing my attention, and will continue to be my focus throughout the next year. This year has been a success - these 3 & 4 year olds are ready to move on to the next challenge - of the approximately 65 students (some added, some dropped) they all can identify more letters and sounds than they could last fall. They all can count more, make comparisons, are learning to recognize rhyming, can complete a pattern. . .have learned some sharing, compassion for others, and most of all - excitement for learning. And the challenges for new learning, adapting and changing continue for me too. New co-teaching, new paras, adding more depth to the curriculum and technology will keep me on my toes next year too.