My kindergarten experience

Been teaching kindergarteners is one of the experiences Iwon´t forget in my life. I have learned a lot and reflected on the conception of teaching I have. Since kids are so sweet but so hard deal with I want to share part of my experience in my teaching practice there.

PREPARING CLASSES

Preparing classes involves a lot of time, money and creativity. It was difficult to

make a lesson plan because young learners don´

t know how to read they just learn by identifying pictures and associating words to those pictures. Many days Iwanted to cry because my ideas to prepare a class were off.

Some days, I prepared classes which I considered wonderful. I invested a lot of time preparing them but at the time of performing them children didn’t enjoyed them at all, so I have learned that what I like is not necessary what

kids like. Thinking on that I can say that a lesson plan must be based on the student’s needs and interests.

PERFORMING CLASSES

At the time of being in front of my students, I tried to do my best but I have noticed

that they learned easier with those

materials that I made with my creativity using paper, glue, colors and pictures than with those which were printed and downloaded from the net.

Singing was an important part of our classes. They enjoyed the classes when we used to sing. Every lesson we started with the hello song which was easier to learn and students enjoyed a lot to sing. I used to ask one student to pass to the front to direct the activity and students enjoyed that. It was nice watching all those hands rose to participate.

Unconsciously I used the total physical response in my classes. As I had a lot of pictures around my classroom I ask students to stand, walk and touch the picture named by me. When I was teaching the colors I used to say a color and kids had to point out something in the classroom with the color named. They were happy performing activities like those.

DISCIPLINE IN THE CLASSROOM

It was one of the most difficult parts of my teaching practice. When kids were misbehaving during the class causing a mess it was difficult to correct them without

hurting their feelings. The most common troubles I had in the classroom were that a student took a color without permission, that some students were fighting and that some didn’t want to work.

AFFECTIVE FILTER

Kids are very affective by nature. They use to run and hug me when I was entering to school. Some of them used to make pictures like hearts,

flower and happy faces and then they use to give them to me. I remember one day when a girl was crying in the classroom because she had forgotten a flower for her English teacher. I told her that there were no problem and at the next class she gave me another flower. Others use to buy candies and cookies for me. That was something special for me that showed me that kids were happy with my classes.

PROBLEMS WITH NAMES

Another problem was remembering names. The first names I learned were those from the kids who used to misbehave and the most i

ntelligent ones. But I had a big problem with a girl whose name is Julissa and I used to call her Marisol because she looks like a girl who was my classmate in kindergarten so every time I saw her I remember Marisol´s face and I used to call her with that name.

TIME TO SAY GOOD BYE

The last day of classes with my kindergarteners is unforgettable. I made a review of everything I had taught in the classroom and at the moment of telling them that it was the last class they started to say why? I gave each of them a cookie and when I too

k my folder and said good bye a kid whose name is Moises run to hug me and suddenly all the kids were next to me trying to hug me and some of them were crying.

So to finish I can say that those special students touch my heart and I

learn a lot from them.