New Teacher - almost

[ginduc95]

I will be completing my student teaching in May 08 and will hopefully have a new job in the Fall 08. I am hoping for Kindergarten and I have some questions:

1. What should be done the first weeks of school?
2. When should handwriting be introduced?
3. What books, CDs, etc should I invest in?
4. What is the one thing in your room that you couldn't do without?

Any advice, tips and suggestions you could give me would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Ginger in GA

[Kteacher]

1. What should be done the first weeks of school?
2. When should handwriting be introduced?
3. What books, CDs, etc should I invest in?
4. What is the one thing in your room that you couldn't do without?



1. Take this time to set up routines. Harry Wong has some good books on the subject. Not everything in them is appropriate for K, but a lot is.
2. It may be part of your phonics program. I wouldn't start it until later in the year, their fine motor just isn't ready.
3. Dr. Jean cds! And check out her website!
4. A kidney table, but if you get one consider yourself lucky. The other thing is a bookstand for big books.

[HZalaha]

Kindergarten is fantastic. I've been teaching for the past two years in Kindergarten and the children are great at that age. Definitely spend the first month on getting the rules and routines of the classroom down. With my students I introduce handwriting from the very beginning. You'll be surprised how many students are ready for it, and those that are not at least have the exposure to it. Begin with a lot of tracing, but leave the letters out at first. Use diagonal lines, curves, circles, straight lines, etc. This will give them good practice so when they work their way up to letters all they have to do is think about the kind of lines to make (i.e. for the letter a they need to make a circle and a straight line down. Also, there are two crutial items I always have in my classroom. First is a bell. My kids know that when the bell rings they freeze, put down anything in their hands, put their hands on their head, and look at me. Second is a bag of goldfish crackers. I use them as a little "thank you" to students that are doing a great job. This way the kids that are not on task see what the others are getting and then learn to mimic their behavior so they can get a goldfish also. Hopefully some of this helped you. Good luck with your student teaching!