Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! It was exciting to welcome the students back to school after the long winter break. We heard some great stories of exciting travels and time spent with family. I hope those of you that got a break were able to enjoy it to the fullest. My husband and I traveled to India -- the highlight being our trip to the Taj Mahal. What an amazing site! We are now back into the swing of things in KG-M and it is almost as if the students weren't gone at all. It is quite impressive to see the growth kindergarteners make over the first semester, which is very evident when they return and are able to pick right back up where they left off.

One of the first things we did upon returning was to discuss new years resolutions and how we might grow as individuals this coming year. The students had such great ideas and are excited to begin working on them. You can see them all displayed in our hallway. Here are pictures of just a few:

 

We also developed new classroom and school-oriented goals to work on for the next semester. It is incredible to see the impact these goals have on the students' performance. Last year our teaching staff had a professional development day led by a man named Steven Farr who is part of the management team for Teach for America. He discussed the importance of student-created goals and although I thought this might be difficult for five and six year olds to do, I figured I would try it out. I was quite wrong in thinking this might be too difficult as my kindergarten students amazed me with their deep thinking! They were able to reflect on their own learning and behavior and create very personal, thoughtful goals. Upon focusing on these goals I noticed the students were really taking their personal development into their own hands and making changes that even I was unable to help them make through constant reinforcement. Each students' goal is person to him/her, so please take the time to ask your child what s/he decided to focus on for this semester.