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Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Here's the Story...


yeah...only it's not the story of a man named Brady, and his lovely lady, but it was a hunch,
a hunch that we could take these children from different classes,
and somehow form a family- a school family...

okay, okay...enough of The Brady Bunch...and sorry if you are too young to even get this reference!
but, this week has sort of felt like the blending of a family.
This week 12 children from my original kindergarten class joined with 10 first graders from classes down the hall to make one k/1 class.

This week has felt a bit like the first week of school all over again as we got to know each other, relearned daily routines and began to form our learning community.  We are building relationships.
There are no shortcuts here.  Relationships take time and grow with careful nurturing.
So, before I can to forge my way through combining the curriculum of two grade levels, I will spend time with these new family members.  We, of course, need to learn each others' names, but we also need to learn about what kind of stories we like to read and we need to learn how to share our own stories.  We need to decide how we will celebrate birthdays and other special occasions.  We will learn who is silly and who is kind of quiet.  We must find out how to encourage each other. 
We will build our reading workshop together, and a workshop for writing and math.  Some kids are 4 years old and others will turn 7 this year.  There will be growing pains..."Growing Pains"...I feel another sitcom connection here.

This bunch of k kids and firsties will somehow form a family, that's the way we all become the...hhmmm, Bugaj Bunch.  I probably should just go to bed now.