A Typical Kindergarten Day

I taught Kindergarten about 10 years ago at a day care center. They did not have a very organized program for that level at all, so I had to pretty much make up my own curriculum and schedule. This is one of the reasons why this year was so enjoyable. I didn't have to worry about following any state guidelines. I did my own thing, but I did want to make it challenging. I did not just want the children to play all day. I wanted to teach and I knew that they could learn just about anything at this age. Plus, I wanted this year to count for me also and I planned to put it on my resume. My administrator left it up to me to teach what I wanted. I worked from 8 to 5 being that it was a day care. We started our day at 9 but ended around 3, like a normal school day.

The children would come in all different times in the morning between 8 and 9:00. They just played until we started at 9. We began each day with circle time. This included the pledge of allegiance, calendar and weather, counting days in school with straws (which taught them the math place value concept of ones, tens and hundreds), and we ended with a story. Right after that, the children had journal time. They would draw a picture, usually about the story we just read in circle time. They would dictate a sentence to the aid and myself and we would write it in their book for them. By the end of the year, some students were able to write sentences by themselves. Certain times, I would have them draw about something they learned in a previous day's lesson. A few times I let them draw whatever they wanted. After journals, it was time for snack. As soon as they were done with snack it was silent reading time. Then we went back to the rug to do letter and number of the week. We had a lot of fun with this. I was amazed with how many words the children came up with through out the week.

On Fridays for show and tell, they would bring in something that started with the letter of the week. After this, it was time for Math and Reading groups which lasted about 30-40 minutes. Then it was time for lunch, recess and nap time which took us to the afternoon. After nap time, we did Science or Social Studies. Since there was no curriculum, I used to go to the local library and get out a bunch of books for their age level. I would read them the story, and then come up with some kind of project to make. I remember doing the planets with them and making a mobile. Once a week on video days, someone would always have a "Magic School Bus" movie about what we were studying. Everything just seemed to fall into place and work out so well all through out the year. For Social Studies we learned about different countries and people's customs.

As you can guess, the day just flew by. It usually does when you are on such a structured schedule. They needed that kind of schedule though. They would get tired of just playing all day. Even though I enjoy the older grades now, I still look back to that year when I taught Kindergarten. I can really say that was the best year of my career.