Reflections on Year 1

I cannot believe how quickly time flies by (when you're having fun AND you're super busy!). Since my first year teaching (what!) has come to an end, I am left here reflecting over the last 9 months and pondering about the upcoming months and school year. When everyone said that your first year will fly by, it seemed like such an abstract statement since I had never experienced anything like this year before. But it did fly by and my, what an amazing journey it was, which I feel excited and privileged to have had.

As a first year teacher, who was also helping to launch a new dual language program at our school, I certainly felt an enormous amount of pressure to be successful and to provide my K students the most authentic, immersive language learning (and content learning, of course) experience possible! One of the most important things that I can say and reflect upon is how important it was for me to use the resources available (i.e., the internet & my colleagues!) to search for, find and adapt activities for learning that I could utilize. Using search engines to find Spanish poems (and being selective about which poems I believe would be the most beneficial), along with using sites such as Pinterest, I was able to gather ideas and implement them in the way I felt most appropriate. Reflecting on this I realize the importance of seeing ideas from seasoned educators and finding ways to adapt and implement them!

Although sometimes the pressure and stress felt overwhelming, these tools allowed me to realize (1) I am not alone and (2) there are SO many great ideas out there. I also decided that because I knew my kids best and what their needs were, I would need to take what I had learned as a Kindergarten student in Venezuela meshed with my academic experience in the U.S. and my personal family life experience growing up Latina in the U.S. to create an overview of how to teach literacy in Spanish and integrate it with science, social studies and mathematics. Coming into such an innovative and progressive school helped me in this journey. Our Kindergarten team teaches in thematic units, which I now realize is such a powerful way to teach all the standards and content, while not leaving out important subjects such as science and social studies. By integrating all the subjects to thematic units (which the English side teacher was also doing), the children were able to find fluidity and continuity between the two classes, the content and the learning experiences.

Finally, I've also realized how crucial it is for the English side and the Spanish side teacher to have a close working relationship, because I believe, the majority of the success of our program this year was based on that relationship. The other teacher and I would coordinate before every unit to discuss what we were each doing with what group of student (our morning group or our afternoon group), we would discuss everyday what we were doing/what we did with each group and how it went and we would make sure we didn't repeat any lessons (but rather, added on and provided students with different activities aimed at reaching the standards we were working on). I truly believe that this not only helped our sanity (so we were not repeating lessons and things of that nature), but it also demonstrated a coordination and teamwork model for the students, who undeniably saw how closely we both worked!

Overall, I am so grateful for the incredible first year I have had! I feel privileged to be at a school where our Principal allows (and actually encourages) teachers to be creative, innovative and authentic in their practice, while still adhering to standards and what needs to be covered/taught. I have learned a lot and continue to learn a lot and gather new ideas, and am excited for the road ahead as I enter into my second year of teaching Kindergarten!

Happy Summer Everyone!

My One Word for 2016... "Experiment"

Recently my principal wrote a blog post about his "one word" for 2016 and this inspired our latest twitter chat (Thursday nights--> #sofledchat) about each of our own "one word" for 2016. After reflecting back on the first half of the school year (still cannot believe we are halfway through the year!) and on a word that could embody how I want my students to push themselves and try new things... I came up with the word "experiment." Experiment is just a fancy word for "TRY" and while "trying" is SO essential in every single classroom, I also see it as a key feature of my Kindergarten Dual Language (Spanish) classroom. 

I don't have to try too hard to put myself in my students shoes (especially my Native English speaking students) because when I first immigrated to the United States, all I spoke was Spanish and I was placed in an all English first grade classroom where I felt intimidated and nervous at first when all I heard was English being spoken to me all day. This is how many of my English speaking students must have felt at the beginning of the year (and even at some points still must feel) hearing me speak Spanish all day. Thus, TRYING or EXPERIMENTING is a key part in being a successful language learner (even when we are babies and learning our native tongue!). When I see my students jump in and EXPERIMENT or TRY it leaves me inspired, excited and motivated to try more and to push myself more, so it can help them as well. An example: one of my native English speaking students started saying full sentences to me in Spanish towards the end of December and she has continuously been jumping in and experimenting with her language and her learning! If a 5 year old can experiment so freely and free from judgment, can't we all?

So as I have been reflecting over what my amazing students have accomplished and how they are growing as learners and language learners, I wanted to think of a word that could embody how I want my students to experience learning (through experimentation... through trying, through failing & getting back up again!) and how I want to be as a teacher - always trying hard and pushing myself!

I have said this repeatedly to people who know me - I never want to be 'complacent' with anything in my life because I think complacency leads to stagnation, standing still and lack of progression... One way that I will not become complacent is by experimenting - trying new things everyday both personally and in my career! I am constantly amazed at how much I can learn from my 5 and 6 year olds - how much experimenting is required of them (mainly because so much of this "school" thing is so new to them!) that I find myself motivated and excited to try new things too!

So as we start off 2016 I will vow to "EXPERIMENT," to try new things, to jump into all experiences that are coming with excitement, motivation and inspiration and in turn, provide opportunities for my students to EXPERIMENT, to TRY new things and ways of learning so that they too are excited, motivated and inspired! What is your One Word for 2016?