Year in Review

I had such high hopes about keeping up with blogging this school year and basically completely and utterly failed at that endeavor. I spent a good amount of time last summer posting about what I was planning to do in the upcoming school year, but then never got around to posting about how those things played out in the classroom. As I mentioned here, in yet another post where I talked about how I hadn't posted in awhile, I had a good excuse for not having the energy to blog....I was going through first trimester pregnancy exhaustion while I was also experience beginning of the school year in Kindergarten exhaustion and the combination left me wanting naps more than I wanted to rehash what happened during the school day on my blog.

In a nutshell, I think I had my hardest class ever this year and it was by far the biggest class I've ever had. I started the year with 25, then got a new student maybe 1 month in,  gained one and lost one on the same day in January, then got two other new students in March making a grand total of 28 kids.

That. Is. Too. Many. Kids.

I know that class size is a huge problem for many teachers, but this year was my first experience with a class that I considered just WAY too big. I struggled so much with just trying to gain and hold everyone's attention, which was a tiring exercise every single day. I didn't even have any kids whose behavior was awful, yet several students had attention issues, and overall it was just tough.  By the last new student, I was literally running out of supplies and space. I am very hopeful that our large sizes were just a fluke this year and we will return to class sized of about 23 next year.

Highlights of the year include:

• Presentations at three professional conferences including the Creative Teaching Conference in Paris, the Northwest Council of Computer Education's Conference in Seattle with my colleague Leslie, and at the Globalization, Diversity, and Education Conference in Spokane, Washington. The presentation with Leslie was about how we use iPads in Kindergarten and was the most exciting out of the three because not only was it the longest (2 full hours compared to 15 minutes at the other conferences), but it also drew the biggest audience. We love talking about how we use iPads in Kindergarten, so we had a blast gabbing away about what we've done with technology and our students' successes. The other two presentations came from my dissertation research and focused on home visits. 
• Publishing an article about iPads in Kindergarten this year through the International Reading Association. 
• The birth of our second daughter Sammy who turns 1 month old today! 

This summer, as always, I plan to spend some time reflecting on this past school year and planning for the upcoming year. We are facing some changes at my school including a new principal and new counselor. I will also be moving to a new classroom, which is both exciting and daunting at the same time. I hope that moving helps me get more organized. I always start each new school year with fresh ideas and always make changes of one kind or another. I never do things exactly the same, so it will be interesting to see how a new room changes things up. 

I am somewhat doubtful that anyone will actually read this based on my looooong absence on the blogging scene, but if anyone is out there reading, keep checking back! Summer seems to be my blog revival time because for some reason I am more interested in talking about school during the summer than I am during the school year :0)