How to Last Kindergarten 4Ever

 “All I really need to know.. I learned in kindergarten.” (Robert Fulghum)

My mum was my kindergarten teacher and I remember playing games, singing and dancing with her. Those days have always been my favourite memories. That may be the reason why I’ve become an English teacher in kindergarten today.

I really love the idea of playing games,singing, dancing, interacting and learning with kids. It’s a great pleasure to be a part of their development process and being their very first English teacher. You should be patient,enthusiastic,fun loving and dedicated and should always keep in mind that what students learn and experience in kindergarten can shape their future and affect their success or their failure in later years.

Kindergarten students learn mainly playing games, singing songs, chanting rhymes, listening to stories or doing any kind of fun activities. It’s such a pleasure for me to see how much they can learn and produce with their limited language. You can watch this short animoto:

 

(You can read my guest post on Barbara Sakamoto’s blog about teaching in kindergarteners in Turkey.)

I have been using technology with my students in my lessons. When you consider kindergarten, it’s more difficult to integrate technology as my kids don’t know writing or reading. Fortunately, there are some tools that I can use in my classes such as Voicethread, Glogster, Voki, Pimpampum,BubbleJoy,Little Bird Tales, Animoto, slideshows, wikis.

I had seen other kindergarten blog examples in different countries and I had always the thought of having one and this year, the home room teacher of my age 6 class and I have started our first collaborative kindergarten blog ! I can proudly announce that this is the very first kindergarten blog in Turkey!

We are using both languages,Turkish and English. Home room teacher is writing in Turkish with her posts and I’m writing in English.We’re taking pictures, filming kids, using Web 2.0 tools, giving useful links and interacting with parents and our students. Parents also are very pleased about our blog. Some of them have already commented on some of the blog posts and thanking us for creating this blog.

Kids are also very happy and enthusiastic about our blog. They have learnt the address of the blog and they visit our blog often at home and talk about what they have seen on it. We’re also showing the blog once a week in our classes and we’re talking about the pictures and the activities they have done this week. It’s so funny to see their faces or watch their expressions when they see their pictures, hear their voices or watch their films.

What I realize is that blogging in kindergarten has also increased their attention, participation and involvement in my lessons because when they learn English, produce the language or participate in the activities, they know that they can be on the blog and others can see what they are doing at school. They are proud of themselves and I’m proud of them!