Kindergarten is a year of tremendous growth and your little one will blossom as a reader, writer, mathematician, scientist, explorer, engineer, friend, learner, and citizen of the world.  At PNA, we teach using the workshop style to engage students in authentic reading, writing, and math experiences that help them grow not only in each of these areas, but as independent learners as well.  This year, I am adding an inquiry workshop, in which we will study our science and social studies topics.  I am excited about giving my students the opportunity to take more responsibility and initiative in asking questions, researching and exploring to learn more, and sharing this knowledge with each other.

Our science and social studies topics include:

• Citizenship in the community
• The sun and its energy (which will coincide with the school-wide, Space Week)
• Pushes and pulls
• Weather
• Animals, their habitats, and human impact on the earth
• Diversity and cultures in the world
• Geography and its impact on our lives
• Learning about the past

At PNA, we truly believe that learning is not limited to the four walls of the classroom and love enriching our studies with additional experiences and experts.  I do my best to include either field trips, guest experts, or partnerships with classes in the lower 48 and other parts of the world for each of these studies.  Additionally, students will enjoy enriching experiences, such as building lego robots, dissecting squids, using the 3-D printer, making weather forecasts using a green screen, training a sled dog for our annual mock Iditarod, and running a campaign to help endangered animals.

We also want our students to become confident, lifelong learners, something which workshop style teaching naturally fosters.  In workshop style teaching, there is a short (10-15 minute), whole group lesson, known as a mini-lesson, that targets the specific skills, strategies, and content all students need to know.  Students spend the rest of their time doing: exploring, experimenting, and practicing the target skills and strategies.  During this time, students might be working independently, with partners or in small groups, or with me.  This gives me the opportunity to meet with individual students or small groups of students, providing enrichment or support and meeting the unique needs of each student.

Workshops allow students to build stamina for academic tasks, use skills and strategies independently, and develop responsibility through making choices and developing the skills to regulate their own learning.  Because students are truly engaged in their independent and small group learning, workshop teaching ensures that all students are involved with high-quality learning throughout the day, not just when working with the teacher.  It simultaneously honors and teaches the natural way humans learn – through experimenting, doing, researching, reading, writing, creating, asking questions and seeking the answers.

At the beginning of the year in kindergarten, we are working on building our classroom community, a community of learners that take risks, try new things, share knowledge, and respect each other’s contributions.  We are building the structure and routines for our workshops that will allow students to engage successfully in learning throughout the year.​Thank you for joining us in the important task of helping our little ones develop into curious and confident lifelong learners!