Kindergarten 101: Top 3 Social Dilemmas a Kindergartener Can Face in the First Months of School

Hello Readers!

It’s been a while since I posted but I thought I would just write a little update post about my year at school so far. As many of you know, I’ve switched to teaching kindergarten this year. It’s been a compelling journey, but I have to say, I think I like it.

My biggest fear when coming into this job was how I was going to teach the fundamentals of math and reading. While reading and counting is of course reinforced in 1st and 2nd grades, I saw with my 3rd grade class last year how crucial it is to get a strong foundation in kindergarten. All summer, I worried that I would fail to give my students their foundation in number sense and an accessible understanding of beginning phonics. However, what I’ve found is that my kids are pretty smart–they’re picking up the academics really well. Our largest challenge by far has been socializing with one another.

In the nine weeks since we started together, we’ve gone through a number of different phases together:

• There was the “accident versus on purpose” phase, when we had to have several in-depth discussions about the idea that even if you didn’t mean to bump into someone, you still have to acknowledge that it happened and tell them you’re sorry.
• There was the “oh well, better luck next time” phase. This was when we had to learn to say that phrase to ourselves (with some cute hand gestures) in order to remember that just because we weren’t picked for a special job this time, doesn’t mean it will be forever and ever and ever for the rest of eternity or the end of the day whichever comes first.
• An ongoing phase is the “personal space” phase. As a class, we engage in many practice sessions of keeping our hands to ourselves and giving other students a little space to breathe. As fun as it can be to go up to someone’s face and, centimeters away from their nose, stick out our tongues, we’ve learned that this action won’t always trigger the most pleasant reaction.

At first, I thought these little phases were funny. But the more I think about it, the more I see how serious it is for a teacher to commit to teaching social skills to children. As adults, we think of “social skills” as being able to hold pleasant conversation (saying “I’m sorry” when necessary), acting “mature” in all public situations (“oh well, I didn’t win the raffle prizes to DisneyLand…better luck next time”), and not standing too close to someone (personal space). Sound familiar?

The wonderful thing about kindergarten is that there is so much growth, even in the first few weeks of school. My students are intelligent and kind. They work hard every day to be good friends and good students. I can’t wait to see where they go for the rest of the year.