First Day of School!

Exhausted, thrilled, blessed, hopeful, overwhelmed... its a roller coaster of emotions around here, people. But I knew after the first hour of school today that PreK 3 is an awesome place to be.


Let me back up - I'm teaching PreK 3 at KIPP SHINE prep academy. Check out the website for KIPP if you feel the need to know more, but basically its a pretty intense, awesome charter school in south Houston. KIPP was started by Teach for America alumni within an elementary school in HISD in 1994. The founders are deeply committed to proving that any child, regardless of their parents' income or the color of their skin, can achieve the same academic success as the kids in wealthy, more affluent neighborhoods and consistently strong schools.


http://www.kipphouston.org/kipp/KIPP_SHINE_Prep_EN.asp?SnID=157433161


I've been hesitant about this PreK3 assignment - I loved teaching fourth grade this summer and I someday hope to teach high school, so three year olds? I told myself, at least three year olds at KIPP are very academically focused - we don't do worksheets, we set very high standards for our students, and use a lot of kindergarten curriculum throughout the year. So kindergarten, sure, I can do that.

But today, within an hour of spending time talking to the kids and showing them around our classroom, I knew that PreK3 was going to be a blast this year. Sure, challenging, especially since at least six of our kids don't speak English, but I learned today... those faces, those smiles, those hugs - I'm not going to have much trouble getting up to go to work in the morning.

And since all I wanted to do was collapse on our alphabet carpet at 4:15 this afternoon, I know that I'm not going to have any trouble falling asleep each night either.