A police officer came to my house and asked me where I was between 5 and 6. I replied: "Kindergarten."

Another week has gone by I cannot believe it!! I have been teaching for 2 full weeks now. The rest of September- it gets a little tricky. Eid Al Adha begins next Tuesday, which means we only have a 2 day week of school. Then school is closed for the Eid holiday and we come back on the 29th. I am crossing my fingers that I am not starting completely from scratch when they come back from that week break and they haven't forgotten all of the routines we have started!! It is very tough in the beginning of the year. They are still adjusting from the summer time and their attention and memory span is small to borderline nonexistent. It is kind of like having a bunch of Dories in my class. I correct one of the students to sit in their square on the rug, remind them to keep their hands and feet to themselves, and not even a minute later their friend next to them is doing the same thing! I teach my students that good friends have to be patient and wait their turns. However I also have to remind myself to be patient because we are only in September and they are just kids being kids.



It runs in my family. At least I think it does...

This week has mainly involved me continuing to get adjusted. There are a million and one questions floating around in my head. Am I pacing this ok? Is this too fast for some of the kids? Are my higher level kids still being challenged enough or are they bored? How much of the curriculum should I be starting? What should I focus on for my morning work? How far along in Handwriting Without Tears should I cover this week? What do I want to focus on in math? Am I giving my TA enough work? I think you get the idea. The kids and I continue to get used to each other and I am working on maintaining that healthy work/life balance. Someone posted this bulletin board on Facebook and I absolutely love it. It really is all about keeping a positive attitude and mindset. Negativity can be incredibly toxic. Anyone who knows me knows that I am unbelievably hard on myself and am my own worst critic. This is something I am always working on and definitely have improved on greatly the past few years.

The power of words!

Sometimes throughout the week I noticed that some of my best lessons were ones that I made up on the spot when another lesson I planned a lot for ended up going super fast. Kindergarten keeps me on my toes! I overplanned so much and my written lesson plan that I made at the beginning of this week is very different from what actually happened in my classroom this week. I thought I would have gotten through more Handwriting Without Tears (HWT) and Everyday Mathematics. Once you sit down and teach the lessons to your kids, you have to adjust accordingly. Simplicity is key in kindergarten and I realized I needed to break down the content even further. We have been talking about pattern blocks/shapes all week. I did not think it would take that long! But it is the beginning of the year and we are getting everything set up for the year and I want to make sure I am adequately explaining the different manipulatives that we will be using in math. Plus teaching kids the different shape names like trapezoid and rhombus- it takes them some time to remember those math names! We focused this week on how we can make patterns with the shapes and then took turns on the rug having our friends make patterns and talk about what shapes they used. We also focused on a different number each day. Today was the number 4. I had them all practice writing them number, we would count out the cubes, and modeling with the wooden blocks how to write the number 4. I also made it interactive by calling on different kids to jump up and down 4 times or do 4 jumping jacks and the rest of the class would count as they jumped. Making it interactive was definitely a must since we were at the end of their week. I constantly had them asking me "Miss Kellie when is lunch?" "Miss Kellie is it time to eat?" No boys and girls, we just ate snack. Honestly you'd think I never fed them or something!

Some of the patterns I've found thanks to Pinterest. The students also love to be creative and design their own patterns and bigger shapes/pictures.

 I also did not realize how much focus needs to be put on pencil grip with their fine motor skills. Play Doh has been my BFF this week. I have been looking online this week and am amazed at how many different activities help with fine motor skills! While they play with the Play Doh sometimes I direct them with what to do. I have them hold out their thumb, index, and middle finger (tripod grip) and roll and squish the Play Doh with those fingers. Then I just challenge them to do different things like making a snake bigger than mine, making the Play Doh super flat and poking holes in it with their pencil... one thing they really loved was when I gave them each a bingo chip and they would take a little piece of Play Doh and hide it. They absolutely loved acting like little magicians by hiding the chips inside the Play Doh and pulling it out over and over. It all helps those little muscles!

One of the projects I worked on today with the kids involved fine motor skills. They practiced tearing/ripping paper, and then glued those papers to make the first letter of their name. I wrote the first letter of their names with a sharpie on a regular sized paper, and then I told them after they tore up their square of construction paper they had to take all those tiny pieces and cover up the black sharpie. Then I had them practice cutting with scissors. We practiced on the rug as a whole group after I modeled it how we hold scissors (chanting open and shut as they opened and closed the scissors one by one) and how to safely hand scissors to a friend. First I had them cut out these papers that look like fringe. After that I made funky zig zag lines on the sides of the papers with the first letters of their names to give them more opportunities to practice cutting with scissors and work those muscles. I think it will make more sense if you see some pictures!

The finished products!



It worked out great for even my fast finishers. They would come up to me with their paper bragging that they were done and I'd send them back "Ooh no I still see some black marker you need to cover that up! Glue some more green on there!"

 I celebrated one of my students' birthdays for the first time this week! It was on Tuesday and it was quite the party. I expected them to bring cupcakes, we would sing, and that would be the end of it. Nope! They went all out and the kids were in awe when they came back from Gym. The timing worked out perfectly. The parents came in to set everything up while the kids were at gym. Then I went to pick them up from gym and we celebrated during snack time. When they finished it was time for recess and I helped the parents clean everything up and they left. It went incredibly smooth considering we are only in the second week of school. I kid you not about them going all out for the birthday. We party hard in KG2D! There was a big chocolate cake, trays of snacks like Oreos, chips, and mini cupcakes. The parents had goodie bags for all the kids and juice boxes that they covered in paper to spell out Happy Birthday and even had Batman masks for the boys and crowns for the girls to wear. We basically had a quick birthday bash in the middle of the day. The parents took pictures all throughout and we even snapped a couple of group shots before I sent them outside to burn off some of that sugar. It was incredible. One of the parents of another student even gave a gift. The families here are incredibly kind and welcoming. It is so nice to work with such generous and caring people.

The cake! Complete with candles that were lit up by me while Dad took pictures.

The goodie bags, plates, and decorations! See the Batman mask and princess crown? Inside of those papers spelling out Happy Birthday is apple juice for the kids.

 I am hoping to explore more of Qatar some more either this weekend and for the Eid holiday (or both!) Exciting news- I got my residency permit!!! I am a legal resident of Qatar now and am able to travel! I decided not to travel during Eid because only some people have their residency permits so far. I want to wait for more people to have them so I can have some traveling buddies to go on adventures with! There has been talk of doing some dune bashing and camping in the desert during the Eid break, which I am so down for. I am all for trying different things and seeing other places besides my apartment and the school every single day- with a trip to the mall occasionally thrown in the mix. It will be nice to have some time off and get to know the area some more. We live in Barwa Commercial Avenue which is in the industrial area of Doha. It does not look anything like the pictures you see online. We live near where all the exciting construction happens! The majority of Doha is a huge construction site. Eventually it will look beautiful outside my apartment... it'll just take some time!

I'm legal now!

The view outside my window. Like I said, industrial area!

Some pictures along the drive to and from school. They're big fans of the color tan here.

More tan buildings! It's what they have to do since it is the desert after all. The majority of the cars here are white as well because of the sand. It's very rare to see a black car and even if you did have one why would you want it in this heat?!

In Qatar you have to get used to the color tan. Everywhere. The color of the day is tan and the letter of the day is T for traffic here! I would be awful at giving driving directions to anyone because I have no idea what the names of any of the streets are and there aren't really any landmarks. You make a left at the tan building, then make a right at the next tan building... after the roundabout/circle make a left... yeah I would definitely get them lost. When I take cabs to go anywhere I just tell them the name of the mall or store I want to go and hope they know where it is. The cab drivers are pretty good here. The ones that I have been using lately are the same drivers that we use for the buses to school. One of them helped me find this small bookstore called Abu Karbal. It was where I got birthday things for my classroom (birthday crowns, stickers, and pencils). It is a fantastic store that I recommend to all my Qatar teacher friends who need posters or anything for their classrooms! The first floor is all kinds of books and the second floor is filled with posters hanging around that you might use to decorate your classroom and it was exactly the kinds of things I was looking for.

This is what traffic is like right when we leave the apartment complex around 6:30ish. Going from here to one of the left lanes to make a left at the first light is always fun.

I did take my roomie to one of the hotels in the main part of Doha with all the gorgeous buildings. We went to The W hotel where you could get a daily pass to use the gym, pool, and spa. It was very swanky and fancy there it was great. The pool was cool and refreshing. She is awesome and ended up taking me out to PF Chang's for my birthday dinner and it was fantastic! Yay for crispy honey shrimp.

Pool with an awesome view while you swim.

 

The lobby of The W. See? Fancy.

View from The W.

One of the places that is easiest to get to is the Villagio. This is the mall that has the gondala ride in it as well as a small indoor amusement park with a ferris wheel, swinging pirate ship ride, small roller coaster, and I believe there are go karts as well! And of course the ice skating rink in the middle of the food court.

This is a hotel called The Torch and is right outside of the Villagio Mall. The very top part is a restaurant called 360 because it spins around. You have to make a reservation because it is very popular and from what I hear kind of pricy. I definitely want to eat there at least once- I bet the view of Doha from there is amazing.

The architecture and design in this part of the Villagio is incredible to look at. You can't help but stop and stare.

This part of the mall has all the name brands. Prada, Gucci, Fendi, you name it- they've got it. It's almost intimidating walking down this section because it is so fancy.

 It was very fun celebrating my birthday in the Qatar. A little weird being away from my family for it, but my GEMS family helped make it awesome. The coolest part (literally!) was on 9/11, my last day of being 25, we got rain and thunder! I was sitting in my apartment and I kept hearing this rumbling and assumed it was construction. But my roommate Nicole said she thought it sounded like thunder too. Sure enough it was and raining too!! The weather was nice and cool that day. Then I went out with Shannon my fellow Jersey girl to celebrate my last night of being a quarter of a century to The Admiral's in The Ritz Carlton. It had an indoor area with live music as well as an outdoor terrace that was literally right on the water. You could see all the boats docked and everything. I tried to take some pictures but unfortunately they did not come out because it was so dark and you couldn't see anything. Right at midnight Shannon came out holding a sparkler and had everyone sing happy birthday to me. Thank goodness it was dark because I am sure my face was bright red! The best part was that the majority of people were hanging outside voluntarily because it was so nice out thanks to the rain. Best birthday present ever, thanks Qatar!

Here's what The Admiral's Club looks like according to a picture on google.

All in all I'd say my first 10 days teaching at GEMS AAQ have been pretty great so far! Like any new adventure it has its ups and downs but all I can do is embrace it and take it one day at a time. And if I'm feeling down I remember one of my favorite signs by Ansar...

It's the truth!