The Bardwell years....
This is my very first day of teaching, back in 1993
with an Extended Day Kindergarten class for
at-risk students entering school for the first time, with no preschool
experience.
We went to the Pumpkin Farm in Aurora. These are my groups of
students for the 1994-1995 school year.
During the 1995-1996 school year I had a different
teaching assignment, and I team-taught five groups of children:
Two groups of first grade, two groups of second grade, and an EDK session in the
morning. This is my EDK
group during our study about snakes.
We participated in the Travel Buddies
Project (left) and in the Postcard Geography Project (right),
during the 1996-1997 academic year. This was the same year that this
website was created. Since then,
our students are learning fast as they interact with other children around the world through meaningful
shared writing activities, pictures and drawings sent through e-mails, and other regular
postal
mail exchanges. At the same time, we are also learning about our very own
community. Please read
about other projects we have done.
We use a whole language approach while we learn from each other and forge our curriculum.
When the 1997-1998
school year started, we started together our knowledge about leaves, as we
shared our ideas with students from
different schools. This was our first leaf collection projects (left). During Spring of that year we
learned about plants and how the seeds grow (right)
The 1998-1999 I had a student teacher from Aurora
University in my room. We
had
a lot of fun learning about sea animals. These are pictures of our beach day.
Then life took me into a different direction. I left Bardwell
Elementary in East Aurora and moved to a new school in West Chicago.
This
picture is very special to me and brings back many good memories. My last group
of Kindergarteners is in front and my very first
group of Kindergartners (fifth
graders already) is in the back. This was the last day of school in 1999.
The 1999-2000 school year was very challenging in many different ways.
I taught at Wegner Elementary in West Chicago (District 33), as a preschool teacher
with a morning and an afternoon class. The children's
interests in dress up evolved in a hat theme. We learned the Mexican Hat Dance
together.
Moved to Streamwood!
During thte 2001-2002 and 2002-2003 school years I worked with
wonderful teachers in an all-bilingual and bicultural setting. I taught a full-time
Kindergarten class. I learned much about emergent readers, and received various
trainings on guided reading. My students enjoyed
reading during naptime. It was a developmentally-appropriate curriculum using
thematic experiences as well.
Moved to Oak Park!
During thte 2003-2004 I went back to East Aurora (District 131). I was
hired as first grade teacher and was placed in a
wonderful classroom with lots of windows. For the first semester I taught
struggling readers in the morning. To the left is our first
day of school, and to the right our study about patterns in clothing, for the
Everyday Math Curriculum.
Our class participated in our very first handbell performance during the Winter
of the 2004-2005
school year. We dressed as snowmen and played Frosty the Snowman with our
bells.
It was a good exercise in reading and eye-hand coordination. We had a
blast!
You can tell by now that Mrs. Frontera likes hats. We were celebrating
Thanksgiving Day to the left and improving
our Handbell Choir to the right. Now we had a tablecloth. Our song this time was
Rudolph, the
Red-Nosed Reindeer. We were all wearing the Oak Park shirt. This was the
2005-2006 school year.
This is my most recent class, during the 2006-2007. For the first time I
was assigned to teach a split class
of Bilingual First and Second Graders. They got along very well and I gained
experience in teaching a multi-age
group. Our first day of class is on the left side and our class picture to the
right. We sang and danced to the tune
of The Drummer Boy. We had fun dressing up as sheperds.
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Updated on 07/11/07