May Mindset: Finishing the Year Strong
The month of May has begun! Cue all the emotions and on your mark, get set, GO! Fill your planner with as many events and activities as it can hold.
The month of May (and June) is such a fun loving, anxiety ridden time for both students and teachers.
Not to mention, the month of May (and June) is usually when the teacher guilt and overprotective feelings start to hit me hard.
Did I teach them enough? Have I prepared them enough? Did I do everything I could to make them successful for the next grade? You want to put my student in what class? You think you know him/her better than me? Who has spent six and half hours a day with him or her for the past 170 something days?
It’s hard to let them fly on to the next grade, it’s such a bittersweet time!
All the stress and all the feels.
On the student side, I believe the month of May brings a lot of excitement and anxiety for them as well.
They are excited for summer, excited for first grade, but scared to leave their safety net, the one room they have known for the past year.
It’s hard to see when you are living it day to day, but this time of year is such a sweet spot.
Routines have been taught, skills have be learned, and accomplishments have been made.
Whenever I pull out writing samples from August and September no matter who the student is I’m always amazed at how far they have come.
Kindergarten is truly a magical place full of growth and achievements.
I wanted to hit the ground running for the first day of May so I decided to have my class and I fill out a May Mindset anchor chart.
As a class I wanted to brainstorm positive statements we could read often to keep our head in the game and focused!
We had such a great discussion as we made our anchor chart and I was impressed with what my class came up with.
One student even said he was going to make a poster at home to look at to help him remember! (melt my heart)
My plan is to start our day reading our May Mindset Chart and we will refer to it often.
I want my students to recognize and celebrate all their successes this month and continue to focus and tie all the skills we have learned together.
May (and June) is such an exciting month! I hope you have found this idea useful for your own classroom.
As crazy as these couple of months are, try to relax, make sure to take care of you, and enjoy the last few weeks of school with your kiddos before the much needed rest and relaxation begins!
