Smorgasbord Posts from Your Archives 2022 – ‘Potluck’ – #Endofyear #Letter by Jennie Fitzkee

Since this series began in January 2018 there have been over 1000 Posts from Your Archives where bloggers have taken the opportunity to share posts to a new audience… mine.

The topics have ranged from travel, childhood, recipes, history, family and the most recent series was #PotLuck where I shared a random selection of different topics. This series is along the same lines… but is a ‘Lucky Dip’

In this series I will be sharing posts from the half of 2022

It is an opportunity to showcase your writing skill to my readers and also to share on my social media. Which combined is around the 50,000 mark. If you are an author your books will be mentioned too, along with their buy links and your other social media contacts. You can find out how to participate at the end of the post.

Today Jennie Fitzkee shares the letter that she sent out to the parents of the children in her class, celebrating events and experiences that they have enjoyed and learned from during the year.. wonderful artwork too. Another post that illustrates how lucky we all would be to have had a teacher like Jennie.

The Final Letter

As soon as the school year is over and the dust has settled, my final letter to families is a reflection of the school year. It takes families through the highlights so they can relive those moments and classroom experiences with their child. Memories are important.

I am reliving those moments, too. My keepsakes include:

An American flag

A thank you note. The book and song is Abiyoyo.

A homemade work of art. I love the ILU (I love you) initials, along with the child’s initials.

Reflections on a Wonderful Year June, 2022

We hope you enjoyed your child’s year-end portfolio, as each one is a walk down memory lane for teachers. Wasn’t it just a few months ago that children were building an Atlas robot? Remember when we wore our pajamas to school and had a ‘Day in the Dark’? Remember our “Peter and the Wolf” play performance? Remember how we introduced music to inspire creativity for our Art Show? There are so many Aqua Room events and memories. The year has passed far too quickly.

What did your children embrace?

Building and Puzzles. From Duplos, to blocks, to Legos, children built incredible structures that were complex and thoughtfully planned. Puzzles were a choice activity every day, from floor puzzles to table puzzles.

Dinosaurs and Robots. As soon as children watched the Boston Dynamics robots, they were curious and engaged. First, they loved the song, then their engineering minds kicked in and they wanted to learn more. Dinosaurs have been a favorite all year.

Russia, France, and India. We traveled around the globe using our favorite Big Book Atlas. From learning about wolves and watching a live wolf cam, to singing the days of the week in French, to dressing in native Indian clothing and eating Indian food, and balancing peacock feathers, our experiences broadened our learning.

Pen-Pals. Reaching out to children around the world by making cards, and getting cards in return, was a big and exciting experience. Children wanted to write words and draw pictures. It was wonderful to make connections.

Writing Thank You Letters. We wrote nine letters over the course of the year. Nine! They were all on big chart paper and elaborately decorated. The heartfelt replies were an added bonus.

Play Performances. We enjoyed planning and performing “Peter and the Wolf”, “The Story of Little Babaji”, and “Goldilocks and the three Dinosaurs.” Children continued to act out the plays on their own, on the playground.

God Bless America. This has been the favorite song of the year. Children often sang it on their own. It was fitting that it had a grand finale, taping a video and sending it to the White House- fabulous.

Books and Stories, from picture books to chapter reading, to fact books. Our bookshelf is well-used, and as popular as our block shelf. Chapter reading is one of our favorite times of the day.

Mystery Readers. Children loved the surprise of a family member reading to us via Zoom. Thank you, Mystery Readers!

Signing-In. As the year progressed, children developed letter formation and motor skills, from writing large letters, to eventually making small and uniform letters. This became a popular daily routine.

Question of the Day. What started as a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ question where children had to read a question and find their name stick, grew into a more complex activity. We learned how to tally vote, and we broadened our math skills- greater than/less than, identifying and then writing missing numbers, and also letters.

The Animal Game. This game became a fun, everyday activity at lunch. Teachers gave clues as to different animals, and children had to guess the animal. Following the Animal Game we always listened to a true Jennie Story.

Music and Movement. Singing and dancing along with the autoharp or the new, big technology screen has been so much fun all year. Children still want to sing the “Jack-O-Lantern” song, even though October was long ago. Most recently, they want to sing along with the Singing Sergeants, “God Bless the USA.” Yoga is so much fun, especially following along on the big screen.

Gloria, our beloved puppet, has been a constant presence of love and kindness for children. Gloria often teaches far more than we teachers can do. Recently other new friends have joined Gloria- Oscar the Otter, Elephant and Piggie, and the Pigeon and baby Duckling.

It has been a wonderful year with your children. We feel blessed. Thanks for all your support.

Jennie

©Jennie Fitzkee 2022

My thanks to Jennie for sharing this amazing example of why her children adore her and their parents are extremely grateful she is their teacher.

About Jennie Fitzikee

I have been teaching preschool for over thirty years. This is my passion. I believe that children have a voice, and that is the catalyst to enhance or even change the learning experience. Emergent curriculum opens young minds. It’s the little things that happen in the classroom that are most important and exciting. That’s what I write about. I am highlighted in the the new edition of Jim Trelease’s bestselling book, “The Read-Aloud Handbook” because of my reading to children. My class has designed quilts that hang as permanent displays at both the National Liberty Museum in Philadelphia, and the Fisher House at the Boston VA Hospital.

Connect to Jennie – Blog: Jennie Fitzkee – Facebook: Jennie Fitzkee – @jlfatgc

How to feature in the series?

• All I need you to do is give me permission to dive in to your archives and find two posts to share here on Smorgasbord. (sally.cronin@moyhill.com)
• Rather than a set topic, I will select posts at random of general interest across a number of subjects from the first six months of 2022. (it is helpful if you have a link to your archives in your sidebar by month)
• As I will be promoting your books as part of the post along with all your information and links so I will not be sharing direct marketing or self- promotional posts in the series.
• If you are an author I am sure you will have a page on your blog with the details, and an ‘about page’ with your profile and social media links (always a good idea anyway). I will get everything that I need.
• As a blogger I would assume that you have an ‘about page’ a profile photo and your links to social media.
• Copyright is yours and I will ©Your name on every post… and you will be named as the author in the URL and subject line.
• Previous participants are very welcome to take part again.
• Each post is reformatted for my blog and I don’t cut and paste, this means it might look different from your own post especially if you are using the block editor
• If I do share a post which contains mainly photographs I will share up to five and link back to the original post for people to view the rest.

N.B – To get the maximum benefit from your archive posts, the only thing I ask is that you respond to comments individually and share on your own social media.. thank you.