Hello and welcome to our classroom! My name is Joy Patterson. I live in Bellingham, and happily commute to Conway to teach and work with our wonderful kindergartners. We currently have 21 students in our morning class, and 20 students in our afternoon class. I am so energized and excited to return to Kindergarten! I have taught preschool, multiage primary, and worked with kindergartners since 1993. I also taught music education at Whatcom Community College. Kindergarten is truly the place where I want to be, and I want to create a fantastic program for our students. As part of my vision, I created this blog to keep parents, friends and families updated on Kindergarten happenings and to let you in on what I have been working on to date.
My first task was transforming the classroom which I felt needed some big updates and organization. So the summer before school began, I set to work. The following are some "before" photos...
This was the closet area, featuring hooks for backpacks and coats.
Children had a number that they would use for the year.
This was the original garage door in the classroom - complete with three-foot spring.
It prevented use of the top four feet of vertical space.
This was the original blackboard from 1959.
Little had been done to update the classroom since then.
The computers in the classroom were donated from Stanwood High School.
Since we didn't have computers in the classroom, we inherited their throwaways.
This was how the storage area was organized.
