Teaching Kindergarten During Covid (Another Silver-lining of Pandemic Living)

After six months of working form home and not at all, I am back in the classroom. 

And not just any classroom— a kindergarten classroom.  The most hands-on, energy, time, and patience consuming kind of teaching. 

And to complicate things even more, a kindergarten classroom in an underfunded and overcrowded classroom in the midst of a global pandemic.  

Why am I here?  I’ve gotten that question before.  It sounds tiring, draining, stressful, mind-numbing, demanding, and perhaps even unsafe or dangerous, especially as many teachers are opting to teach virtually.  

And to be perfectly honest, often it is.   The room gets loud, the kids get messy. I get hugs when I don’t ask for them. I have to open lunch boxes and zip up coats when health regulations warn to stay six feet away.  

However, after being out of the classroom for so many months, I wanted nothing more than to be back in action in school with the kids.  

There is hecticness (hecticness?), and confusion, and frustration, but there are also so many moments of pure joy.  

There is the playfulness and the silliness, pretending to be dinosaurs stomping around the playground to switching roles where my kindergarteners play teacher and I play their student.  There’s laughter and creativity, and the contagious pride that comes from writing a name tag or gluing a button “all by myself.”  There is reading stories in different voices, and acting out the movements of characters in a and the weather and the feelings that are held within the pages.  

There is so much in-the-moment fun and positivity, that its quite easy to forget how scary it feels to be in the rest of the world right now.  

Of course, what we are doing here with 28 kindergartens in one classroom is not as safe as virtual learning. In a public school classroom, we do not have the ability to social distance or stay 2 metres (or even 1 metre!) apart.  

However, we are making it as safe as we can in these circumstances. 

Every single one of my little ones proudly wears a mask all day long. 

We wash our hands before and after every activity and transition, and use sanitizer when we are outside. 

We limit sharing of toys and books, and label individual materials with every child’s name.   

At five and four and even three years old, the kids astound me everyday with their understanding of why they need to wear their masks and wash their hands, and their diligence in doing so. 

We are in this together, and doing all we can to keep each other safe and healthy.  

And so here I am, 28 kids deep, wearing masks and holding hands, cleaning messes, and repeating instructions more times than I can count, waking up earlier than I have in months and still going to bed later than I should.  And right now, this is exactly where I want to be.  

There is nothing like spending the day teaching a class full of kindergarteners to remind you about what it means to truly be present and in-the-moment, to care for others, to wash your hands, and to embrace some silliness along the way.  

As cases are currently on the rise here in Canada, I am not sure how much longer we will be allowed to stay in our classrooms.  And so I will savour every day I continue to pack my teaching bag, put on my face mask, and gather everybody around the morning circle. 

This has been another silver-lining through the darkness cast by corona— a renewed delight and passion for being in the classroom.  I didn’t realize how much I loved it until I could no longer do it.   And now that I am back, I am dreading the day we may need to pack up and isolate again.  

I hope you reading this can be like my class of kindergarteners:

Wear your mask,

wash your hands,

share laughter, but not food,

and above all,

find the joy in the little things.  

That’s how we are going to get through this,  and keep our health and our sanity along the way.  

What do you remember from kindergarten?

-Jordan 

“Ms.G-P”