Kindergarten Teachers: Jules Goodwin and Deb Dortch

My name is Jules Goodwin and along with my teaching assistant Deb Dortch, we will be teaching Kindergarten this year. Deb and I have been working together for over 20 years to make children's first formal years of school an interesting, meaningful and exciting educational experience.

The first few months of school we will set routines, rules, structure and guidelines so that the children in our classroom will begin to understand the responsibilities and choices of their daily school life. We will work with your child throughout the year helping them to grow their individual independence and their awareness of being an important part of the community in room 40.

Deb and I are both constructivist teachers relying heavily on Piagetian theories of cognitive development. To put this very simply, we believe children need to be given time and many daily opportunities to figure out and “construct” meaningful knowledge-to be allowed to “invent their own wheel”. We do this by giving children a variety of structured choices to pursue their own interests and by providing a curriculum that asks children to be problem solvers. The curriculum emphasizes developing big ideas, concepts and theories.

During the year we will study water, mapping and insects. We will celebrate the 100th day of school, Martin Luther King's birthday and Earth Day. We will practice walking throughout the halls with respect to others, sharing materials, taking turns, developing social problem solving skills and thinking.

Deb and I are looking forward to working with your child and family this year.