The Future of Busy Bee Kindergarten
Hello to all my subscribers, both free and paid!
There is no constant in life except for change. Everything changes. Not only must we be ready for change, we should embrace it.
After documenting—with video and with over 400+ blog posts—two full school years of two classes of 24 and then 28 students learning to read and write, Busy Bee Kindergarten is looking at change.
The purpose of this post is to talk about the future of Busy Bee Kindergarten, both for this summer and for the next school year, 2023-2024.
Last summer I read and summarized about 20 articles for you and also reposted important ways to prepare for the upcoming school year. I learned a lot myself and many of you commented that you were loving this type of professional development.
Despite the benefits of last summer, this summer needs to be different. I want to keep things fresh and exciting and totally worthwhile for my subscribers. I have been brainstorming the possibilities for this summer…
But first, I must tell you about next school year. You’re probably sensing—as am I— that documenting another school year is not necessary. I have enough videos (hundreds!) of reading, writing, math, whole group instruction, small group instruction, one-on-one interventions, and social/emotional to share and address whatever might come up.
On top of that, my school might close. It was an emotional two weeks for my colleagues and me when the school board hastily announced an imminent closure and then just as suddenly retracted it. We were in limbo for a full five weeks—would our beloved school be around next year? Would our students and staff be dispersed throughout the district? Would there be enough job openings for everyone? Where would we end up? What grade would we teach and who would be our new teammates? What would the leadership be like? Luckily (not sure this is the right word here), we now know our school will remain open for one more year. But the damage has been done. Some teachers are leaving now to find their next job and some of our families are also searching for a new school to call home.
The closure of my school would affect not only my job but the future of Busy Bee Kindergarten as well. It’s not every principal who’s going to allow and encourage me to do what I know is best for kindergarten students. The district just purchased a new reading program and I doubt that a principal who doesn’t know me would be okay with me saying that I’m not going to use it. And I’m not sure that a new principal and a new community of parents who aren’t familiar with me and my background would be in favor of the daily videoing of students.
Fortunately, I was already considering retirement. Yes, I’m retiring! I absolutely love my work, I love being at work every day, I believe that I am still really effective at my job, but…
I’m tired. And I don’t think I want to weather the upcoming changes, this year and next (new reading program, new school, new principal).
It has been hard these past two years to teach all day and then spend another 20+ hours a week documenting that teaching. Don’t get me wrong; it was my choice and I loved every minute of it. I started Busy Bee Kindergarten because I wanted to share all that I’ve learned about teaching kindergarten with those new to kindergarten or those wanting to change their approach to teaching kindergarten.
And it’s been so, so rewarding. Being able to do what I love—teaching kindergarten—and then also share my passion with all of you was perfect; it was exactly what I needed to ensure that my last two years of teaching kindergarten would be fresh and challenging for me. I love the teaching and learning and community we—all of you and I—have got going with Busy Bee Kindergarten and I thank you all for the interest and support you’ve shown.
When I realized, back in October, that I couldn’t handle both teaching and the blog for yet another school year (2023-2024), I thought hard about whether I wanted to retire from teaching—after 34 years—or whether I wanted to shut down the Busy Bee Kindergarten blog. Something definitely has to give.
Despite having a degree in education administration, two degrees in special education, and being asked numerous times to be an instructional coach in my school district, my heart is in the classroom. I’ve always thought “I can do these other things some time in the future.” I got my administration endorsement in 1994 (nearly 30 years ago), just in case some day I might want to or need to move on to administration. Here it is 2023, and I still feel the best place for me is the classroom. But…
I do so want to share all that I’ve learned about teaching kindergarten over the years. And, more recently, I’ve wanted to share what I’ve learned about the Science of Reading and how it affects our instruction. I know that since I am 57 and my own children are grown and my life is pretty mellow at this point that I have way more time to read and research and create materials than most of you do. Busy Bee Kindergarten has allowed me to share what I know and what I’m learning with those of you who are too busy with the basics of teaching and life in general to do what I am able to do.
My dream has always been to dump out my brain before I retire. Substack—the platform upon which I blog—gave me the opportunity to do that. Whether it was five readers (initially) or thousands (presently), videoing my classroom and sharing what I know was what I needed to make happen before I could retire.
And so retiring is a possibility. My work and methods and use of materials are documented. Everything is accessible; everything can be shared as needed.
So what about next school year? What will Busy Bee Kindergarten look like if I am no longer videoing my daily work? Well, I have some ideas. And, I’d like your input and ideas as well.
Starting this summer and continuing into next school year, I would like to offer strands of learning to all paid subscribers. The strands that I have in mind are:
Classroom set up and scheduling
Behavior and classroom management
Backwards planning/year-long planning
Weekly lesson planning
How to get the test scores you hope for
Teaching phonics and phonemic awareness (moving into segmenting and blending)
Read alouds, vocabulary, focus lessons and comprehension
Small group instruction/running centers
How to make the most of daily intervention time
Teaching writing
Teaching handwriting
Social emotional/soft skills to enhance academic success
Math scope and sequence (if there is interest, I will put together a simple math curriculum for those of you who don’t have one or have one that is way too complicated)
Teaching high frequency/heart words
How to develop your own teaching materials for optimal effectiveness
Most of these cannot stand alone. You cannot teach writing without attending to your whole group phonics. You cannot make the most of your small group instruction without solid whole group instruction. You can’t get the test scores you dream of without a solid intervention plan. And so on, and so on.
I predict that many of you will sign up for several of these. But I also know that every teacher has their strengths and weaknesses and can probably think of an area or two they’d really like to focus on for the 2023-2024 school year.
So what if you do sign up for one or more strands? What will this look like? This is still in the works, but here is what I’m envisioning. Each group will have regularly scheduled posts and comment/chat sessions. The regularly scheduled posts will focus exclusively on the topics you’ve signed up for. Writing? Everything will be about writing. Posts will be timely and sequential; in other words, they will coincide with that exact week or month of kindergarten, pulling from my stockpile of videos. And chat will bring us all together in the same place to talk (via comments and replies) about a particular topic. I really want to see you get the chance to learn from everyone, not just me. The Busy Bee Kindergarten community will solidify and be all the more pointed in improving instruction.
Other ideas that are brewing, mostly because I’ll have the time now to make these happen:
More of What’s the Buzz?, a series of posts that share in-depth back-and-forth discussions with subscribers that others find highly valuable
Organizing all past posts by topic, making them easier to share with you
Continuing the weekly lesson plans, if there is interest
Compiling, sharing, and adding to my list of video links perfect for kindergarten
Putting together a simple but effective math curriculum
Reading and summarizing (for you) important articles and books
Creating more picture alphabet cards (i.e., several for each letter so that you have choices and can request the pictures and actions you want)
Continuing to develop instructional materials, including your requests
Being even more available for consulting via email or other means
Reading—and posting—read alouds that you can share with your class
Busy Bee Visit Me - I’ll be available to come to your area for informal coffee shop chats or formal trainings
The bottom line—Busy Bee Kindergarten will be different in the future but different because I’ll be able to offer more and that “more” will be more aligned with exactly what you need.
Free subscribers will continue to benefit. I have 400+ posts that I can recycle. I’m pretty sure you haven’t gone through and read all my archives and watched all the thousands of hours of videos in my collection. I will also continue to read and learn and summarize and share with all of you. The mission of Busy Bee Kindergarten is to help as many kindergarten teachers as I can. Some may ask why I don’t make everything free. The answer—for the past two years this has been a big job for which I deserved compensation and, starting in June, I need to supplement my retirement pension. I’ll either be working for you or I’ll be subbing or I’ll have some other new and fun part-time job. Of course, I would prefer to continue the momentum we’ve got going here at Busy Bee Kindergarten.
I don’t think I came right out and said it yet—I am worn out and cannot continue to teach full time and offer Busy Bee Kindergarten. Because of my desire to share all that I know about teaching kindergarten, I am going to stop teaching kids and devote more time to teaching teachers. While I insisted on staying in the classroom for all of my career, I am now, finally, leaving the classroom to try and make a bigger impact in education.
And that brings me to the next point. Because I will not be teaching full-time, I will have time to come to you. Come to you? What does that even mean? Throughout my career, I have presented at both the state and national levels. I didn’t do it much because… I was teaching full time. But now that I will no longer be tied to a classroom, I can make myself available for trainings and support. I can—and would love to—come to your area to help advance the teaching of kindergarten. This will require you taking a leading role in having your school or district hire me. Please let me know if you are interested in something like that. I, of course, am. I would love to meet some of you in person and work together to spread the word about how best to effectively teach kindergarten.
Be thinking about which summer/school year groups you’d like to join. Want to be a more effective writing teacher? Need help with behaviors and classroom management? Want to ensure that your students are getting systematic and explicit phonics instruction? Want to make the most of your small group instruction? Need a simple and straightforward math curriculum to follow? Have another need or strand idea? Keep in mind my philosophy—my way is not the one and only way. We will work together to mesh your teaching situation and style with best practices. These learning groups, and more, will be available to join starting summer of 2023.
I want you to know how much I’ve appreciated your support these past two years and that I want to continue to grow Busy Bee Kindergarten. Please let me know what would be helpful to you. I bet you all have some great ideas for me. Send them my way. Now that I’m retiring, I am open to offering a whole new variety of services for you.
Sincerely,
Randee
Martha, thank you! And thank you for your comment. I will make a note of your request for a math curriculum.
Thank you for all you’ve done and will do, Randee!