Where Oh Where Are My First Graders?

New house. New neighborhood. New teacher. New faces. New school. Military children move so much it is hard to keep track of where they have been and where they are going. Their lives change so much from year to year and I am here to help ease the changes. I am a first grade teacher in Kansas. We are a fantastic school district that serves mainly military children. On average, students are in our schools for a year and then move on to another school in another state or even country. Many of our military parents are also deployed while they are living in Kansas.

Change is so hard for anyone, especially first graders. They get so comfortable where they are and next thing they know they have to pack everything and move somewhere new. Students come from all over the United States and even all over the globe. At the beginning of the school year my students are always very timid, shy and hesitant about starting a new school. During the year they become comfortable, and then the end of the school year has arrived and they are terrified because they will be moving yet again. This is so stressful on the students. Another struggle for my first graders is when Mom or Dad is deployed or on a long trip for work. First graders don’t fully understand why Mom or Dad has left. They can usually tell you where their parent is, but they don’t know anything about the country or state they are in.

My students need books, magazines, and other materials to help get ready to move and also to help them understand where their parents are if they are deployed or on a trip for work. The materials would be used as a guide for my students to ease their minds about all the new places. For example, if one of my students was moving to Germany, we would look up Germany on the map, and then use the provided books and materials to learn about German culture. We would find great places to visit and fun things to do in Germany so the students would be excited about moving to a new place. We would do the same for any state or country depending on where the students will be going.

This project is so important to my students. We talked today about where they are moving and they were so upset. When I asked what would help them be more comfortable with moving they all replied that they wish they could see the place before they got there. Even my students with deployed parents said they wish they could see where their parents are and talk to them more often. We check out books from the library and talk about where they will be going, but there aren’t very many and they don’t have every state in the United States and they don’t have all of the countries. We could even use the materials at the beginning of the year as a “Get To Know Me” activity. The children could select a book from the materials and show where they came from. This would be a great way to get the children more comfortable in a new school.