So I was walking down the hall the other day, and our kindergartners were getting ready to go home. "We met our goal, Mr. Balduf" they said excitedly. I asked them, "What goal did you meet today?" "We met our goal of stamina" one little boy explained. It wasn't quite what I expected to hear, I have to admit. It is quite interesting to hear the words "we met our goal of stamina" coming from a five year old. However, they knew exactly what they were talking about and after conferencing with Ms. Bultinck and Mrs. Hoffman, they surely did meet their goal of stamina. So, I decided to check out these kindergartners' boasts of goal achievement on Thursday afternoon. You see, to help effectively work with all of the different levels of learners in a kindergarten class, our teachers are helping our students build their stamina to be able to read and write independently. This allows for increased differentiation in the classroom and provides our teachers the ability to create conferencing times, guided reading groups, and differentiated learning centers. So, in both Ms. Bultinck and Mrs. Hoffman's rooms, the students were provided a guided story where they worked on their comprehension skills. They then tested their independent read to self stamina and both classrooms once again completed their daily goal. I was quite impressed with our five year olds! I simply could not pass up the opportunity of snapping the photo of our four independent readers on the left.