In the Monkey Classroom at Jones County Pre-K, with Teacher Jennifer Brown and Paraprofessional Heather Todd, a typical day begins with students practicing their morning movements by singing, dancing, and following along with YouTube videos.
Students sing, “It’s a brand new day, and I am feeling okay!” in one good morning video. They practice placing their hands on their hips and spinning their arms around in a circle to feel warmed up for a day of learning and touch their toes and “get their bodies ready to go!”
In another video, students sing that they “spread sunshine with a special light” and can “make their light shine all around to start the day out right.”
After preparing themselves for the day with Brown and Todd, Brown engages the Monkey Classroom in an activity that helps them determine the student line leader for the remainder of the day.
All the students begin standing, and one by one, Brown calls out identifying factors of the class line leader she selected. If the students standing do not have the features that Brown describes, such as having brown eyes or wearing long pants, those students must sit down. At the end of the activity, only the line leader remains standing.
The line leader leads the class in the Pledge of Allegiance and gets to help Brown create the morning calendar by telling her their favorite color markers to draw the daily calendar with. Together, Brown and her students discuss the date, the day of the week, the month, and the year. The next day, the line leader gets to take the daily calendar home with their name on it.
Students in the Monkey Classroom have also talked about similar and different feelings and learned how to tell what someone is feeling. Brown uses puppets to demonstrate emotions to her students. In one instance, the puppets had to go to the dentist! One puppet was happy, and the other was sad. Students were able to identify the difference between positive and negative emotions.
Brown also showed students a picture of two students riding a bike. The students put their “atteniscopes,” their attention scopes, to recognize what was similar and different about the students in the picture. They identified the students as girls wearing jackets and helmets and riding a bike together as similarities. As differences, the students noticed one girl was excited, and the other was scared. Brown reminded students that it is okay to feel different emotions.
“Sometimes, we think people should feel the same as we do. Today, we learn that it is okay for people to feel different things about the same thing, but we never, ever - even when we are angry - hit or hurt anyone! We always keep our hands to ourselves and always be nice,” the teacher said.
Brown has taught for 23 years, teaching multiple grade levels. Thirteen years of her teaching experience has been in the Jones County School System, with this school year being her second year at Jones County Pre-K.
She is married and has two children, one 15-year-old and an eight-year-old. She enjoys going to church and vacationing with her family, especially cruising!
Since the first grade, Brown knew she wanted to be a teacher.
“I was inspired by my firstgrade teacher and playing ‘school’ while growing up. I always knew that was the pathway I wanted to take. I went to Georgia College for my bachelor’s degree and received my master’s from Walden University,” she said.
Brown loves teaching Pre-K and finds witnessing student growth the most rewarding aspect of her job.
“When you see their growth from the beginning to the end of the year, it is just heartwarming. I always want to empower the kids and inspire them,” Brown said.
Brown always encourages students to never stop learning.
Todd has been a paraprofessional at Jones County Pre-K for two years. She began working with children at St. Stephens Episcopal Church in Milledgeville, where she cared for toddlers. Then, she became a paraprofessional at Jones County Pre-K because she loved working with children.
Todd has a seven-year-old son named Brayden. She enjoys going to church and reading the bible. A fun fact about Todd is that she knows how to solve a Rubik’s cube!
Her favorite classroom activity is taking the students to the library, and she always reminds her students, above all else, to be kind. The most rewarding part of her job is knowing that her students have learned something from her and making a difference in their lives.
Together, Brown and Todd create an atmosphere of love and learning in the Monkey Classroom - every day.
