Welcome to Ms. Karyn’s Kindergarten blog! The purpose of this site is to increase awareness of what we are learning about in Kindergarten. I personally find that photographs are a great way to communicate about school life. They also give children the visual clues to be able to talk about their day at school in the home environment. This also supports the practice of verbal communication at home, in any language! The blog is also a great way for us as teachers, to communicate important information about classroom events and news.

As a little introduction to me, I am 34 and English. I was born on the Isle of Wight, a small island off the south of England. When I turned eighteen, I spent a year working in the USA as an au’pair and returned to England to live in Manchester in the north of England. It was here that I studied for my History BA (Hons) degree. After completing this, I moved to London to start my PGCE teacher training.

This is now my eleventh year of teaching. Before moving to Tianjin, I lived in a small but beautiful Italian city called Trieste. Based there for five years at the International School of Trieste, I spent my first two years in Grade 2 and Grade 3, with my final three years teaching Grade 1. My very first teaching position was in London at an inner city state school. During this time I worked with Year 1 and Year 2 classes.

IST is a fabulous school and I feel very fortunate to be able to work here! I strongly believe that learning should be hands on, meaningful and most importantly fun! When learning is fun, it is much more likely to be engaging & effective!

Ms. Mickey

We are very lucky to have Ms. Mickey as our teaching assistant this year! Ms. Mickey has been working at IST for the past four years in NPK and last year in Pre-Kindergarten. Ms. Mickey loves working with children and is a very caring member of the Kindergarten team. Ms. Mickey is from the Xinjiang Province which is north of Tibet and moved to Tianjin eleven years ago.