Buchheit highlighted at D32 during Teacher Appreciation Week

Hayley Buchheit leads a morning lesson in her kindergarten class at Perryville Elementary School.

It's Teacher Appreciation Week in America, and Perry County School District 32 is highlighting just a few of its over 200 educators who are making a difference in the lives of children each day.

This is Hayley Buchheit's first year teaching kindergarten, but she's been in the classroom for 5 years. Before moving to PES, Buchheit taught preschoolers at District 32's early childhood special education center.

"I've almost got my first year of kindergarten under my belt!" she said, adding that she always wanted to teach.

"I knew I wanted to be a teacher when I was about 5 years old and my little brother was born," Buchheit said. "I loved holding him and helping my mom care for him, and that is when my love for children started. I would practice being the teacher when he was old enough to be my 'student' and I was constantly playing school as a child."

It's that love of children that makes each day at work a joy, she said.

"I think what makes me look most forward to coming to work each day are the students," Buchheit said. "I love to see them when the light bulb comes on and it clicks and they finally get the concept that you have been teaching. The look in their eyes of confidence and 'I can do this' is priceless! "Teaching children to read is the best part of teaching kindergarten, and I love how excited they are when they can independently sound out a word, read a sentence, and eventually a book on their own. It is very rewarding as a teacher to hear the students brag on themselves, about how proud they are that they can read now!"

A typical day in kindergarten is ... well, never "typical."

"A kindergarten classroom never has a dull moment and is always exciting! If you stop by our classroom, you find us practicing our letters and sounds, reading and spelling sight words, learning to read, writing stories, counting, etc. The list goes on! We do all of this through songs, hands-on activities, experiments, technology activities with the SMARTboard, etc.

"The great thing about teaching kindergarten is designing lesson plans with memorable activities allowing the students to be hands-on with manipulatives, working with one other to try to understand the concept at hand."

During National Teacher Appreciation Week, Buchheit said that she hopes people take a moment to remember why teachers and schools are important: For kids!

"I think the community can best show their support of teachers and schools by becoming involved with education," she said.

"Today's students are our future," she said. "The more that we work together as a team to help make our schools better, whether it is by helping raise money to buy new textbooks, build a new playground, volunteer in classroom, etc., the better place it will be for students to grow and learn. The students today are our future leaders, teachers, doctors, etc. so we need to do all we can to help make them be the best they can be now!"