EdNC. Essential education news. Important stories. Your voice.

Search ednc.org

A kindergarten class built on love

Blanchard illustrates a recent field trip to a strawberry farm and guides her class through spelling words such as "basket." Analisa Sorrells/EducationNC

Share this story

Our republishing policy

EdNC is a nonprofit, online, daily, independent newspaper. All of EdNC’s content is open source and free to republish. Please use the following guidelines when republishing our content.
  • Our content must be republished in full. If your organization uses a paywall, the content must be provided in full for free.
  • Credit our team by including both the author name and EdNC.org in the byline. Example: Alex Granados, EdNC.org.
  • If republishing the story online, please provide a link to EdNC.org or a link to the original article in either the byline or credit line.
  • The original headline of the article must be used. Allowable edits to the content of the piece include changes to meet your publication’s style guide and references to dates (i.e. this week changed to last week). Other edits must be approved by emailing Hannah Vinueza McClellan at [email protected].
  • Photos and other multimedia elements (audio, video, etc.) may not be republished without prior permission. Please email Hannah Vinueza McClellan at [email protected] if you are interested in sharing a multimedia element.
  • If you republish a story, please let us know by emailing Hannah Vinueza McClellan at [email protected].
Please email Hannah Vinueza McClellan at [email protected] if you have any questions. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Canonical tag

Please include the following canonical tag in the <head> of the republished story.

<link rel="canonical" href="https://www.ednc.org/a-kindergarten-class-built-on-love/">

HTML content

This includes the title, byline, content, and tracking pixel required for republishing this story.

Copy & paste HTML
This story is tagged:

This week is Teacher Appreciation Week, a time to show gratitude for the hard work of educators across the country. From kindergarten reading circles to high school science labs, nearly 100,000 teachers work with students in North Carolina each day. This year, we asked teachers to nominate their colleagues so we could share the stories of their compassion, commitment, and dedication.

To nominate a teacher for recognition, please complete the short survey below.

Teachers, thank you for all you do for our students and our state.

“Hello! Bonjour! Buenos dias!”

As these greetings float through the air each morning, Carrie Blanchard’s students make their way to the front of the classroom to join hands and sing along to “Hello to All The Children of the World,” a video that Blanchard plays from YouTube.

Students hold hands and sing along to “Hello to All the Children of the World,” which includes greetings in eight foreign languages. Analisa Sorrells/EducationNC

Blanchard has been a kindergarten teacher at Alderman Road Elementary School in Fayetteville for the last four years.

“As a teacher assistant, I kind of fell in love with working with kids and felt like I needed to do more, so I went back to school while I was an assistant,” said Blanchard.

After checking on their budding window plants and discussing the schedule for the day, Blanchard’s students join hands in a circle to pass a silent nod of eye contact one-by-one that culminates in a group hug.

Blanchard incorporates team building exercises like this into her classroom on a daily basis.

“On Fridays, we pull names out of the jar and they get to write about each other, and then we sit and share them. They each have an envelope with a postcard and a little heart on it and they get to take it home with them at the end of the year,” said Blanchard.

“Before anyone even says anything, they’ll say the name of the student that they’re calling and their face just lights up — even before they’ve even gotten the compliment.”

For Blanchard, being a teacher is about much more than being in the classroom; the diverse needs of her students weigh on her daily.

Blanchard’s students start their day by creating construction paper flowers. Analisa Sorrells/EducationNC

“They come from so many different backgrounds and it’s just hard. You don’t know what they’re experiencing but you talk to them, and you get a feel for what they’re experiencing at home,” said Blanchard. “You try your best to give them an environment where they feel safe and comfortable and loved.”

Blanchard takes seriously the academic demands placed on her to make sure her students are proficient and ready for the next grade level. But beyond her students’ academic needs, Blanchard also considers their social and emotional needs.

She thinks about making sure each student feels loved not only be her, but by their peers. She thinks about whether her students feel successful and confident. She thinks about their basic needs, going so far as to by her students socks.

Blanchard greets her class by going through the schedule for the day. Analisa Sorrells/EducationNC

“They are like my children — I’ve adopted 19 children this year,” said Blanchard. “It keeps me up at night making sure I’m meeting their needs.”

Blanchard’s compassion for her students is evident in her interactions with them. She applauds each of their successes and pushes them to be critical thinkers. She captivates her students’ attention and captures every opportunity for a teachable moment.

As she marked off the next day on the school calendar, Blanchard smiled and said: “Today marks 148 days smart — your brains have grown so much.”

Note: Carrie Blanchard was nominated by fellow educator Andi Webb.