Meet Yukari
Hi there! My name is Yukari and I’m the girl behind A Pinch of Kinder.
My passion is creating engaging activities that make Kindergarten fun for our learners and a little bit easier for teachers! I never imagined I would be here 10 years ago, and feel so fortunate that what I share has resonated with and helped so many educators. It has given me a purpose I never knew I wanted or thought I could achieve!
Education and Experience
I graduated from the University of British Columbia with a Bachelors of Arts
in English and History and worked as a teacher for AEON, an English language school in Japan (this is where I met my now husband), before completing my Bachelor of Education degree back at my alma mater.
After graduation I moved to southern Ontario (where my husband is from) and started volunteering at two schools, where I got to learn from amazing mentors in Kindergarten, Grade 3 and Grade 5. Once my teaching licence got approved in Ontario, I started supply teaching where I started to hone my classroom management skills and fell in love with teaching Kindergarten!
After a year of supply teaching I got my first full year LTO (contract) and taught Kindergarten for 6 years. The more I taught Kindergarten, the more I fell in love with it! I love how much progress you get to see and be a part of
at this age, both academically and emotionally. I also love that in Ontario, we are encouraged to be student-led and it’s so much fun reflecting the
students interests and culture in all aspects of the classroom, including the classroom walls and centres!
Now, that’s not to say that I didn’t find teaching Kindergarten hard! My first 4 years were in high priority schools with many students coming to school
with no prior schooling and high needs. I am no stranger to alarms and extra locks on my door, multiple students with modified days, teaching my guided reading group outside the sensory room and the list goes on. To
top it off, I found myself spending hours and hours after school and on the weekends scouring the internet or my own brain for lesson and centre ideas as my school was lacking in resources.
Education & experience continued…
This is when A Pinch of Kinder was born! Out of my own need for simple lessons and activities that my students could manage (but was still engaging and fun!) that directly hit the expectations in the Ontario Kindergarten Program. I started sharing some of these activities on Instagram in 2014 and I haven’t looked back since!
During my sixth year teaching Kindergarten, I became pregnant with my second child. It was right at the beginning of the COVID pandemic with a lot of unknowns still about the disease at the time, so I made the difficult decision to take the first sixth months off before my second little guy was born on an unpaid leave. When my maternity leave was ending and I tried to extend my leave (at the time, I was hoping for just another year or two at home with my little guy) I was denied and told that they had put in a new clause in the collective agreement (max. 2 years unpaid leave) because of the recent teacher shortage.
After thinking long and hard, I decided that I would not be able work full-time in a classroom, maintain A Pinch of Kinder and be a present mother to my 2 young boys so I put in my resignation with the board.
And now I get to share my ideas and experience with other Kindergarten teachers while also being flexible for the needs of my family. I am beyond grateful that I get to help other teachers and I get to make that my job! It has truly been a dream come true.
A Pinch of Kinder
I started sharing my teaching ideas in 2014 on Instagram and on my blog. I was inspired by the other education blogs I followed at the time and thought maybe some of the ideas that worked well in my classroom could work well for others too!
I picked the name “A Pinch of Kinder” because originally I was thinking I would share just a “pinch” of my teaching life. At the time, I didn’t realize how much I would fall in love with creating engaging resources and sharing them with all of you! Now I share whatever I think would help save teachers time but mostly reading, writing and math lessons and centres!
Kindergarten is a two year program in Ontario, so the students can range from just under 4 when they start to 5/6 when they leave for Grade One! There is a wide variety of skill sets, both because of the big age range and because all students are unique in where they are in their learning so you’ll see a lot of differentiation and options in most of my resources to accommodate for that!
My Family
I live in Ontario, Canada with my husband and two boys! I’m more of a homebody but my kids love a good adventure, so we love taking them to new places whenever we can. My older guy is into more active stuff (think trampoline parks and splash pads) while my younger little guy is an animal lover and loves places like the farm, the zoo and the aquarium!
When I’m not taking my kids out to an activity or thinking up new ways to engage and teach littles, you can find me drinking a cup of coffee and online window shopping or watching a show in bed with my favourite snacks (Ms. Vickie’s Spicy Dill Pickle chips and cola gummies)!
My Mission
My mission is to help educators save time by providing research-based, curriculum connected resources and practical tips and tricks that are easy to implement for the educator and fun for the kids!
Nothing makes me happier then when educators reach out to me and tell me that I have saved them time which they can now spend with their family or that I have taken some of the stress out of their teaching day! I hope you find something here that makes your teaching life a little bit easier and/or fun!