CARLSBAD -- Karen Stencil, the 2007 Teacher of the Year in the Carlsbad Unified School District, said she believes in maximizing every teaching moment.

On Friday, during the 30 minutes she taught 20 kindergarteners to sing and dance, no second was wasted.

Stencil began strumming her 12-string guitar even before all her 20 kindergarten students at Jefferson Elementary School had seated themselves on colored dots on the carpeted floor.

In a soft voice, the 20-year teacher started singing a song of welcome as her students joined in. From that song in English and Spanish, through "Zippity Do Dah," "It's a Small World," "This Land Is Your Land" and a lesson on farm animal sounds, Stencil collected the attention of her students, many of whom signed the words in American Sign Language as they sang along.

And that was just the first 5 minutes.

"It's not fair to the kids to not know what you're doing," said Stencil.

Stencil said she teaches at Jefferson three days a week. Her kindergarten classes last 30 minutes, while her fourth- and fifth-graders get 45 minutes of instruction. She said she scripts each lesson, and with two to four different lessons each day, she stays busy with lesson planning and practice.

She laughed as she recalled a colleague who found her dancing alone in her classroom recently. The practice is essential, she said, to get the lesson -- and the steps -- right when teaching kindergartners to dance.

After singing songs on Friday, Stencil led her kindergartners through a dizzying series of at least a dozen individual dance steps set to country music. She started slow with just the first step, adding one move at a time. Within five minutes, students had the basic steps, and with each successive practice, they got better.

When she introduced the do-si-do -- teaching students to interlock their elbows and spin around -- the giggles escalated into squeals, their eyes bright and wide. The students danced right up until 10 a.m., when Stencil asked them to sit on their dots and straighten their rows. Then out the door they marched.

Carol Van Vooren, Jefferson's principal, nominated Stencil for teacher of the year. Van Vooren said Stencil is a highly effective teacher who succeeds in teaching students of all ages to read music, play instruments and dance.

"Students leave music knowing how to count rhythms for jump rope, to bounce a ball to a song, to know the words to patriotic songs, and to be confident in front of their peers," Van Vooren wrote in her nomination letter. "The skills taught in Mrs. Stencilís music class enhance math, social studies and the life skills of cooperation."

Stencil, who has earned the highest level of teacher training called National Teacher Board Certification, said she has taught all of her 20 years in education in Carlsbad schools. She played the flute professionally before becoming a teacher, she said.

"Music allows them to express themselves, creatively and emotionally," said Stencil of her students. "It's a celebration and an outlet."

Stencil also leads the 60-student band at Jefferson, assists with the 35-student choir, teaches guitar to fifth-graders, and organizes a folk dance program, Van Vooren said.

And students come at recess to learn the recorder, motivated by Stencil's "Recorder Karate" program. For each song they learn to play on the small clarinetlike instrument, they tie a colored "belt," or thread on it as a symbol of accomplishment.

"These are the belts I got," said 9-year-old Cayden Vesper, one of eight students to join Stencil on Friday. "They represent the songs I've played."

Cayden, a fourth-grader who wants to be a dirt-bike rider when he grows up, has been attending Stencil's Recorder Karate recess since January. He also plays trumpet and guitar, and can play every song in his trumpet book, he said.

When asked why he would rather join Stencil than play outside, Cayden explained it this way: "She teaches kids how to play instruments and she goes slow and then faster and faster -- and at recess they play marbles and you lose them and that's not that fun."

The Carlsbad award means Stencil will move on to the countywide Teacher of the Year competition in the fall.

Contact Philip K. Ireland at (760) 901-4043 or online at pireland@nctimes.com. Comment at nctimes.com.