Never a Dull Moment

This week is finally over! I'm so glad it started on a Tuesday, thanks to national holidays, and I got to "ease" back into the swing of things.

Our theme this week was "Health and Hygiene" and the kiddos loved learning about healthy foods, exercise, and ways to keep our bodies clean. Our memory verse was, "My body is Jesus' castle". The kiddos made up motions for the memory verse and they wee the cutest things doing it all week.

My transcripts finally came in for my 12 units of Early Childhood Education (ECE) classes! This was a long awaited event. Basically I get to now account for 12 children and I get to run my classroom all by myself. I absolutely love my co-teachers, but being able to do it on my own is refreshing.

Working with children is such an amazing thing! There is never a dull moment and they definitely keep me on my toes (if they aren't stepping on them at the moment). They are absolutely honest and they have an innocence about the way they go about their days. It is so much fun to watch them grow physically, mentally, and spiritually.

This week was our review week for letters "a"-"j". I am implementing "Zoophonics" into the classroom so there is a schedule and order we go about things. This week they had a review worksheet to practice writing the letters. They did amazing! Seeing them take the work on, and do it on their own, is so exciting! They are really learning and growing right in front of me and I am so proud to be apart of that process.

Here are some of the cute things they did and said this week:

• While on the potty, a little girl started shouting, "teacher, teacher!". I rushed to her aid, assuming she needed some help, checked in on her. All she had to say was, "Teacher, I love you!". Of course I responded with an "I love you too" and was relieved to know that that was all she needed. 
• While lining up outside to go to the playground there was a distinct smell in the air. One little girl, with a disgusted look on her face, says, "it smells like funk out here". *LOL* I wasn't sure if she meant to say "Skunk" or if "funk" is the word she was looking for. Either way, it was priceless!
• Today while sweeping off the sidewalk (a regular ritual for us teachers to avoid slipping children), my sweet, spastic child says, "teacher, you're doing a really great job cleaning the sidewalk". I couldn't help but smile and say thank-you!
• We got a few new kids since the New Year began. One little boy decides he's someones boyfriend every day. And every day it is a new little girl that he chooses. After only being here a week, this morning one little girl was sad because he wasn't wanting to be her friend today. I could understand her frustration being that just yesterday he was holding her hand. I called him over to discuss the matter with him, and remind him that "we are all friend at school". He took back the "I'm not your friend" comment and with frustration and anxiety in his voice exclaimed to me, "I just can't be any ones friend today. I can't play with anyone. I have to play by myself because I have a lot of things to take care of with all the children." I was shocked by his little heart-felt speech and couldn't help but laugh. I told the little girl, "I guess he needs time to himself to figure out some things. Just give him some space." 

Like I said, never a dull moment. These kiddos are so fun to work with! 

Next weeks them is occupations! Oh, I can't wait to see their little minds at work with this fun theme! 

Who Said "Rules and Safety"?

So my trend of writing posts once a week (on Thursdays) failed. Let's see how the Sunday post goes...Maybe I'll keep it my new ritual since I don't usually blog (on my other blogs) on Sundays. I'll leave it open and free for this one!

This week was an eventful one. Our Kindergartners were off to school and our newbies came in to visit our classroom. There were, on average, about 22 of us each day and we had a great time learning about school rules and safety. I'm not sure if it was the "newness" of the week or if it was the longing to rebel when learning about rules and safety but a lot of our chillins got hurt this week. We had skinned knees, smashed fingers, bumped heads, and a lot of thinking time for those not listening! Despite the rebellion, they were all still adorable!

Here are some of the anecdotes from my week:

• After nap time we usually go outside for snack and play time. Most of the chillins are still tired and drowsy from their nap time so we have a lot of grumpy pants and silliness. After snack one day, a little girl decided to sit amongst the big Lego's on a grassy hill and fall asleep sitting up. Another littler girl came along and started playing hairdresser with the sleeping girl. She was using Lego's as brushes and so on. She played the entire time as her hairdresser and was so enjoying herself! Little did us teachers know, the sleeping girl was snoozing the whole time! 
• After telling one of my boys how well he did on a project he says to me, "punch it". Holding his fist up I see that I'm supposed to bump fists with him. After doing so, he releases his fingers from his fists, almost looking like spirit fingers, and goes "pow"! LOL I had to laugh at his excitement. It is now our thing to "punch it". It's adorable! 
• When a little boy was praying for our class, another little boy was in thinking time, crying his little heart out and screaming "I want a tissue". The little boy praying was trying his best to ignore the obnoxious situation. His prayer went a little like this:

  "Thank you for my mommy. Thank you for my daddy. Thank you for my teachers. Thank you for my dog. Thank you for my tissue. (a little snickers here and there) Thank you for my school. Amen" 

  
  When working with children, there is never a dull moment! 
   

Ready for the Weekend

My 2nd week of work is finished and I am so tired! This week was so much fun and I'm feeling more and more comfortable with every thing!

Teaching preschool really take it out of you. I'm not sure what "it" is, but I'm exhausted. There are so many things that you have to think about all day long and so many things you have to get done in a few hours that by the time I get home all I want to do is sit in my rocking chair and relax!

This week was we learned about the environment. We talked about picking up trash, planting trees, homes for the animals, and God's creation! It was an eventful theme and all the children enjoyed it. It was so hot this week that every time we stepped outside for playtime I immediately started sweating. I don't understand how I'm just standing there, super hot, and the children can run around and play. It makes no sense to me!

I love getting to know these precious kids.They are so adorable and are filled with so much love. Today, 5 of them were experiencing their last day of preschool and are starting Kindergarten on Monday. I didn't get to know them very well, but received lots of hugs and love from these 5 before leaving today. They are so sweet and it just goes to show how honest, open and accepting children are. They don't care that they just met me 2 weeks ago. I'm not their teacher and it seems like I've been in their lives for so long.

Now, after about 100 hand-washings, many nose-wiping, tears to tend to, ouchies to band-aid, and lots of hugs, I will enjoy my weekend and await the surprises that are sure to come on Monday.

Oh, the Things they Say!

I'm just about finished with my first week of working at a preschool. I love my new job and I can't express just how at home and comfortable I feel doing what I'm doing - teaching young ones! This is what I was made to do, my calling. I find so much happiness in this work and I thought it necessary to blog about some of the great events that happen in an every day life of an early childhood educator. This is where I'll document the funny things they say, the silly things they do, and the "too-darn-cute" for words things that I must write down or I'll never remember them!

Here are some of the adorable things I heard them say this week:

"Teacher, you're fuzzy."
"Teacher, you're my favorite teacher. You smell good and I like your nail polish."
"Teacher, there's a lizard on your shoe!"
When asking a child "What's your name?", instead of the first name she decided to give me her name in its entirety in a very soft, hard to understand, voice.
"Teacher, I'm making a red pie because red is my favorite color."
Before the entire preschool surprised me with birthday wishes (I wasn't supposed to know a thing), a little boy looks at me in pure excitement and says, "teacher, I'm just so excited!" When he realized I wasn't supposed to know why he was excited, he looked a little confused and decided to just keep smiling and shaking with excitement.

What can I say, I love my job!