I worked twice at preschool this week. Here's a photo of the church where it's held. Part of the school is in the back at the left corner, and some of the classrooms are in the old part of the main building. The location is really beautiful and one of the things I like best about it. It's about 20 minutes from the house, but I get to drive up and over a "mountain" which makes it kind of fun to get there.
Yesterday was camp-out day. We held it back in the trees and had tents up, a canoe to sit in, a fire pit (with fake tissue paper fire) and in honor of Earth Day, did some nature stuff and recycling. I was an extra body to run kids back and forth to the bathroom, untangle a snake from a key chain carbiner attached to a teachers belt loop (that was funny and a little scary when the snake got stuck), help catch an escaped frog, lecture kids incessantly on looking over their shoulder before casting their fishing pole (onto the grass btw), keep steering them away from the poison ivy, sing campfire songs and wipe off s'mores from those cute little faces. After 4 hours in the sun, we were all exhausted.
Today, we were in the Rain Forest. The weather was too nice to be indoors, so I decided yesterday that we'd be going outside to create a rain forest with sidewalk chalk. We went to an empty parking lot at the church and made each square a layer of the rain forest. We drew monkeys, butterflies, tigers, flowers, snakes, lizards, gorillas, trees, clouds, rain, and for some reason one girl spent over half an hour drawing what I failed to guess was the world's largest diamond in the Emergent Layer. Do diamonds even come from the rain forest?! (I am a failure both as a woman and a preschool teacher not to know!)
Oh, and the stinkiest ever beast of a black lab came to visit us while we were outside, along with two of his four legged homies, sending two girls screaming and running one way, while another boy took off in the other way, and the boy whose family owns the stinky dog, goes dashing up to it. I'm yelling to everyone to stop everything and trying to put myself between 10 moving kids and 3 dogs (who I've seen around before and have always seemed friendly, but with all that screaming and tasty morsels just begging to be chased, you never know what might happen). It only lasted a couple seconds, but geez, for a second there, I was quite worried for the boy that ran up to the dogs. I had no idea he lived right next to the church. And peeeeyyeeeeww! Everyone had to hold their nose until I could shoo them away. I don't know what they rolled in, but I'm guessing it was the chicken coop nearby. It was enough to make breathing difficult. We took the teaching moment to learn what to do and more importantly what NOT to do when a dog comes by.
After we finished our rain forest we played Monkeys & Birds and Jaguars & Butterflies. Basically team relay races where you have to run and sound like the animal while racing thru the 4 layers of our rain forest on the parking lot. It was cute. Then we went inside to wash up, snarf down snacks, and played Monkey, Monkey, Frog (aka duck, duck, goose) until it was Chapel time. After Chapel, which is held on Wednesdays, while Music takes its place on Tues/Thurs; it's playground time for an hr, then lunch and indoor stuff.
Throughout the day, I held friendship counselling, anti-whining seminars, warnings on the dangers of sassing back the teacher, the benefits of sitting, eating, drinking, breathing, coloring, lining up and walking in boy/girl/boy/girl order; along with stern lectures about potty language and treating others with kindness. A couple kids got on my last good nerve, but the rest of it was par for the course, and I find a sense of humor seems to work best for me with the kids. I already know all of them from when I was their music teacher the past 2 years and they get my style, which I'd call "strict but nice". For example, to the boys who said they hate girls, I told them if it happened again, they'd each get a fish kiss from Ms. Chrissie. They laugh and run away, but for, half an hour or so if I was lucky, they'd play with the girls. This will be my life two days a week next year.
Today, we were in the Rain Forest. The weather was too nice to be indoors, so I decided yesterday that we'd be going outside to create a rain forest with sidewalk chalk. We went to an empty parking lot at the church and made each square a layer of the rain forest. We drew monkeys, butterflies, tigers, flowers, snakes, lizards, gorillas, trees, clouds, rain, and for some reason one girl spent over half an hour drawing what I failed to guess was the world's largest diamond in the Emergent Layer. Do diamonds even come from the rain forest?! (I am a failure both as a woman and a preschool teacher not to know!)
Oh, and the stinkiest ever beast of a black lab came to visit us while we were outside, along with two of his four legged homies, sending two girls screaming and running one way, while another boy took off in the other way, and the boy whose family owns the stinky dog, goes dashing up to it. I'm yelling to everyone to stop everything and trying to put myself between 10 moving kids and 3 dogs (who I've seen around before and have always seemed friendly, but with all that screaming and tasty morsels just begging to be chased, you never know what might happen). It only lasted a couple seconds, but geez, for a second there, I was quite worried for the boy that ran up to the dogs. I had no idea he lived right next to the church. And peeeeyyeeeeww! Everyone had to hold their nose until I could shoo them away. I don't know what they rolled in, but I'm guessing it was the chicken coop nearby. It was enough to make breathing difficult. We took the teaching moment to learn what to do and more importantly what NOT to do when a dog comes by.
After we finished our rain forest we played Monkeys & Birds and Jaguars & Butterflies. Basically team relay races where you have to run and sound like the animal while racing thru the 4 layers of our rain forest on the parking lot. It was cute. Then we went inside to wash up, snarf down snacks, and played Monkey, Monkey, Frog (aka duck, duck, goose) until it was Chapel time. After Chapel, which is held on Wednesdays, while Music takes its place on Tues/Thurs; it's playground time for an hr, then lunch and indoor stuff.
Throughout the day, I held friendship counselling, anti-whining seminars, warnings on the dangers of sassing back the teacher, the benefits of sitting, eating, drinking, breathing, coloring, lining up and walking in boy/girl/boy/girl order; along with stern lectures about potty language and treating others with kindness. A couple kids got on my last good nerve, but the rest of it was par for the course, and I find a sense of humor seems to work best for me with the kids. I already know all of them from when I was their music teacher the past 2 years and they get my style, which I'd call "strict but nice". For example, to the boys who said they hate girls, I told them if it happened again, they'd each get a fish kiss from Ms. Chrissie. They laugh and run away, but for, half an hour or so if I was lucky, they'd play with the girls. This will be my life two days a week next year.
6 comments:
Nice you didn't get sick!
I am exhausted just thinking of all the stuff you did. It sure sounds fun though. I need to do more stuff like that with Jason.
AAAAaaaaaahhhh, not Chrissie FISH kisses!!! . . . What are those? I'm imagining a French one, but that can't POSSIBLY be right.
Ah the joys of preschool! I love your play by play commentary. It cracks me up!
Ahhh...the good ol' days of preschoolers! I miss it. It sounds like you've got everything and everyone under control at that preschool! Good Job!
that sounds like a great day....I'm going to ship Kk out to you!
So is this volunteer? How did you get involved with this preschool? Sounds like an interesting job! Those kids seem pretty funny :)
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