Oh, what a day! I can honestly say I’m glad it’s over! This morning was quite hectic and we got way behind schedule! I was still optimistic about the children making their own books…but in the end it didn’t work out. Ms. Bennet and I had to clean up three different children after three different accidents! We had a little girl just stand in the middle of the room and wet her pants. She didn’t even ask to go potty. It doesn’t help that our entire room is carpeted. So one of us had to clean her and the other had to clean the floor. We also had two children get sick and vomit today. Once again, one of us cleaned the floor while the other cleaned the children.
I did observe some bright spots amidst the chaos today. We had Lego’s out and all the children playing with them started making Lego cell phones – with antennas. They started “calling” each other and having long conversations about where they were going and what they were going to do. Then all of a sudden one little boy started yelling into his phone, “I can hear your speaker phone all the way over here! You need to turn that thing down!” I almost started laughing! He repeated it two time until she responded to him, “I can’t turn it down or I won’t be able to hear you!” He looked very annoyed by her answer. Then another girl said, “Mine won’t turn off – this button won’t work!” She was “pushing” a button on her phone over and over again. It was too cute – I love seeing them use their imaginations!
Later on the playground I was very proud of my girls when I observed two of them playing with a car. They were sitting each other pushing the car back and forth between them. Then another girl from our class came up and said, “Can I please play too?” The response she got was, “You have to ask Kitten, she had the car first.” So she asked Kitten and got a quick nod, and the three of them started playing. A few minutes after that two more girls from our class came up to the group and one of them said, “Please can we play with you guys?” And they soon joined the group. A little while later 3 more girls from our class came up and sat down to watch the game. Then one of them said, “Kitten, can we please play your game?” After Kitten said yes, all the girls joined the circle and there they sat pushing the car around from girl to girl. I was very proud that they had all used their manners and could take turns and share so nicely! I was also secretly happy that the other teachers on the playground saw this too – it’s not impossible to teach young children manners – it just takes patience and persistence!
Teaching to Dream 