A Successful Day

Today was pretty successful at least compared to most other days lately. I was able to work with the younger group which I prefer, but I’m no longer so picky about it. At one point in the morning, I was told to take a small group of kids in for snack and then keep them in the classroom for a half an hour. I was surprised because the director doesn’t usually leave the group to me as their substitute. Anyway, they quietly were eating their snack and the director eventually left the room. I asked them what they’d like to do after snack. They had a choice of any kind of art, puzzles or leggos. One of the girls chose art and the rest chose leggos. I got out some crayons, stencils, and two different sizes of paper. Then I brought out the box of leggos.

The kids finished up their snack and one girl went to the art table as expected. She drew a picture and put it in her cubby. She drew a kitten. Then one of the most rowdy boys at the center decided that he’d do art and draw a dinosaur instead of playing with leggos. I was surprised with his choice, but I encouraged him. I told him it was great that he wanted to draw. Then the girl asked if she could paint, but there were no paint brushes so I had to run out of the room and grabbed some paint brushes out of the art closet which probably took maybe a half a minute at most. The director was in her office and asked me on the way by if things were okay and I said things were fine.

The girl was happy after starting her painting. She discovered that mixing blue and red makes purple. And the boy was still busy with his dinosaur. The other kids were still playing with leggos. Then at once, two of them wanted to paint so the first girl started playing with puzzles and the first boy started his painting. A second girl wanted to paint, but there was only one spot available at the easel so I convinced her to draw a picture instead. The boys in the leggo area were making donuts, phones and microphones. When it was almost time to clean up, the director was back asking if things were fine and she seemed surprised those things were just fine and that all the kids were busy. She even commented on how all the kids were busy working. A few minutes later, we cleaned up and I took them down to music.

Then at lunch time, one of the teachers was missing because one of the kids was having a melt down so I took over in her room. Normally, I’m told to sit at a table in the room with the director since the room is larger there are more kids in there. That leaves me in charge of one table of usually the most rowdy kids who don’t listen to me or the director. In today’s room, there were two rowdy boys who weren’t eating their lunch even though I kept telling them to settle down. I don’t know why they put them together because they always play around and get the other kids to follow them. I did well with the other kids. The rest were only two and a half and usually they follow along with the two older ones, but today they ate their lunch and didn’t really pay attention to them. Some of the kids in my room were done before the kids in the other rooms and I think it ran smoothly. It was another instance where the director kept peaking in and asking if things were fine. Pretty much every time she does this, they are. It seems like she hovers over me more than anyone else, but I can’t let that bother me. I can do my job no matter what they think. It always helps to have people around who appreciate your work, but if they don’t, you can look back on your successes and see that your work is valuable. Even though my successes today were small and probably seem insignificant, especially to people who have been teaching for years, I was able to create opportunities for the kids to learn and I got practice with classroom management on my own.