how does he come up with this stuff?

This story requires a bit of setup. I work at a preschool with a school-age summer program. The building that the school-age class and both 4-year old classes are in is just one big open room - no walls between the three classes. And we share 1 girls' bathroom and 1 boys' bathroom.

Today I took my class to the bathroom, as is our habit before heading off to the playground. Because I don't want to spend the entire recess standing in the doorway so that I can supervise a playground and a bathroom at the same time. Anyway, Z was messing with the keyboard from the school-age music center (which is right next to the bathrooms) and I said "Z, please don't touch that." He came back with a smartmouth mimic and I gave him the "I know you didn't just do that" look. Then Z did the funniest thing.

He stuck his finger out like he was going to scold someone and then turned it to his mouth as he said, "Mouth, don't say that! Ms Amber is my teacher!"

Fun on the See-Saw

Last Friday on the playground, Frank and Jordayn got so excited about what they could do on the see-saw. Frank is a good, sturdy little 5-year old, and Jordayn is a very petite 4-year old. Obviously, this made for some imbalanced see-sawing. Here's the video, with commentary from 5-year old Justin:

fun in the shade

It's hot out. Seriously. Time and Temp said 93 degrees at 3pm. Time and Temp fails to mention the heat index, though. But my class desperately needed to get out of the classroom for a little while this afternoon. So I needed to get creative.

Our playground has a very limited shady area in the afternoons, and I wanted to keep them out of the sun as much as possible. So I grabbed a red bucket and filled it with water. I grabbed the paint brushes and rollers out of the art center. We took our water bottles and the supplies for our "mystery activity" out to the playground. And my kiddos "painted" the wall of the preschool.

For about a minute, they were concerned about getting wet, but then I explained that it was hot enough out that the sun would dry us all off quickly. After that, they competed to see who could get their paintbrush the highest, giggling happily about the water dripping on their heads. Then they realized that the sponge rollers were actually taking dirt off the wall - a bonus I hadn't considered when the idea came to me.

Oh, Really?

Children are such funny creatures. Their minds process events and concepts in sometimes odd ways, but you are always left with a sense of awe. Daily I am reminded in some small way of why I teach. It's not for the hefty salary. It's not the prestige of the office. It's not even for the satisfaction of teaching. It's for the comedy. You just can't get this stuff in an office setting.

"When I die and go to Heaven, do you think God and Jesus can get this rock out of my ear?"

Yes, she did have a rock in her ear, and yes, this is how she informed us of the situation. Seriously. I know - I have weird kids in my class.

"The table hit me!"

This little boy was playing with blocks at the table and he dropped one. When he leaned down to pick it up off the floor, he bumped his head on the table.

"Watch this! I'm turning tricks!"

The 5 year old in question was playing on the monkey bars and wanted to show me that he could do a flip. His mother got a good chuckle out of this when she picked him up that afternoon.

"A little bit."

That was the response I got when I asked one of the 5 year olds in my class if they had been good for the other teacher they were with that day - I knew this little boy had caused some problems for her.

"Land hole!"

They were pretending that a piece of playground equipment was a pirate ship. They were making each other walk the plank and everything. Finally one little girl decided it was time to find an island to look for treasure on, so that was what she yelled. Close, huh?

See what I mean? You just can't get this kind of quality entertainment with any other job.

Definitely Monday

There is a big difference between a group of 5 five-year-olds and a group of 18 six-to-twelve-year-olds. A huge difference. When I got to work this morning, the teacher for the school-aged class had called in sick and the afternoon teacher for the class was not answering her phone. So, me being the nice (and obviously more than a little bit insane) person that I am, I offered to take the class. I thought I'd be able to keep my kids in there too, since the state says that with that particular age group a teacher can have up to 20 children on her own (which is further proof to me that nobody who has any authority on such matters ever was a child, let alone spent any time with a group of children). But once everyone arrived, I was over the ratio. So my lovelies had to move down to the fours class.




The strongest thing there was to drink today was Dr Pepper. Yeah, that's not gonna cut it.* Not a large enough Advil bottle, either.** And if I were to go to bed this instant and sleep until it was time to be at work tomorrow, that wouldn't be enough rest to make up for the day I've had. It's not that they are bad kids or even that it was a bad day. It's just physically and mentally exhausting dealing with a class that you don't usually deal with.

And obviously more than a little insane me decided that this was the week I was going to start cooking more. So there's nothing quick and easy to pop into the microwave for supper tonight. *Bangs head against desk*

I'm with Garfield. Mondays suck.

DISCLAIMERS:

*I'm not suggesting I would have imbibed if there were anything stronger to drink available. I can, however, understand how some people would feel the need for a nice strong drink in the same situation. As in "This could drive a person to drink!" I'm just sayin'.

**I am also not advocating the use of more than the noted dosage of OTC products. Thought I'd throw that in there, just for good measure.

my brain is fried

The preschool/daycare where I work had its annual assessment today. Lucky me! My class was chosen for observation! (I realize inflection can be difficult to read in print form...that should be read in a very sarcastic tone.)

It really wasn't too terribly awful. I only had 4 kids in my class and they were pretty well-behaved (at least while our "company" was with us). The only mishaps I can actually recall from today were Z spilling his milk all over him at lunch (I had to leave the other 3 unattended at the table while I took him to the bathroom and found his extra clothes) and J blowing chunks right after a great big lunch of beef fingers (which technically happened during my lunch break after my observation was over, but the woman was still in my room). If anything else happened, I've successfully repressed the memory.

We won't know our scores until after they are completely finished with our assessment. And since the school-age class was not assessed today (the person assigned to that observation was in the hospital), that could be a while.

Good Grief!

Take one week off of work and all hell breaks loose! Crap had been slowly building up for quite a while now, but last week while I was gone it all finally hit the fan. 5 teachers quit and another gave notice that this would be her last week. What happened???

From what I can gather, some teachers were called on the carpet for being on their cell phones and not paying attention to the kids on the playground. Things may or may not have been properly handled. Certain parties may or may not have negatively influenced others with lies and malicious gossip. Some simply walked out in the middle of the day. Others quit. One was actually let go. One may have come back the next day begging for her job back. A couple had reasons for quitting that were completely unrelated to the situation at hand.

I don't know all the details. What I DO know is that I have one week to prepare my class for their preschool graduation ceremony that the administration decided on a whim the day before my vacation to put together. And I still have to finish those scrapbooks for my kids and burn 12 copies of picture cds before then. And then I have another week and a half to get my room and class ready for our center's annual assessment. And with my whopping 2 years of experience, I am now the senior staff member in the preschool age group at our center.

Good thing I was on vacation last week. I probably would have ended up being caught up in the drama if I had been here. And I'm still so relaxed from that week off that even though we were short-staffed yesterday, nothing was getting to me...I think my mind is still firmly planted on a beach towel watching the dolphins parade by.