Coming to a Close

Well there's only roughly 23 days of class left in the school year. Wow. So hard to believe. For all the, well, everything, I've gone through this year it's been pretty amazing. I can honestly say I've learned more about teaching these last months than I did in all my years of schooling.

I have learned to be more patient and understanding than I ever thought was humanly possible. I have learned separate the behaviour from the child. That may sound strange, but many people cannot do that. They see a child kicking, screaming, biting, etc. and cannot move past it. They then see that child forever as "bad" "mean" etc.

I can't tell you how many times that in the space of 15 secs a child has gone from drawing my blood in anger to sobbing and clinging to me for comfort. If you don't think that's a difficult emotional experience for child AND adult, you've obviously never experienced it on a regular basis.

I can't possibly list everything I've learned here. I'm just so incredibly thankful to a loving God who knew better than I to put me in this job. I have had to rely on Him and my loved ones to get me through this year like I rarely have had to before. I have no idea where I'm going to be next fall, if I will even have a job in any school. But if He provided me with this job and what I needed to see it through, than I'm sure He will take care of next year too.

But man, I'm gonna miss those little munchkins!!

Sing It Again, Sam!

So one of my little girls has decided she just looooves me lately! It's super cute and sweet.

Yesterday, we were visiting where she's gonna go to kindergarten next year. We were holding hands walking down the hall and she started singing softly to herself. It took me a second to get what she was singing. You know that tune "If You're Happy and You Know It"? Well to that tune she was singing "Mrs. R, Mrs. R, Mrs. R" over and over again.

She has also started complimenting everything I wear, by that I mean EVERYTHING! Every piece of jewellry, clothing, hair accessory, even my school keychain!

Another teacher came in the classroom the other day and I gushed over her amazing shoes. I was wearing green flip flops. My little self-esteem booster heard me and rushed to let me know, "Mrs. R, your shoes are pretty too! I like your shoes!"

Can I just carry her around in my pocket and pull her out when I need to think I'm awesome?

More Convos with Preschoolers

One of my little girls spent the other day telling everyone who would listen, "Mrs. R is the bestest teacher in the whole widest world...and I'm the best kid!"

I guess that makes it a perfect match then. Adorable!

Frogs, Chicks, & Caterpillars

It has been a travelling zoo in my classroom the last several weeks! We had tree frogs named Pablo & Delilah for a few days. One of which suctioned itself to the face of another teacher. Definitely one of the funniest things I've ever seen. I had to peel it off her face. Don't worry though, I got mine later when it peed on me!

We then had 3 dogs come visit. My personal fav was a tiny little terrier cross name Myla. So cute!! This was followed by hermit crabs. Eeeew! They're like creepy spiders in a shell!!

Next came the eggs that two days later became chicks. Seriously so cool to watch! Just before one of the eggs hatched I picked it up and could honestly hear it chirping inside its shell! Love it! The kids had a blast with the chicks, they were so fascinated with them.

There was also Pokey the hamster. Dude, that hamster is one tough customer. I can't even tell you how many times a kid picked the poor thing up in his hamster ball and shook the crap out of it! Not to mention the time one child picked his whole cage up and hucked it! Pretty sure that hamster's gonna survive the apocalypse.

Now we have caterpillars! They're supposed to turn into painted lady butterflies in a few weeks. Pretty excited to see the whole process.

Somewhere in between there we attempted to grow beans (huge disaster) and successfully grew amazing pumpkin plants. The kids also made awesome chamomile milk bath for Mother's Day.

Needless to say, every day is an adventure in my classroom, and not just for the kids!!

Conversations with Preschoolers

Doing to art with the kids this morning.

Me: That's a beautiful sticker, Z!

Z: Yeah. Just like you!

Me: You think I'm beautiful, Z?

Z: Yeah! But you're just, just a girl.

*Happy Sigh*

So yesterday was just an awesome day!
I had a meeting with someone that I was DREADING! I can't stand confrontation. I'm not usually very good at it and I usually get very emotional. But this one went better tahn I could have ever hoped. TY Jesus!
I had an awesome Family Programming Session with one of my special little guys. We went to a park and he sat on my lap while we swung on the swings. And while we swung he started singing "Hosanna". :)
Then I got home from school and you know what was waiting for me? My hubby making tacos for supper and flowers on the table. *sigh* It was so sweet!
Then the cherry on top was that we booked our flights to Halifax for August! We've never been on an actual vacation since getting together over 5 years ago. I'm SO excited!!
I wish every day could be that awesome!

Yay for Crises.

So I had quite the professional crisis this past week, and if you know me at all, you know that means it lead to a personal crisis too. I'm a little emotional that way! :)

Without going into details, I was given the strong idea from a few people that:

-everything I'm doing in my classroom is wrong

-my educational philosophy is wrong

-I'm failing my students and everyone else

-more not fun stuff along those lines...

This lead to several days of little/no sleep, losing 5 pounds from not being able to eat cuz I was so stressed/depressed and generally crying 24/7. I was a wreck.

I finally sat down with my amazing Early Ed directors and poured everything out. They thankfully gave me some much needed encouragement and direction on how to deal with all this.

I sat down this weekend to really, REALLY analyze my educational philosophy and why I do things the way I do. When I did it was great to realize that I'm NOT a failure. NOT everything I was doing was wrong.

Yeah, some things needed tweaking and I was hugely lacking guidance in a few areas, but overall, I'm a good teacher.

I'm not one of the greats, but I think I have the potential to be one day with experience, mentoring and effort.

What do you, I'm pretty good at my job after all. No matter what some people say.