I made it through my first week of school as the Director of After-School Programs at Mt. Oak without tearing out any of my hair or strangling any children! Hurray!!! Though I won't promise that won't happen in the future... ;-) I have 5 Kindergartners, 3 girls including a set of twins and 2 boys, from noon to 3pm and an assortment of children from Kindy to 5th from 3 to 5ish, ranging in numbers from 3 up to around 20 on Wednesdays-we're out early, at 12:30. The one child that is already giving me a run for my money is the one Kindy I have that stays after 3pm, of course! He seems unable to remember my name no matter how many times I have him repeat it, and so for nearly the whole 4 or 5 hours he's with me I hear, "Teacher, Teacher, Teacher!" complete with shirt tugging and/or arm wacking and for those of you who know me around children I am almost always quick to answer them on their first vocalization of a need. Though he seems to be able to get in 20 "Teachers" before I can blink an eye! He also seems to be perpetually going in the complete opposite direction of the rest of the class. When they're ready to play outside, he's ready to draw and when they're ready to draw he wants to go outside, sigh. Gonna have to work on setting strong intents for our time together this year, each day, each hour, many times an hour! lol Mostly, though all the children are wonderful and so creative! We've been having great fun creating beautiful yummy fruit salads for snack in the gorgeous wooden bowls Kristi donated to us, and discovering our favorite flavors of tea thanks to April who gave me a basket of assorted teas for Christmas. We're feeling quite sophisticated and civilized to be drinking tea each day at 4pm in Aftercare (Steven cleaned out a family restaurant in TX. and brought back ceramic mugs and small bowls that we've been enjoying as well!). Every parent that walks in to pick up their child sits down, sighs, looks about the room with dimmed lights, soft music and happy tea drinking children and comments on how peaceful it is. I've gotten thumbs up from several teachers who's rooms I admire as well as the principal who joined us for a quick snack Monday. All the work I've been putting in to create a wonderful space for us is paying off. I think I can breathe now.... And thank you to Kristi and Audree and Bree and Tashi for coming to help feng shui the room and rearrange all the furniture! Couldn't have done it without you guys!!
So, you're probably still wondering what's up with Snow in August... Well the 3 girlies I had in Aftercare Monday discovered a bag of feathers in the craft drawer. Now these aren't your regular run of the mill craft feathers, these are like fine downy fluffy feathers that they proceeded to blow into the air whilst I was in the next room washing dishes. When I walked in they exclaimed, "It's SNOWING!!!" I took a deep breath, said, "It sure is!" and asked if they'd like to hear some winter music to go with their snow. Of course they did, and being the good Girl Scout I am I just happened to have my camera handy! ;-) Oh and they even made snow angels too! lol
