Monday and Tuesday have passed and I have survived. And I don't even have to add a "barely," to the end of that sentence. These past couple of days have actually been pretty good. Ten kids in the classroom with 2 teachers and a parent or two makes it pretty nice. The days were relatively calm, though we did have some crying kids. It's to be expected that some kids would cry, especially since a lot of the kids haven't been away from mom and dad before.
On Monday, we had two kids who cried. One little boy's mom slipped out of the door while he was busy playing with dinosaurs. As soon as he realized that mom was gone he threw himself at the door - luckily I was there to catch him before he could bash his head through the door. I picked him up (getting tears, snot, and slobber on me in the process), and took him to the quiet area for a while. We just sat there while he cried. And about 15 minutes later, he was just fine.
And then there was the screamer. A little girl who screamed the most blood-curdling, movie-worthy scream that I have ever heard when her dad slipped out of the classroom. As luck would have it, she had just started screaming when another family was coming into the classroom. They stopped in the doorway and their eyes got a little wide. I'm sure that they were wondering what kind of torture we were inflicting on the kids.
But all things considered, the day went fine. Until we left a little boy in the classroom...On accident...
This little boy was eating really slowly at the lunch table. I was on the carpet with the rest of the class doing activities, singing songs, and going through our routine. And then we lined up to go outside. We walked outside and through the gate to the playground...
"Where's [Little boy's name]?" asked Fari.
"..."
"Oh shoot!"
By that time, Celeste (the AM teacher) was walking the little boy to the playground. So he was never really alone in the classroom.
Needless to say, we're implementing a counting routine before we leave the classroom and after we're done at the playground.
And we didn't forget anyone in the classroom on today!
Overall, I think it went well. It's certainly going to be a challenge, but I'm not freaking out about it. I think that any time you're in charge of a classroom of 20 four-year olds, you're going to have a bit of a challenge ahead of you.
Tomorrow is the first day where all 20 students will be in the class. It's going to be interesting, for sure. I sense that it's going to be pretty chaotic.
I'll let you all know how it goes!
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Heh. Reminds me of something we do with the kids in boyscouts (of course, they're a bit older, so it may not apply). Basically, they each have their numbers, and when we call a keyword, they each reciote their number in turn, from 1 to the highest. It works best when we're at them for a while, like in camp, since it takes a few tries to get them to remember to say it when their turn comes.
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