Whistle while you work

Or in my case this week, sing, dance, read books, help to teach 21 4-year olds Spanish, computers, art and dance. Wear hats of referee, fairness judge, etiquette guider, being an example of self control, kind words and nice actions. (Moms are nodding that they are required to do this all day) That occurs before lunch. After lunch I am a human play toy for the infants (we have the crawlers, we get them when they can sit alone and they move on when they can walk) while adhering to all parent instructions of feeding, changing and sleep schedules. They are all on different schedules. As per the three manuals I have accepted and signed off on, I can't talk much about the specifics as the techniques alone are priority information. I am very open to suggestions of any one's experience of what has worked for them for pre-school/ kindergarten. I won't be stating the name of the school here in the blog and if you know and I have happened to share with you in person, please do not include it in the comments section.

The transition between one sweet 2-year old and the multitudes has me thinking quite a bit of loving children as God does. Every one of them, even the sweet little dears who struggle to listen, obey and/ or be respectful. I am the newbie and they are testing boundaries to see what they can get away with on me. I think this is one of the reason I didn't chose substitute teaching, although wonderful flexibility, I don't think I would have ever felt "in the know" regarding unspoken class rules, behaviors, schedule and what normal looks like and what to expect.

This position is an answer to prayers. I am very glad to be making a difference in children's lives. It is rewarding to start receiving hugs this morning on day 4 that the children are getting used to me. Anything worth doing well requires sacrifices, so I am grateful for the sore throat and arms. Sore throat from trying to get the attention of the older ones (without screaming) and the arms are from rocking all the sweet babies to sleep in the afternoon. I'm a completely different kind of tired from this job than any other. I not only do still want my own, but hope to gain invaluable first hand experience on how to raise ours. The only true struggle that I am having now is that there are required staff/ training meetings every first Wednesday night of the month which will interfere with Small Group. I'm in prayer about this....