daycare
Friday afternoons I spend most of my daycare shifts in with the Kinders (age 4~6). We've developed a bit of a.... game thing during free play where the girls hand me different stuffed animals, I name them, and then all the kids come along and steal them away from me and I pretend to cry and get all upset because they're being mean to me.
The kids have a lot more fun with this than I do.
But at least now all the stuffed animals have proper names.
Today though, I was essentially the only teacher in the room (the two K3 teachers had a meeting, and the daycare teacher we're in the process of training mostly just stood back and watched) with around 20 kids, so I announced I wouldn't be playing today. Instead I sat near the mat and tried to keep any fights from breaking out.
One of the K2 girls, N-chan (5 years old, and one of my favorites in that class - she was also one of my favorites when she was in my nursery class), brought me a little butterfly constructed out of duplos.
Because last week all the kids had stolen all my stuffed toys and I was reduced to naming a single green duplo "Worm" and declaring it my pet caterpillar. "And if I take good care of him, he'll turn into a butterfly!" Of course, shortly after that Worm was stolen away from me.... and N-chan brought me a butterfly she'd made and declared it to be Worm, all grown up.
So yeah. She brought me another butterfly today, told me it was Worm, and then proceeded to make a whole butterfly family for me. Every time she brought me a new one, I asked her to name it. We had Worm (daddy), Creek (Mommy), Pillow (sister), Brick (brother), Tree (baby brother), Chocolate (baby sister), Block (Grandpa), and Rock (Grandma).
This was probably the highlight of my day.
The kids have a lot more fun with this than I do.
But at least now all the stuffed animals have proper names.
Today though, I was essentially the only teacher in the room (the two K3 teachers had a meeting, and the daycare teacher we're in the process of training mostly just stood back and watched) with around 20 kids, so I announced I wouldn't be playing today. Instead I sat near the mat and tried to keep any fights from breaking out.
One of the K2 girls, N-chan (5 years old, and one of my favorites in that class - she was also one of my favorites when she was in my nursery class), brought me a little butterfly constructed out of duplos.
Because last week all the kids had stolen all my stuffed toys and I was reduced to naming a single green duplo "Worm" and declaring it my pet caterpillar. "And if I take good care of him, he'll turn into a butterfly!" Of course, shortly after that Worm was stolen away from me.... and N-chan brought me a butterfly she'd made and declared it to be Worm, all grown up.
So yeah. She brought me another butterfly today, told me it was Worm, and then proceeded to make a whole butterfly family for me. Every time she brought me a new one, I asked her to name it. We had Worm (daddy), Creek (Mommy), Pillow (sister), Brick (brother), Tree (baby brother), Chocolate (baby sister), Block (Grandpa), and Rock (Grandma).
This was probably the highlight of my day.