Friday, May 30, 2014

Year's End

Tuesday was our last class room day. I put water in the sensory table. The children played remarkable well without a lot of splashing. I also set up the easel and some dot painting. The easel painting was by far the favorite activity of the day. It even surpassed the water table which surprised me. I had the kids paint me a picture.  I couldn't keep up with offering them a new piece of paper so many of their pictures turned into "mud".  They didn't want to stop painting so they kept adding more and more paint.

We managed to use up most of the assorted containers of paint. I cheated and threw away the recycled baby food containers instead of washing them as I was supposed to do. We can get more so I am not sure why we are supposed to wash them but we are.

 I wish I could figure out a way to make easel painting a more independent activity so the kids could paint more often as they love it so.  But I can't. The kids need help getting the paper on the easel.But more importantly,  I can barely get the painted pictures onto the drying rack without making a huge mess so I know that my three year olds would not be able to do this unassisted. Part of the problem is we paint on newsprint which is so flimsy. The other part is the drying rack requires that you clothespin the pictures to the wires. It is a definite challenge to hold the paint loaded newsprint up against the wire with one hand and get the clothespins on just right so they hold the painting with the other hand.

We said good-bye to the kids but most of them didn't understand the meaning of the last day of class. It won't be until next week when they want to come to school and Mom says, "School is over for the year. It's summer vacation." that they understand. I forgot my camera so didn't get any last minute year end photos. I have few to no pictures of the seven or eight kids that joined our class from February to April.

Thursday, yesterday,  was our field day, the last day of school for the children. The weather was less than perfect, cloudy with a raw wind blowing, but at least it didn't rain. We got upstaged by a baby mole. The children were lined up singing a few songs for their parents when a tiny mole appeared and darted through the grass in front of them. Everything stopped.

 He tried to hide in a clump of grass but I was afraid he would get trompled  on during the games. I grabbed one of the comes and eased him into it. I wish I had stopped a bit longer for the kids to see him as they were all clustered around but I didn't. We transported him across a tarred walkway and  dumped him into the grass. He scurried between the blades. One little girl in particular was fascinated with him and said "Good bye". We finished our singing. I didn't realize that they had such a pointed snout.

The organized games were brief but fun. Bean bag toss at an inflatable octopus. I then set up cones to weave amongst. We carried the ball to the end and back. We carried a balloon and popped it at the end. A couple of kids had trouble popping theirs. It kept popping out from under their foot. Zach chased his a good distance before he mastered the art of stomping hard enough to break it. Grace grabbed hers on the ground with her hands and squeezed. Mom cheered her on.  She then leaned her whole body weight into it. Finally it popped and she was ecstatic.

We then ran the cones with a huge bubble wand, blew some bubbles and ran back giving the wand to the next child. Each child received a medal and a balloon or two to take home. I left the bubble stuff out. Someone was blowing bubbles for the next hour or so of free play. I passed out watermelon and visited with some of the parents.

Four kids arrived just as we were finishing the games. They didn't know what they had missed so were happy playing on the playground equipment. One little girl arrived just as we were headed home. All the kids had gone and my assistant and I were just getting into our cars to head out as well. Her dad works nights and overslept. I gave her a medal and a balloon but she was still sad. Afterwards I felt that I should have stayed and played with her for a bit. Whether I should have or not, I didn't. Field Day was done for another year. School was now officially over.

I am ready for a break but it isn't real yet that my second year of teaching is done. Very different than my first. It felt more fractured. In part because I had less planning time in the fall so took advantage of repeating many of the activities from my first year. So we did lots of things but the parts never seemed to congeal into a whole. My afternoon class was constantly adjusting to new students as eight children joined our class from February to April. Many of them cried initially so this affected the atmosphere of the class and caused some of the adjusted ones to regress to separation anxiety.

I will end the this year with a quote from my daughter. "Mom, don't stress. You know all the things that you wanted to do but didn't. Just remember, your student's cups are full and their parents are happy with all the wonderful things that you did do."

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