Notes after two weeks

It’s amazing how much I have learned already in two weeks about managing a classroom but also daunting because I have also realized how much more I have to learn.

Take day one, for example. We have a sanitizer dispenser by the door. Despite constant reprimands, we could not keep the children from messing with it. They kept getting entire handfuls of sanitizer which they then dripped and dropped all over the classroom. The blatant disregard to the command “don’t touch that” got to me most of all. So at the end of day one, I did this.

Out of sight, out of mind was one of the most important first lessons I learned. Every shelf is now covered with either butcher paper or fabric with only toys and objects intended for student use visible.

More first week experiences below.

We had less milk spilled on day two, but that was mitigated by the fact that an entire bowl of applesauce was dumped on the carpet.

Milk continued to be spilled every day of the week. During one particularly unfortunate meal time, an entire carton of milk was dumped down my leg and into my shoe. I was wearing flats. I had to dump the milk out. My shoe also squished all day from the remnants of the milk.

After a couple of days of difficult nap time experiences where the kids refused to sleep or even stay on their mats, we instituted a very firm “lights off, voices off” policy. After we turned off the lights, a little girl said, “I love you teacher.” I didn’t hear the words, all I heard was talking. I very swiftly responded with “lights off, voices off” in an unforgiving voice. “But I said I love you teacher,” she said softly. “Oh, I love you too,” I tried to recover. It was a little late.

After work one day, I went to the dollar store to pick up some flashcards to work with the students on shapes, colors, numbers, and the alphabet. Basic pre-school content. At check-out the lady behind me asked if I was teaching home school. “No, I’m a teacher,” I said. “Oh, you look too young to be a teacher,” she replied. I shrugged and let the conversation die. But then I started thinking about it. So I’m too young to be a teacher, but old enough to have a child to home school? I don’t understand.

My digital camera has disappeared into the abyss that is our classroom. It is very upsetting. I hope it didn’t disappear into a four-year-old’s backpack. Almost as upsetting was when a child found my water bottle hidden on our teacher cart and proceeded to drink from/slobber all over it. He had found my co-teacher’s water bottle the day before. It doesn’t seem like that big of a deal, but I was unbelievably mad about it. There are absolutely no boundaries with four-year-olds. Unfortunate as I am a strong believer in boundaries.