Rachel's Blog. Day 4.

I'm going to try and blog before I forget the order of events that happened today before we go out on more adventures! When I got back to my 3/4year olds this morning, $ was stenciling different animals on construction paper and so I helped her come up with different animals to draw. Apparently, I made it interesting enough that the 2 other students that were there before breakfast, $ and = also became interested in stenciling. When ( came in she also was interested in stenciling on construction paper, enough to the point that she cut out the different shapes that she sketched. By the time breakfast came around we only had 5 students which is less than our average amount. I was reading to some of the students while the rest of them were finishing up their breakfast and then right before we went out to recess + came in to make our total of the day, only 6 students. On our way out to recess, ( who informed me yesterday that I was no longer the "official swing pusher", told me that I could push her in the swings today, if I wanted. I found this hilarious since she was so convinced I wasn't as good yesterday. This trip has definitely helped me come to the conclusion how often kids the age of my students, can change their minds. I pushed @, $, %, and = on the swings today and then once they all lost interest in swinging we decided to play hide and seek with the rest of the kids. We all took turns in being the seeker and it was really cool because most of the places the kids decided to hide, were small enough for me to fit into as well. Once we came back in from recess, I asked my teacher if the art station was considered a "center" and she said it was. My original plan was to just make something really cool and hope my kids would ask to help or make one of their own because they thought it was so neat. When I asked her that she told me I could lead the kids in an art project of my choice and I was honestly kind of skeptical at that point because I couldn't think of a themed project with her materials that quickly off the top of my head. My teacher gave me a book that I flipped through really quick and found a collaged Easter egg idea. I gave out all the materials to each of my kids and then dotted their papers with glue in the shape of an egg. After helping each of the kids put the tissue paper on the glue dots to the point that it at least resembled an egg, we set them up to dry. I thought it was so cool that my teacher wanted me to lead them in an activity after knowing them for such a short time. Then it was time for centers where I played blocks again with + and @ which was definitely an interesting experience. The other day I blogged about having problems with @ because when I was stern with him he didn't seem to like me much after that. Today it was a completely different situation where he was so helpful and enjoyed building walls with me and +. However, + had a little bit of an attitude today which wasn't as difficult to manage as I thought but it is a good learning experience to be able to balance each of the kids equally and give them the same rules and to not make any kid an exception to the rules, depending on the circumstances. After centers it was time for lunch and then after lunch it was time again for their naps. After sweeping the floors and helping my teacher put the students down for their naps, I found a chair that was just my size to read Curley for the duration of their naptime. Once each kid woke up, I helped send them out the door with snack and their collaged Easter egg that they made. Today was definitely a really awesome day because some of the parents acknowledged me enough to tell their kids to say goodbye to "Ms. Rachel". I'm going to be really sad tomorrow when we have to leave because I love all of these kids and it has only been a week since we've been here. I'm not ready to leave, hopefully I'll be able to come back sometime soon and reminisce all of the awesome memories we have made here in Cherokee! :D