1. Arrival
Students trickle in between 7:15-7:35. If they get through the school gate after 7:27, they are tardy! Students sit at a table by their name tag and fill out a "daily plan" (a picture of something they hope to do that day) and write their name. Some students who wrote their name with a scribble at the beginning of the year can now write their name fairly clearly! When they have their plan finished, they go to the circle time rug and play with a "carpet activity" until we're all ready to move on.
2. Circle Time!
Time for Mr. Ippel to get silly. Who knew that singing about the days and months of the week could be so exciting! Can you believe that counting how many days we've been in school so far could be hilarious? We review what classroom "jobs" students have, which they take pretty seriously. And we talk about our schedule for the day. Finally, we always review some vocabulary words for the week for our English Language learners, and this is NEVER boring:) It truly feels like I'm inside Barney sometimes (I mean that in the best way possible:)
3. Free Choice/Planned Play Time
Twice a day students spend a half hour as they choose. They can freely rotate between our water table, playdoh table, art studio, "house," sand bucket (it truly is just a bucket with sand in it), reading corner, puzzle area, block center. We change a few things about each center on a weekly basis to keep it interesting. Kids, I've learned, do not get bored. They don't! If I were them, I'd be so sick of the same toys and stations. . .but they just don't get bored. I'm amazed to see how they combine ideas from our books and Bible story with their play time. And how they combine toys from around the room. For example, they might make a block road leading to the sand bucket and place cars and animals on the road, with playdoh people driving the cars. Sound like a mess? It totally is. But they do a great job cleaning up after each play time, surprisingly!
4. Specials/Preps!
My students give me a little peace and quiet at least once a day. They get PE (twice a week!), art, music, computers, library (twice a week). I don't mind a bit!
5. Recess/Snack
Students have outside recess twice a day. The first recess is combined with snack that they bring for home. . .they take snack seriously! Gallo pinto, fried cheese, plantains, sliced fruit, packaged cookies, Cacao drink (think chocolatey eggnog), left-over pizza, juice boxes. . .it's like a mini-lunch for some kids. The playground consists of a climbing structure with slide, a few sand boxes(dirt boxes), a "casista" (a wooden play house), three swings and a tire swing, and a LOT of dirt. No grass or mulch. Not up to "code" in any sense of the word! Our classroom is swept and mopped like three times a day, a constant battle over the stuff our kids track in each day after recess, especially during the rainy season. I love playing with the kids during recess. . ."Can you poosh me pleeze?" seems to be the first English phase of many of my students!
6. Circle Time 2 and 3
We gather two more times at the Circle Time rug for literacy learning activities, reading stories, working with letters and words, chanting and singing, being goofy, doing Show and Tell (I really, really, really dislike show and tell!). We have a good reading curriculum that I enjoy, and seems to be geared for kids learning English.
7. Math/Spanish
Mrs. Sandra (my trusty side-kick) and I split the class four times a week for math or Spanish. You can probably guess who teaches what. It is fun to work with a smaller group--kids are smart thinkers! We were doing division last week, making sure Mr. and Mrs. Monkey both had the same number of bananas on their plate. They could totally do it, and even figured out to cut bananas in half as needed! I like to do math that we can eat.
7. Worship
My favorite half-hour of the day. Each week we dive into a story of the Bible, that is told and reviewed in various ways throughout the week. Kids even learn a memory verse related to the topic--and they can learn it! My little non-English speaking kids are memorizing scripture, and SO proud of it. I'm humbled. Of course, we start each worship time with LOTS of singing. They LOVE to sing. And we often end sharing prayer requests. . .which takes a long time. Everyone has a sick mom, dad, or pet. All the time:) We often act out the story at some point during the week. . .Noah and the Ark was an epic production this week!
By 12:30, we're tired out and ready to head home. Kids leave, but I don't! Dismissal wraps up at 12:45, I eat school lunch with the other staff until 1:15, and then I have until 3:00 to get stuff ready for the next day. I was a little over-confident at the beginning of the year, thinking I would be absolutely bored during this HUGE amount of prep time each day. But I'm finding that time to go extremely fast, and I have yet to run out of things to do to improve my classroom.
THE END! That was long. . .sorry! I absolutely LOVE my job. I really, really do. So thanks for allowing me to be a preschool teacher at NCA through your prayers and support. I hope that I am a blessing to my students; I KNOW that they are a blessing to me.
You are a tremendous blessing to NCA and my daughter. She constantly relates all the great things she does in class. You are so full of energy and fill the day with fun learning! Thanks!
ReplyDeleteOh Andrew - what fun this was to read! Your day is full, but you and the kids are so blessed to have eachother:) I can just imagine what your singing time is like, after dealing with many requests for the "Taco Song" when teaching Childrens Worship:)
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