There is only so much one can handle at a time. With teaching, I didn't think I would be able to balance it all... But I've found myself at a place where I can. Yet there are those days that you are just trying to keep your classroom in order in the midst of multiple different challenges with children, you pause, and start to doubt your abilities and wonder if you have been doing it the right way all along. I find in these times that it is only healthy and simply a vital reflection time that is necessary to go to that next level as a teacher. To examine yourself and the way you run the classroom. If this process fails to happen, then you will find yourself stagnant, at a place where you need challenge and change for growth to occur.

Here is a glimpse of what this balance entails...

While in the classroom, a teacher must:

Make sure everyone is safe at all times
Know who and how many are in the classroom
Give one on one facilitation for conflict resolution and problem solving
Depending on what center your in at the time- serve snack (not a simple packaged one, but a full on home made from scratch healthy snack that the children help make) watch all doors, refill supplies like paint, help children who have accidents, water the gardens if your outside, and a number of other things.
Problem solve when one child hurts another
Keep consistency and flow of children coming in and out of the room
Greet parents
Check in with parents
Facilitate the Childrens play, ask open ended questions, make your perspective their own so that you can see through their eyes, help them engage in activities if they are distracted, listen as they tell you stories, comfort the ones who are sad
Disengage in power struggles as children will try to test your limits at different stages, as they explore anatomy.
Read stories
Follow through with children who have not cleaned up
Be aware of each child and how they normally are to prevent unseen sickness which can cause them to act out
Observe the children to track their development and emerging skills
Write up incident reports for the ones who get hurt
Never loose sight of the passion which causes you to guide their discoveries
Be aware of their abilities to challenge them but not to give them something they cannot achieve which will cause discouragement
They list may go on... That is all I can think of for now!


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babies

Magda Gerber... her philosophy changed my perspective on babies. It is incredible and I will be following it when I have babies! If you have a baby or are pregnant... look into her books!



http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSHicQMmi0Q9BkTWlEcarzLnqQ5Qq7drmbpSWUHUmpizjW46lqPBg


http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRCQIFHpwaC8e_ZUkqAVcEdM3fkdI-y9rBbez9w_FRIC2j3KD8B

http://www.rie.org/

skin

http://tbafblog.com/2010/11/great-skin-you-now-have-a-choice/

the importance of play

I went to a seminar by Eric Hoffman, author, professor and former teacher who spoke about the importance of play. It was so inspiring and brought so much to light about Children! Here are the notes...

Young children use pay to explore important questions about themselves and the world around them. It is their way of "thinking out loud." At first, these questions are basic: Who will take care of me? How does my body work? How can i learn about the people and things around me? As their brains develop and they gain more knowledge and control, their questions become increasingly complex. Observing play can help us understand what questions a child is asking and guide us to curriculum that provides positive answers.

CHILDREN TRY TO UNDERSTAND THEIR WORLD BY:
-observing adults, peers, and media characters
-imitating what they observe
-testing the limits of themselves, their environment, and important adults (children test our language to see if we are going to do what we say).
-asking questions
-creating ever-changing theories about how things work (they come up with grand ideas to understand things. If you give them info. it will change their idea. They are figuring out how the world works. Their ideas are not logical).
-expressing ideas through language, art, music and motion
-and most importantly---through PLAY! (through play they invest in the world. Play is fun for adults, NOT always for children. They make their ideas real in the world and that can be scary. If they are afraid of something they tend to turn it into something... for example: if they are afraid of a person place of thing they will call it a monster. They can can imagine future and past. Children will take bits of information and play it out, for example, draw or build. They are trying to figure out how the world works and how people work.)

PRESCHOOLERS PLAY SO THEY CAN:
-explore emotions by:
-learning to identify feelings
-developing new ways to express feelings

-explore social relationships by:
-forging new connections with adults
-investigating friendships with peers
-studying power, control and autonomy, and learning how to balance the desire for power with the need for relationship

-explore their intellectual abilities by:
-expanding knowledge of the world outside the family
-developing a self identity
-looking for predictable patterns
-trying out "big ideas"
-asking "big questions" such as:
what is right and what is wrong? what is good and what is bad?
what is fair and what is unfair?
what is life and what is death?
what is a boy and what is a girl?
what is real and what is fantasy?
what does it mean to be a grownup?
(they are trying to figure out who's in charge, and who is a friend. 5-6 year olds can have more than 1 friend, you can play with so in so and still be my friend but if they are younger, they can only understand what it means to have one friend, they think if they have one friend they can't have another and if someone else trys to be friends with their friend it means they don't have that friend anymore. Giving them examples such as "I am friends with Jack, Sally and Amy but sometimes I only play with Amy and Jack and sometimes Sally just plays with Amy.)

-Children will hit another child because they have a toy they want and if it worked and they got the toy, they will do it again because it worked for them. Children aren't good at having different categories in their life.

-Children think if they use their imaginations to say what this is it will really hurt their feelings.

-It's hard for them explore ideas they have with out being about to play it out with other children.

-Children don't speak their ideas (such as things about death, good and bad)

-Separating their actions from who they are doesn't make sense to them (you can narrate for them by saying "it looks like you really want to play with ___." when they express actions that look like they want to play with another child but may be harmful.) They explore their feelings by doing things, for example, if one child, lets call him Kyle is building blocks, and another child named John is watching and thinking of how he really wants to play with Kyle, but instead of saying I want to play with you he runs over and knocks Kyle's blocks over because he has already in his mind imagined him asking Kyle if he could play and Kyle rejected him and said no.

-Sometimes they are fighting over a truck when they are really fighting with each other, they just can't express it in words. That's why we must facilitate and narrate for them what their feelings are.

-We have to narrate, speak and defend for them. With out adults calling out their threats (i'm not going to let you threaten her to be the "baby", find something both children agree on and then they can play that. If the child that is being called the baby is ok being called a kitty and the other child calling her the baby is ok calling her the kitty, then they have resolved it and can play in peace.) If it is an older child calling a younger child the baby you can tell the older child "this person needs my help right now, you don't need my help right now."

-give children real examples to narrate their play, actions and feelings.

-books with real people and genders playing different roles (like a woman being a firefighter) can help them figure out their world and feelings.

-Children will give up their ideas to be accepted by their peer groups.

-If you make your child fearful (not letting them do things that may have some danger in it) they will never build the skills in that area.




-explore their physical abilities to
-test physical limits
-practicing new physical skills

wonderland.

I cannot remember a time where my imagination was more vivid than as a child. Remembering those times bring me alive in a way nothing else can. Ultimately our creativity comes from the expressions of what we imagine. When our passions are ignited, through inspiration, our imaginations can take us to places none have gone before, there is always something more to find... it's never ending.

Too often a child's imagination is squelched, due to the media and commercial based obsessed culture that entertains children with toys and tv, which only give them a product without allowing them to use their creativity and imagination to grow, learn and develop. Ultimately, we will have adults who no longer posses any imagination or creativity, only the lack there of. We are taking away their right to develop, be themselves, and function fully as the human being God created them to be. Their individuality will be stricken with similarity of those around them due to the product commercialism creates. I am desperate to change that which has stolen the very thing that allows them to be children.

As a child you can imagine almost anything. A tree could be a castle, a bike could be a purple flying dragon. Now we have child sized castles and toy flying dragons. This only stops children's ability to imagine, it does it for them, and therefore that part of them doesn't fully develop... and all the things that come along with it like role playing, figuring out the world around them through play, exploration and exploration... gone.

we love eachother, more than the stars.

we love to decorate together
spend time going to random places
i've learned to love japan like he does, but maybe not quite as much :)
he makes me laugh more than anyone
he laughs at my shopping justifications, and i somehow end up laughing too
we love linus and keiko
he likes hearing what I have to say about child development
and listens to me go on and on about it :)
he understands my passion, and brings me back to reality when i get too passionate about it
he tells me how i sleep talk at night and say the funniest things
we want to travel, and then have a family
he defends me and helps me find correction when i'm wrong
he helps me let go of my to do list and find moments to laugh and relax
he comforts me when i cry
he shares my dreams and dreams them with me
he doesn't let the hard times in life affect our love
he knows a lot about Jesus, and i love learning from him


he is my bestest of friends
i belong to him
he thinks i'm the most beautiful one in the world
he knows me and loves me even with my flaws
he inspires me everyday
and i tell him everything
he is my f a v o r i t e.

love that covers unfair pain

Surrender produces a Father who makes our failures something good. His grace is enough to cover our failures. Such a perfect picture of His love... He doesn't want us to feel condemned, He desires for us to know His g o o d n e s s.

That is love. When we know His love for us, we can love even those who hurt us.

a glimpse of my passion...

Ever since I finished my Child Development degree last year I have formed such a deep passion. A passion which seems to maybe go to far at times, because I feel for those who have children and don't understand where they are, or what they lack in their environment to help them progress developmentally. At times I think about how I didn't plan on becoming a teacher and how I would have gone into having my own children, not knowing much of anything about them developmentally and how I would have held them back for my lack of knowledge. I'm not saying I needed to be a teacher to give them all they needed, I'm just saying I believe it's important that parents understand child development. The first 5 years of a child's life are the most important, and the way we teachers/parents introduce them to learning/school will effect them for the rest of their lives. It will either put a bad taste in their mouth, or a good one. We can set them up for a successful future of learning and a healthy desire to learn.

Asking children "open-ended" questions helps them hypothesis. Instead of telling a child things you know, ask them what they think.. it causes them to develop cognitively by hypothesizing. For example: instead of saying "when you put that large block on top of that small block it will fall" say "what do you think will happen when you put that large block on the small block?" and let them experiment with it and see what happens. It may take them a couple of tries and trying out other blocks, but they will soon see what happens. That knowledge can't be told, it can only be experienced on their own.

There are some misconceptions about Play Based Schools.. here is one:

Children just play and don't do any academics: NOT true... actually it is opposite. Children know how to do one thing best... play. Children are learning about the world around them, and they figure it out by playing. In a play based school, we allow the children to do what they know best, and provide the right materials for them to have hands one experiences through their play which essentially is hands on academics. You might think that children playing in a huge sand box isn't beneficial for them, I hope I can change your mind... when a child plays in the sand they are learning cause and effect when they pour water on the sand and try to create something as opposed to creating something when the sand is dry. They have a sensory experience as the sand sits in between their toes and falls through their fingers. Depending on what items are in the sand, they can experience many different things from creativity, imagination, gross motor skills, fine motor skills, making connections cognitively, and many more. If there are other children in the sand with them, they can learn social and emotional skills with a teacher close by to guide them into problem solving. There are different steps of play which determines where a child is developmentally, and each step requires a child to be around other children as the child learns social skills. The most important stages of a child's development are communication/language/literacy, social emotional development, exploration/approaches to learning, purposeful motor activity, cognitive development and sensory organization.


One of my favorite places to visit is BING Nursery school at Standford University.
http://www.stanford.edu/dept/bingschool/
This place created at SU as a research institute, following the motto that children do one thing best... play. The only children allowed in the school are ones of professors at the college. Now if that isn't legit enough for you.. I don't know what is! When i visited BING, I was amazed.. it is almost exactly like the school I work at... and the environment just inspires me creatively!


Something that kindergarten teachers have said is that they are looking for preschoolers who enter kindergarten socially and emotionally ready. If a child is not socially and emotionally able to cope, they will not be able to handle the learning aspect of preschool, they will only fall behind. At the school I teach at, we help the children problem solve all day long. It is so important to teach children problem solving skills, which will set them up for success for the rest of their life.

I could go on about this forever!

It is most inspiring and intriguing when a child allows us adults to step into their perspective... unfortunately, us adults take advantage of it and too often make the child step into ours, when they are no where close to ready. But when we take a moment to see into their world, we find more creativity, understanding and inspiration than one could hold. When we see the world through their perspective, we can understand them better and help them get to a place of understanding life and this world in their own unique way.

some of my favorites.

"Human beings, all over the earth, have this curious idea that they ought to behave in a certain way, and can't really get rid of it."

--The Case for Christianity

"Reality, in fact, is always something you couldn't have guessed. That's one of the reasons I believe Christianity. It's a religion you couldn't have guessed."

--The Case for Christianity

"The Moral Law tells us the tune we have to play: our instincts are merely the keys..."

--Mere Christianity

"When humans should have become as perfect in voluntary obedience as the inanimate creation is in its lifeless obedience, then they will put on its glory, or rather that greater glory of which Nature is only the first sketch."

--The Weight of Glory

"As long as this deliberate refusal to understand things from above, even where such understanding is possible, continues, it is idle to talk of any final victory over materialism."

--The Weight of Glory

"We live, in fact, in a world starved for solitude, silence, and private: and therefore starved for meditation and true friendship."

--The Weight of Glory

And so I leave you with this;

"You and I have need of the strongest spell that can be found to wake us from the evil enchantment of worldliness."

--The Weight of Glory

whimsical.

wherever you are BE all there...

if we are in the moment, yet thinking of another, we aren't utilizing all that we are and in the end we are drained... and none the less we loose that opportunity to live to the fullest and enjoy that moment in itself.

just a thought to ponder.

a day...

I haven't posted in so long. In the meantime I have been way too passionate about my career and have grown beyond my belief in the process. This may sound prideful, yet it is anything but. When you teach, you have to grow as fast as possible, and I felt like the first 3 months I started teaching was my sponge/overwhelming/finding my style of teaching time and all of a sudden I have recognized so much growth in myself, it came faster than I thought, and I am now able to do more than I though I could to continue learning and growing in areas I need to. The foundation has been laid, now I have to build upon it.

So much can happen in a day...
So much can be learned in a day...

Today has been one of those days, where I have learned more significant lessons than I have sometimes in a week.

And all I want to do is make a list of the things I would like to accomplish now that my class is coming to an end. I know it's just one class, but when you work full time and have to put time aside for family, self, husband, AND ministry... it's a lot.


So I leave you with this...

Dreams...

"For broken dreams the cure is... Dream again, And deeper...
In dreams the fool is free from scorning voices. Grey-headed whores are virgin there again. Out of the past dream brings long-buried choices. All in a moment snaps the tenfold chain. That life took years in forging. There the stain of oldest sins-how do the good words go?-though they were scarlet, shall be white as snow." CS Lewis

Lyrics and Literacy

Who would have thought that children singing songs which link to literacy could relate to every subject you would find in their learning? I was pretty amazed still reading this article myself. Here are some quotes:

"Even young children frequently memorize verse after verse of elaborate song lyrics, such as those in "I know an Old Lady who swallowed a fly" and "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious". "Like predictable books, song lyrics possess any or all of the following characteristics: rhyme, rhythm, repetition of vocabulary, and repetition of structure (Lynch, 1986)"

"In the classroom there should be song lyrics as the base not only for literacy activities but for learning experiences that integrate language with other curricular areas, such as science, math, social studies, art and music."

Imagine yourself t h e r e...

A deeply dark night, His life on earth flashed before eyes; “Wise men visited Him, John Baptized Him, He was tempted, He began His work in Galilee, He chose followers, He taught and healed, He made promises, people followed Him, He brought a dead girl to life, He walked on water, He warned everyone that He must die, they planned to kill Him, Judas became an enemy, He ate at passover, He ate His last supper, His followers left Him, He was arrested, He was put on trial before the leaders, Peter denied Him, He was taken to Pilate, Judas killed himself because He realized he was wrong, Pilate questions Jesus and tried to free Him, Jesus was crucified”

And the whole country became dark, for 3 hours, and then He died. I can almost smell the air of that day He died, as the darkened sky surrounded Him in silence, I can imagine that time stood still, as the wind blew the garments off our heads, As we kneeled on that hill by the foot of the cross, if only our presence helped soothe His spirit, longing to touch Him and kiss His feet, only to see His blood hit the ground and His breath become less, as he struggles not only physically but with the weight of the world's sin's, past, present and future... Each and e v e r y sin. He went to each of our most depressing, excruciating painful days on earth, every time we envied others, lied to that friend, spoke out in anger to a loved one, gave our bodies away to another because our worth was unknown, every bad thought we had, each spec of jealously in our hearts, every word of gossip that destroyed that friend, the very cuts on our arms representing a numbness to our pain, every act of immorality, He never wanted us to suffer...

Because we did not k n o w, or did not care to consider the life He lived and the death He not only died but the every sin of ours that HE made His o w n... so that we could L I V E in return.
So that WE may have L I F E. Wether you believe or not... Imagine yourself t h e r e …. that night.
The night He wanted us to remember so that our every tear may be wiped, every burden lifted, so that we could know the depth of the only u n c o n d i t I o n a l love we could ever know...
There is no other love...

Imagine yourself there...

Eideh shoma mobarak! Happy persian new year.

s p r i n g is here. i'm so happy because then comes summer, which is my favorite!


this made me ponder:


Strip that which taints your soul, for if the soul is tainted your words are that of destruction that mean nothing.

Some people make cutting remarks, but the words of the wise bring healing. Proverbs 12:18

And dreams...

God will use other people in your life to help fulfill the dream He has given you. But you must be humble enough to receive it... humility is not thinking less of yourself, it is thinking of yourself less.

"bang, bang... You're dead"

This is what I learned at a recent seminar at my work with Eric Hoffman on superhero play with children... it is so intriguing! This is just an overview of it, there is more detail, so just ask me questions if there is anything specific you want to know that wasn't detailed.

"When we tell children who are playing with guns and such "don't play with that" they hear "you don't want me to have friends? you don't want me to feel powerful"?"

As adults we have to learn to look through the perspective of a child. They have a different perspective than adults and we cannot understand them or where they are unless we see through their eyes.

At ages 3-4 they begin to have different fears and emotions; they are figuring out friendship and they can start to view the past and future in a broader sense. For example; when mom leaves the child at school and says she will pick him or her up at a certain time that child can now imagine mom as she goes to work and what that looks like, so some children at this age start to go through the stage of being clingy again and crying when mom leaves.


why are children attracted to superhero and weapon play?
It allows them to:

-investigate power and autonomy
-balance the desire for power with the need for friendship
-test their own physical limits
-explore feelings
-answer "big questions"(what does it mean to be alive, dead, boy or girl? they take a little information and make a BIG judgment.. like "I hate you" "You're not my friend anymore" there is no grey area for them, it is all black and white.... they also start to form stereotypes, what is good and bad? fair and unfair? right and wrong? Am I good or bad? (they are still egocentric at this age) Some children want to try out the "bad" guy role in play but some are still too afraid.

Why are parents and caregivers worried about the play? they are concerned about--

-the influence of modern media through--
-commercialism
-sanitized violence
-use of weapons and violence in place of good storytelling
-children's use of negative behaviors, including

-hurting themselves and others
-relying on violence and stereotypes to solve problems
-disrupting classroom routines and missing other learning opportunities
-abandoning more imaginative and creative play

Banning or ignoring superhero play won't help children find positive answers to their questions about themselves and about the world. If we don't facilitate and guide the play, they will get many of their answers from the media.

Teachers and parents can support positive superhero play by:

-setting clear, respectful limits that help children understand the difference between symbolic and real violence. (ask them questions about what they are doing "why are you shooting your friend?" "what kind of shooting game are you playing?")

-providing powerful props that build children's ideas of safe fantasy play
-creating stories by:
-recording children's words
-using dolls, puppets, and flannel board character to act out children's play ideas
-creating books from these ideas
-transforming media characters and plots into the new, imaginative stories

-fostering heroism by:

-bringing real heroes and heroines into the classroom
-engaging children in helper roles (it is the biggest self-esteem for them, find positive ways for them to be heroes)
-helping children develop a sense of justice
-planning anti-bias, environmental, and other community projects

Hero: if you do something with out being asked.

Here are some random notes I took through out:

Children see guns as a "power symbol" so we should come up with alternative power symbols to channel their desire to shoot guns into something else. Power symbols gain power by being used in stories, so having the child make up their own story about superhero play that they imagine, making a book out of it and having them create the pages and put it together. For example: through a story they have created have them to come up with something like a "power bracelet" (or some other power symbol in their story besides a gun) but don't just give it to them and say "this is a power bracelet" they won't care, but if they create it and it has power to them, it will be a power symbol.

Children need little bits of information, if a child is shooting at you, you can simply say "i don't want to be shot at."

Through the safe violence they can learn "non-violence"

Preschoolers ask themselves "what is real, and what is fantasy"

The goal of TV: to get children to keep watching, there is no good story line in children's tv shows, they are edited so fast (jumping from one scene to the next), that there is NO time for emotions in the characters, because then the next thing comes on. If they do watch TV, sit with them and ask them questions, like "why is that monster hurting people?" "why is that man shooting at that person?"


It is good for children to use their imagination to shoot (a pretend gun) but the agreements should always be safety 1st. If someone gets hurt physically or emotionally the game STOPS. And the game stops until you are sure the child can be safe.

Children don't sit there and come up with games and talk about it with their friends. For example, if a child said "there are green dragons and they swim in the sky with yellow dogs, but they yellow dogs are bad and we have to keep them away from the green dragons because the green dragons protect us" If a child said that to their friend it would sound ridiculous, not spontaneous or fun. This is why when children are playing they add things here and there about their play and what they are doing, but they don't "check in" with eachtother... ex: "do you want me to shoot you?" so the adults have to initiate the children asking eachother these questions for safety.

everything beauty

I am completely obsessed with this web site.

It is simply i n c r e d i b l e.

Reviews about EVERY product you can think of, and what products are best for you. If you have ever had any unanswered questions about skincare and beauty products, this is heaven... i never new you could research every brand to thoroughly!!! I could spend all day looking at this!

Please, indulge yourself!

http://www.beautypedia.com/

And, it is worth paying the yearly fee to get more access to such good information!

http://www.paulaschoice.com/

Hunger is an escort to the deeper things of You.

The weeks go by way too fast.

I get excited everytime I learn more about children. It is incredible to me to imagine things through a child's perspective. Once you read about the studies and the research that has been done to better understand children's perspectives, everything they do makes sense, and adults fail to foster their development frequently because they only see through an adults perspective.

I am sad the weekend is coming to an end so quickly!

Here is a thought I have been pondering... One of many that is...

Here we are on earth so far from heaven, only trough His presence can we leave our earthly solitude to live and breath in there in the heavens. It is in the depths of His love that we are made whole in perfect peace.








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love the obsession.

Peace comes with surrender

http://www.iccenglish.com/iccenglish/icc_english.html

Here is a link to the sermon from Sunday, and some of my other favorites like the one on forgiveness!

"If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world." C.S. Lewis

xo i belong to you



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

I won't be satisfied with anything ordinary.

the sermon today was i n c r e d i b l e.

i went to church feeling like bursting into tears and left satisfied.

i also got prophesied over by the guest pastor we had... very powerful. confirmation and brand new things i have never heard.

i'm going to post the video from today once it is uploaded to the web site.

xo

everything i once held dear, i count it all as lost.

rid me of myself.

i belong to You

little things that make me happy.

new curtains and kitchen towels :)

sleepy.

The weekend just needs to be longer.

Or I need to balance everything in my life better.

It is Sunday night and I do not feel rested and I have a whole week of work ahead of me.

Ever since I started it has gotten a lot better balancing everything, but things still aren't where they need to be. It almost seems impossible... like there just isn't enough time to see everyone I want to see every week and not enough time to finish everything I need to finish, or want to for that matter.

On another note, I have been thinking about how I don't mind so much about not having a huge house for our future family... I just want a HUGE back yard, with the most amazing garden with lots of plants, flowers, trees, vegetables and fruit... with many delightful places for our children experience nature... thinking of it makes my heart happy. Nature Deficit Disorder is just too common these days.

Well... off to an amazing week with lots of little people to love!

xo

how majestic your whisper...

I never r e a l l y thought about it... if I don't forgive, I am not forgiven by God.
This made me recognize a deep wound I had from someone who I thought I had forgiven, but came to the realization that I had not. After praying and crying out to God about all the things this person had done to hurt me, all the words that pierced me so deeply I came to these terms "Love keeps N O records of wrongs"
1 Corinthians 13:5....
I asked God to fill my wound with these words, and even though some days I feel like I have not forgiven this person, I am reminded that forgiveness is not a f e e l i n g... but a c h o i c e.
There is SO much freedom in forgiveness, a burden has been lifted and I am
p e a c e f u l.

This is only a taste of what I experienced that weekend <3>

don't squelch their creativity.

Such a delightful movie :)

"to steal a million" with Audrey Hepburn




I really want to keep up on this blog, but my days seem to be way too full.

So here and there I will spurt out things that have been going on :)

It is so wonderful to come home on a friday from work to a completely CLEAN house!?
yup... that's my husband :D

Magda Gerber IS brilliant, and I want to read all her books and watch all her VHS.

Work hasn't been work, it's been a career. a passion. an excitement. a refreshing glimpse of change I can make happen within these little people's lives. they know so much, we just have to support them, facilitate them, encourage them, give them positive reinforcement and never tell them no. It feels as if I have learned a WHOLE new language... completely changing how i talk to these little people that will help them develop, learn, problem solve on their own and become confident individuals. They have too many voices in this society squelching their creativity, ability to learn and confidence in who they are... I will be that voice that tells them the opposite and delight in them as they grow.

That is only a piece of what I have been feeling ever since I started working... there is so much more. I need to find the time to write it all on paper to process this season. I don't ever want to forget how it feels to be a new teacher... it will help me in the future, and help those around me who walk where I have walked.

I just want to create while the music plays, the reading intrigues, my heart comes alive and my thoughts consume me... create all these moments that have been inside just waiting to explode... as the little ones become free in the play they engage in... oh how deeply they are engaged and how many things they are learning when they go there... I could go on for days about how much they learn... if only adults could go there still... and realize it is the only way to grow, the work sheets printed out coloring sheets only restrict the childrens abilities in SO many ways... I could go on for days.

just too much to do

sickness has made my to do list way too long.

so much to do for "white as snow" which is next sat....HELP!

i have such a huge reading list, not just teacher stuff but personal stuff too. when will it ever get looked at :( not to mention there is SO much to learn about this teacher stuff. let me just say, everything i ever thought about children and their development has been totally changed now.

it is overwhelming as a new teacher, the "survival" stage describes it perfect :)

I'm off to be productive.

best sick day

yellow and pink flowers. He knows what I like <3

best friends

In commanding us to glorify Him, God is inviting us to e n j o y Him. CS Lewis