And, I did mean to capitalize 'stars.' STARS for Kids NOW is the Kentucky program for rating child care centers. The rating scale concerns teacher interactions between children, sanitary conditions, artwork, the various materials available to the children--those types of things.
So like I said this week is my lead teacher week. I was in charge of Circle Time, implementing our planned materials. The prep for it was a tad stressful, but the fun part is actually doing it. Well, today our STARS evaluator came. It is always a surprise when they drop in (only every five years), but we are given a two-week period. As soon as he walked in the door, I turned my game face on. I was gonna make this day go correctly, or so help me... I had to lead a small group activity which involved dirt which meant it involved hand-washing, and do not get me started on how big of a deal washing hands is STARS people. We wash hands afer just about everything; we have children come up to ask us sometimes if they have to wash hands after activities that don't require handwashing, and if the said activity does require hand washing, sometimes the child will change his or her mind about doing it. I mean, what does that tell a child? Because we are so obsessed with washing, children are being deterred from a really engaging and enriching activity. But whatever.
My small group activity was very fun to do, even if a bit messy. And we had lots of conversations about nature and science-related things. It went well, but I did just realize that I left all my stuff in the classroom. Oh well; I will be there tomorrow for work. After I cleaned up my mess, I helped one child clean our paintbrushes and dress the weather bear, and even though it was a chilly 40 degrees outside our weather bear had on shorts and no shoes. Oh well. The child had a good time. All the while this is happening, our STARS evaluator, a dude by the way, is poking around the room, making sure we don't have any leaks (which we do because we are in a basement), proper supervision is happening in the bathroom, teachers are using appropriate guidance techniques, etc. etc. It's a lot of pressure; we did nothing out of the extreme ordinary (except for a fire drill. yay, me!) but it is a completely different story when a third party comes in to scrutinize everything that is being done.
I led probably my best Circle Times ever; I was ON like Donkey Kong. I felt so confident in what I was telling the children, and my helper was a fabulous child who knew exactly what to do. Thankfully it was sunny so we were able to go outside to play. I cannot recall our last sunny day. And, boy, did we need to go outside. We needed to run around and jump and scream and be anywhere but the classroom or the playroom!
While the children are outside with the teachers, the lead goes inside to prep for closing Circle. I got my story (Bark, George) ready to tell (by not the conventional means), I cued my music movement song. I was ready to go. Unfortunately with everything that needed to happen at opening Circle (the fire drill, the concept game) and because we were doing Happy Grams that Closing Circle, we had to cut our time short on the playground. It was the saddest countdown of singing "Five More Minutes" ever.
I had a blast at Closing Circle. I was dancing with the children, and I had a ball telling my Bark, George story. It's about a dog who doesn't bark when you tell him to. He meows, quacks, oinks and moos. And he has all of those animals stuck inside him. I made a fake dog and stuffed him with all those animals ad told the story that way. That's how we do all our stories, with props, or magnets or feltboards--any way but the traditional method of turning pages. It keeps the children so engaged.
That morning, I told Jennifer that I wanted to be videotaped today. Unfortunately, with STARS, she forgot and it was my best day ever.
No comments:
Post a Comment