A Framework for Your Work

Upon reading the chapter in the beginning where I begin to walk in the door, it just so happens that this past week I felt the same way as this exact scenario.  My parents walked in the door with all seven of my children in tow and no co-teacher in sight.  One of my families asked me, "Is it just you?"  I said with a smile, "Someone should be coming in soon."  In a classroom with children of various ages ranging from 18 months to two and a half, we have a 1 to 4 teacher ratio.  15 minutes had passed and I called my supervisor, she told me to send three of my students to the next class because they had 2 adults.  I did as she said and remained calm with my four boys at the breakfast table.  What would one do in an event like this one but to remain calm?  I actually put on some music and danced around with the boys.  Its not often we get to have only the four of us in a classroom to ourselves.  We danced to music and marched around the classroom with smiles and laughter in the air.

On another point, Carter and Curtis also uses the American Heritage College Dictionary to define balance as a stable mental or psychological state, a harmonious arrangement of parts or elements, as in a design; the difference in magnitude between opposing forces or influences.  We have to be flexible in the early childhood field.  Our schedules that are posted in our classes are tentative, but as much as we try to stick to our routines.  We may just have stories and singing on the outside playground instead of at "circle time."  I also felt that the balance comes in handy with time management skills.  At PACT, there is an ongoing load of paper work after paper work with ASQ's and ASQ S/E's.  We have to make sure these are completed in a timely fashion accordling to the child's well baby check months, and then filed.  When that is done we will go through the the same cycle again, its just none stop.  Again, balance, the great part about being a preschool teacher is that I get to run, exercise, pretend, sing, and play along with the kids in my class.  This is how I feel Mary Catherine Bateson of Composing a Life expresses balance.  I enjoy singing in my classroom with my children, we sing to brushing our teeth, cleaning up, marching down to the playground, being thankful for our food, and just for the fun of it.  Being creative is the best attitude in a classroom full of children.  How do you keep your classroom fun and creative?  How would you keep the attention going from the children?  What could possibly be more interesting than Joann's sparkly sandals?  Who will rescue you from a room full of yelling and screaming?