Second Day!

I got this idea about blogging my experiences in my pre-school only today and hence the second day is my first post.
For some background, I'll let you know few things.
I started working in a montessori Pre-School and yesterday was my first day as a full-fledged teacher. I was asked to work with the < 2 year olds and their teacher is about to leave. So till then, I need to get the knowledge transfer (yes here too there needs to be a knowledge transfer only that its different from the IT world).

So what was the day like? It started with some breakfast for the kids and then playtime in the playground. There is a slide and two see-saws in the garden and the younger ones love playing on everything. The first lesson I learnt was to hold a child only by his arm, never by his hand else the hand else the arm might get dislocated.

So after we played in the garden, the teacher plays a CD and sings along the rhymes playing. The children never get tired of the songs and keep saying "once more".

Then we read them small stories which explain simple concepts like who is your grandpa etc.
Now is the most crucial time of the day. Activity time. The children chose the montessori material in the room they want to work with and we guide them with the usage of them.
Most of the times, the children dont like being helped and love working independently.

But at the age of around 2, they cant yet hold their concentration for long and tend to get bored easily. Then if one of them is bored, she becomes cranky. If she starts being cranky, the other children slowly follow suit.
This is the biggest challenge I face. But I think more challenging and attractive material for the children might solve this problem.

The children are a pleasure to be with. They never hit each other as yet and I only pray they dont see anyone doing that ever.
One child has a beautiful smile and no matter what keeps smiling all day. This is something we ought to learn from them.
Another child is very active and can never sit in a single place for more than a minute. But I was amazed when he was punished by a teacher and asked to stand in a corner till she said its okay. He stood there quietly for 5 minutes and I even forgot about the incident but he was still standing there. My heart went out to him just then.
Children never cease to amaze us I guess!

I lost track of the routine I was talking about. Yes then they have lunch and both the days, I didnt see a single child making a fuss about not wanting to eat.
After lunch, we give them a bath and then put them to sleep. This is the most relaxing part of the day for us :). Its takes a while making them sleep and caring for each one of their habits of sleeping.

When they wake up, they have snacks and then we read out stories again and sing songs and ryhmes till end of the day.
When children start leaving one by one, noone cries. They are all used to the routine and dont get upset of not seeing their friends.
They wave the teachers goodbye cheerfully too.

This new life though hectic, am loving it! slurrrrppp...