Monday and this is how things went

 We started our day with pounding .
I found this wonderful idea for golf tees and pumpkins from Kierna, at Learning for Life.
The children really enjoyed this, and for some it took time to manage. For some of the youngest to find success I pushed the tee in abit first, so they could pound without someone holding the tee for them.

I have a mixed age group, with several toddler aged children (under 2), and the rest are in the youngest range of 2 to 3. Most days I also will have one or two older children who just want to be with us.So, this IS a busy room, and there is tons of social learning going on.

I truly love working with this age group, it's my preferred age group, as I enjoy watching the growth of these children. I also like being busy, and I'm a pretty good multi tasker.

This year, I have been feeling abit taxed by the end of the day. I have several challenging behaviors, in this group of children, involving throwing of toys, biting, and RUNNING. At the beginning of September, I had a room full of children crying, due to separation anxiety. And because the children would come in at variable times of the day, this did go on for most of the day - it seems as soon as one child was calm, then another child would come in crying and everyone started up again.

However I am not without my resources - all the good skills and resources of the ECE profession - SINGING, HUGGING, DANCING, OUT DOOR PLAY, and of course SENSORY PLAY - sand play, playdough, water play, flubber, shaving cream.....

As well I've been grateful for Teacher Tom's blog and his thoughtful, inspirational posts.



I just need to single out Tom's posts here, as I've been getting such helpful inspiration through reading his words.

This weekend Tom wrote about dark and  light, and today in a similar vein I found myself reflecting on another pair of opposites - chaos and order. I love order personally. I am a person who always functions best in an orderly environment, and I believe a calm, orderly environment is good for children too.But children also need mess -  with this group I am needing to develop more comfort with messy...

 My children do like to dump. Today I decided it would be interesting to just take some pictures of what was going on.

 Hmmm - puzzle in the baby stroller. Various blocks, and a stray giraffe.







But here I found a small treasure, someone has left.

...and another small treasure...

 And at cleanup time we pretended that the blocks were "autumn leaves", and picked them as we sang our autumn leaves song.

Later, I found a small treasure of my own in the day care's kitchen...a fruit box, which we used to create some fun in the sand box. (Another wonderful idea gleaned from several blogs).

I am very pleased with the renewed focus the children found with the box, and I will certainly continue to try new ideas like this.I am so grateful for all the wonderful things shared through blogging - my teaching is enriched, and my children benefit...and that is what counts, I think.

It looks like I need to do some clean up of my own!