Day 10 - My First Day of Preschool

Someone asked me today if I was gone in the morning to a seminar and I said, "no, I was at preschool". They said, "oh, going back to school are ya?" . HA. I thought that was funny. Actually it was my first time as classroom helper at Jace's preschool so Day 10's list is what I did at preschool today.

1). Take snack to room - it was our day to bring snack. This is a lot of pressure you know. To bring something all the kids will like and it has to be nutritious. I decided on individual packages of sliced apples (a la McDonald's Apple Dippers - did you know you can buy these at Walmart?) and berry flavored Juicy Juice.

2). Help with "Alley Drop Off" - I had no clue what this was but apparently some people pull up in the alley, boot their kid out of the car and let a perfect stranger walk them to their classroom. I couldn't imagine who would do such a thing and actually no one did - thank goodness. So, instead I held the door for those juggling more than one child.

3). Play in the sand at the Sensory Table - this was the activity about 7 out of the 8 kids wanted to play all at once. Fighting over toys and that's when I knew I was in trouble. I didn't know anyone and I hate correcting other people's kids. I couldn't let them come to blows over wooden race cars that, according Ms. Tracy, aren't supposed to be in the sand anyway, so I had to try to reason with 2 and 3 year olds - boys no less.

4). Watercolors - this was pretty tame but Jace wouldn't let me paint my own picture. He kept coloring over my flowers and rainbow and party balloons with different colors so then you couldn't see my original painting anymore. I wanted to tell on him but thought I would let it slide this time.

5). Reading stories - first I read "You Can Name 100 Trucks" to Jace and Grey (or was it Greg? I couldn't understand - it sounded different each time a teacher said it). And the book was right, I could name 100 trucks...there was the ice cream truck and the lunch truck and the milk truck...it was making me hungry.

6). BIG room - the big room is basically the indoor playground when they can't get outside. There are Little Tykes climbers, lots of ride on toys, mats, bouncy balls. This was another area where sharing has not quite been mastered. I spent most of the time trying to keep kids from latching on to something Jace was playing with so that he wouldn't throw a fit and have my parenting skills put to the test. Could I keep my child from behaving badly and embarrassing me if push came to shove. And push could very well come to shove in the BIG room...no wonder they have the mats!

7). Snack - it was time for the wonderful snack. First we all used magic soap (anti-bacterial gel) and then passed out the apples. The teacher vetoed my juice and decided to serve milk. Something about it needing to be used up...blah, blah, blah. Then she decided that every child did not need their own package of apples but that they could share. I had brought 10 packages, there was plenty but it actually was a good idea because there was like 6 or 7 slices in each one. That really was too much for one small child. But then the other teacher offered anyone who wanted one a peanut butter cracker too. I was like, "you got something against my apples beotch? You wanna take this to the BIG room?". Again, the reason was, "we need to use these up" . Apparently nothing goes to waist at preschool.

8). Dancing - this was how we were going to fill the last 15 minutes of class. We danced with bean bags on various body parts, we danced our way to the store with "Sammy" pretening to fly, swim, crawl and hop rather than walk, we freestyled our way through the last song. We totally had the kids with us on the first song, by the second song most of the boys had drifted off to try to touch toys one last time (even though they knew they were closed after we eat), by the third song it really was just the adults. I was a little nervous when Ms. Tracy showed off her "grapevine" prowless to Ms. Susy (which in my day was called the Electric Slide).

9). Get our coats and bags - I had been watching the clock for the last 45 minutes and 11:30 am had arrived. Time to go. BUMMER and just when I was about to school Ms. Tracy on how to do the Worm. Oh well, there's always next month's helper day.