"Teachers have the summer off"

Whenever I tell people that I am going to be a teacher, I often here the response, "at least you get summers off." I would like to correct this statement and say that being a teacher is a 24-7-365 job.

This is not a complaint, just a correction.

You might ask, how is that possible? Well the job of a teacher isn't just teaching and guiding the students in the classroom. There is a lot more to this job, that people seem to not know about.

Being a teacher is taking any and every moment and making it a "teachable moment," if it be for the child or the teacher. I often times find myself jotting down ideas or interesting facts about things I learn throughout my day, in effort to gain as much knowledge as possible. This brings me to my argument about how every day of the year is a working day for a teacher. Im not saying this as a negative statement, but more as an informative statement.

Prime example. Im sitting at home and I hear my 2 1/2 year old brother say, "Mom! time to wash dishes!" I hop up from the couch and creep into the kitchen (must not let my brother know I am watching or else he will stop). My brother pulls the stool to the kitchen sink and says, "I wash mom's dishes. Mom, your coffee cup! I need some". My mom offers my brother some bubbles, and then allows my brother to "wash the dishes. After watching my brother from around the corner for about 5 minutes I realized how much my brother was learning.

First, I want to recognize the situation that my brother was learning in was created and allowed by my mom. Allowing children to explore and experience daily activities such as washing the dishes, picking out their clothes, or helping prepare food expose them to a wide range of learning opportunities.

Not only was my brother able to practice and show independence and accomplishment, but he spit out sentences full of language relating to washing the dishes that might not occur in other situations.
"Mom, I see the bubbles in your coffee cup"
"I can do this. I wash this right here. This water is cold"
"I did it. Its clean!"

Another learning opportunity that I observed was the ability to problem solve. When my brother first reached for the sink handle he couldn't reach. He got off of the stool and pushed his stool closer to the sink. When the water was getting full in the sink my brother shouted, "too full. turn it off!"

This experience helped me to realize that any and every situation is a teachable moment. My mom guided and allowed my brother to experience washing the dishes, which was fun to him, but in actuality a learning opportunity. I apply this to teaching because if I am able to create experiences that help teach students in a natural and fun way, they will enjoy learning much more!

So even at home on an "off day" I am learning how to appropriately guide and teach young children... thanks mom!

Observing Rocks

I never thought that teaching the children about rocks would promote so much student directed discovery. For one of our science activities this week, the children observed a variety of rocks by different classifications (size, color, luster, smell, touch). The children rotated to six stations to observe and record what they observed in the different rocks. I saw the children excited, motivated and curious about the wide variety of differences among the rocks they were observing.

Fun Friday Songs

At the end of the day on Friday's we started to incorporate "fun movement" songs to give the children a designated time to wind down. The kids love dancing and singing along together, and really enjoy when the teachers dance too! Here is us singing and dancing to Ice cream and Cake.