First full week, including an epiphany

 

I kinda had an epiphany this last week. But it didn’t happen during normal preschool hours. I had it during my Friday Fun Night, which is always much more relaxed then even normal preschool. It’s a time siblings can come so I have a variety of age groups. Since the weather has been so nice, we spent most of the evening outside. One little girl, who I do have in preschool, told me she needed to take her baby for a walk, so out come the stroller and doll. No problem. Then she decided that the circles needed to come out, all of them. As she lined them up, I had a thought. Although I try to let the students use the materials in a variety of ways, I still have some “rules” for them. And in some cases they make sense, they protect either the students or the toys. But some of them are because I don’t want the extra work it involves. Like making sure toys are brought back inside and maybe even having to do it myself once everyone is gone. As I watched this cute little girl  line up all the circles (or colors as she called them) I realized that I was more worried about my time, then I was about learning that could happen. I also realized that I could take the time to do a final tidy after everyone has left, because I have freed up so much of my time I used to spend scouring the internet for a cute little art project that went with the theme. I realized that my time is far better spent picking up stray toys anyway. So here’s to the freedom of letting go of useless rules (which I think will probably happen in baby steps because, to be honest, I still have some control issues) and enjoying the joy of play.

Now on to the joys of the first full week of preschool, which was spent mainly getting use to preschool and new friends. We painted and decorated our names

We played with play dough and wheat in the sensory table.

We played with Legos and with the doll house (notice the teacher tied up in the last picture, not sure if I should be worried)

And, of course, we played outside.

Here’s another example of letting go of nonsense rules. One of these buckets were for the balls and the other were for things to put in the our bucket pulley. But a couple of students thought they were perfect for gathering things, so there they are, with balls, leaves, grass, etc…. And afterwards, the balls and pulley things got returned to their “rightful” place, so no worries.

All in all, not a bad start to a new year.