Weekly Reflection #2

Another week has gone by and I can’t believe it! It’s crazy to think I am almost done with senior project! These two weeks have flown by and it’s been a really great experience! So far I have realized that everyday is somewhat similar. The only things that change are the activities and the attitudes of the kids. I learned that I love working with kids, but that I am going to have to be a lot more patient and not get so easily frustrated. I also learned that kids don’t always think for themselves. For example, we made pretzels this week and one of the girls decided that they didn’t like the pretzel, so her friend sitting right next to her decided she didn’t like it either. It was a bit disappointing but we knew she didn’t like it only because her friend didn’t. It showed that kids really pick up on their surrounding environment. Another example is I noticed is that one day, a girl who I have played with a lot was telling all the kids to be quiet and saying “sshhh!’ to them during story time, as I have done in the past. I started to realize that the only reason she was probably doing this was because I have done it in the past, so she automatically thought it was ok for her to do it as well!
Everyday I enjoy what I do. I love how we never do the same thing and how there is always something entertaining to do with the preschoolers. I like that I get to be outside a lot and that I get to be creative. It is fun everyday in some way!
Once again, as it was last week, Hannah and I aren’t asked to do certain activities. A lot of the time we offer to do a center if we don’t have one planned for that day or without asking we will give the kids their milk or water bottles for snack and lunch. It is the sort of environment where we do things without being asked. Hannah and I know what needs to be done, so we are able to do things without having Raz tell us.
There were two things this week that didn’t happen exactly as I imagined. The first was on Thursday we asked Sam Payson to come play the guitar and teach the kids a song about frogs. He showed up twenty minutes late just as Hannah and I were leaving. It was frustrating because the kids were eating lunch so we couldn’t exactly stop them from what they were doing so we told him thanks anyways. I learned that you can’t always depend on people and that you should probably have something else planned if they don’t follow through, which Hannah and I hadn’t done, so we felt badly about it. The other thing that didn’t happen exactly the way we wanted was our cooking center. We got the recipe for toad pretzels and Hannah made the dough. The pretzels didn’t really come out as pretzels, more of hard dough clumps. The kids still ate them, at least most of them but we wished they had come out more like pretzels. Oh well, they still liked them and had fun playing with the dough so that was good.
I will benefit from this week because I know that I need to be prepared for whatever happens. If something doesn’t go right or if a plan doesn’t follow through I need to be prepared with something else! It was a good week and I’m excited for my last week of senior project!