Thursday, September 8, 2011

The Teacher in Me

First I would like to welcome myself back to the blogging world. It sure has been a while. Life was and is busy but I want to get back into blogging again. I always enjoy reading everyone else's story so I figure I should write again for anyone that is interested in my life :)

The past few months have had many life changes. I am so blessed to be able to stay home with Levi by opening my home up as a daycare back in January. It has been such a wonderful experience to be with Levi and the other babies in my home and I love it!

I am starting to find ways to bring let the teacher out again. Each month I am starting to pick a theme. This month is family. We made family photo albums and have been practicting everyone's names. Today we finger painted a giant tree that will hang in the playroom for our "daycare family tree". This weekend we will have a daycare family bbq and I hope to take pictures of everyone's family to hang on our tree.

Last month our theme was animals. The babies were all exposed to many animal words and the sounds they make. The youngest baby is 8 months old and the oldest is just about 20 months. (Levi is second oldest at 17 months) So they are young and I always feel quite accomplished after getting an art project accomplished...it's a BIG moment for me everytime :) It's funny because I recently went to a workshop where I was told at this age art is "all about the process, not the product!) but I usually have one they can go wild on and then we have our "teacher led" version to hang or go home!

It's been so much more of a challenge than I thought it would be to go from teaching to home. I have to remind myself in the moments of scrambling to get lunch ready, feed them all, and clean it up that I am still a teacher. I teach them about life and even though I don't have state standards to measure up to anymore, I hope the standards I set for myself and the kids are still "measuring up".