Dear Moms, Dads and Grandparents,
I taught JK for 4 years. During that time I had the best days of my life. It truly was a pleasure to teach those little ones, to know that I was their first teacher and I would influence whether or not they loved to come to school or dreaded it. I took that role very seriously. I spent a lot of time going over concerns with parents and grandparents, so if I can ever be of any help, please feel free to email me and I will see what I can do. I always had a volunteer schedule. Each day I would have at least one mom or grandparent in to volunteer. I never had them do the dirty work, like cleaning paint centre, but rather had them read to kids, sit at a table and do crafts with kids, help children with printing, recognizing their name and finding words on the word wall to use in their writing. I also had them join in during circle, sing songs and calendar and the children loved having the extra adult in the room. It came in handy during snack time too, trying to get 25 oranges peeled and straws in drinking boxes or fruit cups
opened whatever the parent had sent in. I always kept a stash of emergency snacks for the child who forgot theirs, or for the child whose snack got wrecked by a spilled drinking box. I loved my volunteers and the children did too. I just always had to ensure that they would not go out into the community and say things like "you should see how hard printing is for so and so". I would never allow them to put down a child. With gentle encouragement, oodles of praise and an occasional reminder they blossomed into real little students by the end of the year. So as you cry for yours going off to school, I sit here and cry that I can not play a role in that part of children's and parents and grandparents lives because of this DD. Best of luck to all the parents, grandparents and students out there.
I feel happy and sad at the same time.
Post Edited (effie) : 8/24/2005 6:04:26 AM (GMT-6)