The Crying Game

Eleven tiny, powerful self-propelled tornadoes whirl in different directions causing destruction in their wake. Toys are dumped, puzzles scattered, sensory table material spilled. It is quite amazing how these little three year old bodies can encompass so much energy so early in the morning.


It's why we embrace our afternoon class and perhaps, purposely, end our day with a much calmer group of children. Their only delay is speech and language so their behavior is more on par with what a 'normal' developing 3 - 4 year old should act like.

As I was sitting with a small group of children assisting them in their artwork, I noticed, and even mentioned to my co-workers, how nicely another group were playing. They were engaged with a train set, building,sharing and playing appropriately.

A few other kids were working with the speech therapist and one of the staff members took the copy helpers to make copies of our daily paper we send home to the parents.

I felt we were in the eye of the tornado after what we experienced in the morning. The atmosphere was calm and peaceful, until I heard a muffled cry coming from the train set area.

I looked over and saw a child standing on the storage bin we use for the train set. The cry came from underneath the bin.

Apparently one of the boys decided it would be fun to crawl under the bin leaving the opportunity for another to climb on it. Not a good combination.

Once the trapped child was rescued he fell apart in my arms sobbing. Poor little fella. As I was consoling and talking with him, his tears dried and he felt better.

Just as I was about to stand, a little girl decided she needed consoling and, for no apparent reason, started to cry as well. I knelt back down to hold her when a few others joined in, not so much crying but wanting a hug.

Luckily a full blown tornado didn't emerge and it was just a passing wind. Everyone settled back down and things resumed just as they were before.

Monkey see, monkey poo...

Part of our morning Preschool routine is taking the potty trained kids to the bathroom as soon as they arrive. We have them enter the classroom, take off their coats and backpacks, line up and head for the restroom. Our diaper kids stay back with one of the teachers.

One of our diaper kids is a little boy who is no bigger than a peanut and cuter than a bug. He also happens to be very regular with his bowel movements. Every morning about the same time he drops a load then backs up to you indicating his pants are messy and wants a change.

I decided to take him with the rest of the potty trained kids to the bathroom to see if he would do his business in the toilet instead.

I sat him down on the seat, which he did very well at, then held the door closed to give him some privacy. In the stall next to him was another little boy sitting on the toilet going potty.

I kept encouraging our little peanut to go poop poos. Squeeze your tummy and go poop, I'd tell him. All of a sudden I heard some grunting sounds coming from behind the stall door.

Oh my gosh was it possible our peanut was actually going poop in the toilet?

After a short while I peeked in and saw a happy little boy sitting on the pot but no poop.

Then in dawned on me. I checked the other little guy who is very independent with his self help skills. Usually he comes out by himself, toilet flushed and pants pulled up, but not this time.

He was the grunter and must have thought I was talking to him. "Squeeze your tummy and go poop." Which is exactly what he did and, was patiently waiting to be wiped.

Snow Day!!

We had a snow day, not in the traditional sense where you hear on the radio school has been canceled. No the preschoolers weren't so lucky, they still got to ride the bus in scary winter conditions. I worry about that. I think they should stay home, or at least be with their day care providers tucked safely in the nest. I mean, they're only three.

Regardless what I think, they came just the same. Well, only half of them, the other half had smart moms and kept their little ones home.

 
We had a different kind of snow day. For the most part we stuck with the schedule with one exception, instead of playing outside we brought the outside, indoors. We bundled up the children, gave them shovels and buckets and had them scoop up some snow and dump it into the sensory table.

We brought the snow inside and everyone enjoyed eating, stepping, and playing in it. If the snow is still around when we come back, we will expand our play and color it, or.....maybe even make snow cones.

The age of innocence

Working with children we hear the darndest things:

A  teacher in my school shared this:  "Last week, two of my students were speaking Spanish during class time. Not a big deal, but I asked them to speak English during the activity that we were doing.  At lunch yesterday, one of these students was coughing and I thought he might be chocking.  I asked him is if was ok and he said that he was and that he was just coughing in Spanish.  He doesn't cough in English." 

In Class:  Holding a preschoolers hand ready to take him to the bathroom I announced to the rest of the staff in the room I was taking.......For the life of me his named escaped my brain. Making another attempt, I said: I'm taking...............I have..........finally the little boy whose hand I was holding finished my sentence and replied, "Me"

Buckling the children on the bus (during Christmas time): One of the para's was buckling a child in his seat when he noticed her Christmas sweater decorated with stars, stockings, trees, and snowflakes. He asked her if tomorrow they could make cookies like her sweater.

It's why I do what I do!

Mr. Alligator

"Five little monkeys swinging in the tree, teasing Mr. Alligator, can't catch me, no you can't catch me."

"Along comes Mr. Alligator quiet as can be....SNAP!"

The children clap their hands together as the Alligator grabs a monkey from the tree with his puppet mouth.

Unfazed the four remaining monkeys continue to tease

and the song resumes:

"Four little monkeys swinging in the tree, teasing Mr. Alligator, can't catch me, no you can't catch me."

"Along comes Mr. Alligator quiet as can be.....SNAP!"

We keep singing and the monkey's keep teasing until there are,

" No more monkeys swinging in the tree."

The kids love this song and are really into the hand gestures as the alligator creeps along and SNAPS each monkey.

We have one little boy who would rather play teacher during our free play activity time then do anything else.

He'll sit himself down as if he's the teacher conducting circle and play with the songs notes, the job chart, the 'what's missing bag'  and anything else that may be in our 'teacher box.'

If we want him to participate in the free play activities we have to remove the teacher box and place it out of reach.

What we really need to do is put him on the payroll and let him be the teacher. I'm sure he'd do a splendid job and as for the rest of us, we could just sit back and relax!

Dirty Jobs

                                                                                                                                    
It's true, Discovery Channels Mike Rowe has seen and participated in the most dirtiest jobs known to man, he's a brave soul, there is no doubt.

I have to wonder though, does Mr. Mike have it in him to spend a day in a Special Education Preschool room with some three to four year old delayed children in all their varieties, that perhaps are not potty trained, may come with gastric feeding tubes and during the cold and flu season, can sport a green snotty nose followed by uncovered coughs?

Only the bold and brave enter a room such as this... or... the truly insane, I have the believe I fall into the truly insane category but for our daring Mike, who has just about seen and done it all, I wonder what he would think.

This year we have four children that have the G- tube and luckily, with the exception of one, we don't have to feed them.

Our one little exception needs to be fed at 1:00 which works well with our snack schedule for the other children. We gather around the tables and while the children are eating, our little guy with the tube is playing and touching the food while his formula is pumping away into his stomach. It's not bad really, we've all been trained on how to insert the tube and work the pump.

It's when he needs to burp. See this little fella doesn't have the ability to burp normally, instead belching like the rest of us, he starts hacking and coughing and making gurgling sounds. When this happens we have to lay him on his back and insert a tube into his feeding tube. Immediately the air is released making a burping sound and our little man feels instantly better and ready to resume playing.

Usually this task falls on our nurse specialist turned paraprofessional. Since she was a nurse back in the day we let her take care of all the nursing that comes with our job, except the time she was gone of course, then the task was left to me and another teacher.

After the children were finished with snack and our little man's formula was emptied into his stomach we started playing, happily playing..... until we heard it. Hacking, coughing and gagging sounds were coming from our little guy.

 We put our trained skills into action and began working like a well oiled surgical team. One of the teachers picked him up and laid him down on a bean bag chair, I grabbed his tube and handed it to her, she inserted it into his feeding tube and immediately the trapped air was release and he 'burped'.

Yay! Bravo for us task complete, or so we thought.  The boy wasn't finished. Before we had time to cap him off, his belch was followed by lunch, which sprayed out of the tube, and....well...... I took the hit and was covered in formula.

Instead of crying over spewed milk, we laughed and chalked it up to yet another adventurous day in the life and times of preschool.

The Three Little Pigs

                                                         
"Little pig, little pig let me come in!" growls the Big Bad Wolf  just before he blows the poorly constructed house to oblivion. Little pig narrowly escapes and the frustrated hungry wolf  moves on to the next little piggy on the market, his brother.  The story continues with the angry wolf  huffing and puffing and the little pigs out witting and out lasting the wolfs wrath.

The kids get the biggest kick out of imitating the wolf and his deep voice, as a matter of fact they love everything about the Three Little Pigs.

We dance and sing to a song by Greg and Steve who tell the story with their guitar blues beat, we paint, color and cut art activities pertaining to the three little pigs and replay the story using flannel board characteristics.

By the time we finish with the Three Little Pigs unit the children know all about the big bad wolf and each individual pig.

I'd like to share an email from a parent regarding her daughters enthusiasm for the Three Little Pigs.

"I'm so glad to hear she is doing well.  She LOVES school.  She is so angry on Mondays and Fridays when her siblings go to school and she has to stay home with me.  We have been so entertained with her version of Three Little Pigs.  She uses different voices for the wolf and the pigs, and I had to record her and send the video to her grandparents!  She took it to another level this morning when she was hiding behind the couch so I couldn't clean her face off after breakfast.  I told her to come out from behind the couch, and her little voice responded, "Not by the hair on my chinny, chin, chin!"  It was so hard not to laugh!"

It's comforting to know we are instilling positive behavior in the children.

Now get your jam on as you listen to this video, it's just another reason why I love preschool.