Week of 10/11/10

This past week has been quite eventful! I completed my last yoga class on Wednesday, which means this week I will now be only mornings and will completely be leading the handwriting lesson each morning, which is both exciting and anxious. I think that the main reason that leading the lessons has felt more stressful, is simply because my schedule has been disrupted with my yoga class and other things, so I am happy to now be only on mornings so I can really be a part of the morning routine. :)
We have now really begun the rock, soil, and sand exploration science kit and the children are absolutely enthralled with it! They have an entire wall of rock words that they developed after only a week or so of bringing in rock shares and a couple of science lessons. Even I am excited to bring in a rock to share that I have had since I was about ten years old AND it has a fossil print on it! Very exciting!
Jean and I have been making time to talk more about the 'why things are done the way they are done', so that as I am leading more lessons, I can understand the reasoning behind the lessons or even the group management techniques. We are also preparing for conferences, which are led much differently than the traditional conferences I have heard of or experienced before. (More to come later) I am quite interested to see how they go as well as be a part of this portion of education. Now that it is the second month of school, I am really starting to feel more teacherish and am becoming more aware of all of the responsibilities that come with the job. For example, I always new that there was quite a lot of prep work required of a teacher, however, I had no idea how much extra time Jean has to spend outside of regular work hours to keep the room up to date and ready to go. It's definitely something I will have to start considering and working into my own schedule as the year goes on. So much to do, so little time! :)