Tales of a Reception Teacher

Tales of a teacher? No, no, no. The much more fitting word is TRIALS of a Reception Teacher. Yes, that's much better.
Every teacher goes through some trials at the beginning of each new school year (let's face it - every PERSON goes through trials every day!), but the trials I've experienced this week have been new to me... and frustrating, exhausting, demanding, laughable, and in some cases, almost-cry-worthy. I'm teaching 4-year olds. Some are almost 5, but many have just turned 4. They are SO little! They are in school every week day from 8:55 till 3:15. I am with them almost every minute of every day. My only saving grace is a few minutes at a couple of play times and when the Music or French teacher come in for 30 minutes once per week. And what precious minutes those are to me!
But I'm rambling. Let me get to my trials... er... tales.

The Farm Animal ABC's
My first assessment was to find out which letter sounds the children knew. So, one at a time, I showed them letters of the alphabet and asked them to tell me what sound they make. Most of the children knew 5-20 of the letter's sounds and if they didn't know it, they just said, "I don't know that one." I'd assessed most of the children, though I still had a few to go. Ilia (a boy) was next. I called him up, explained what to do, and then pointed to the letter a, saying, "what does this letter say?" He looked thoughtful for a moment, then said in a loud, confident voice, "Moooo!"
Hummm.... okay. Right. "Are you sure?" I asked. Ilia nodded proudly. Okay, next letter - t. "What does this say?" Ilia responds with, "bock, bock, bock, bock" like a chicken! I'm thinking, Oh dear. This kid is nuts. We proceed at random order through the alphabet and I heard everything from a dog barking, pig oinking, and sheep baaaing. Unbelievable! At first I was frustrated, then I just almost laughed out loud! When he'd exhausted his memory-bank of farm animal sounds, he started repeating them all over again, beginning with his very first, "Mooo!"
Needless to say, we have a lot of work to do to get this boy reading by the end of the year!

Clinging and Screaming

As you are aware, I'm new to working with this age-group and I was NOT prepared for the way my morning started today. I went outside to lead my lovely line of Reception children to our classroom, only to discover that one of my youngest boys, Ignacio was shedding great big crocodile tears because he didn't want to leave his mom. "He's just tired," she said. "You take him. He'll be fine." So I take crying boy in my arms. Meanwhile, another mom rushes up to me and says, "I've lost Ilia! He's just run off!" Yes, you remember farm animal boy. That's the one. He just dropped his book bag and ran off into the school. With my arms full of cry-baby, I couldn't run after him, so I asked her to. "Please go get him!" I said, "and bring him to our room!"

We get to our room and Ignacio finally stops crying, but at the door is ANOTHER mom. Her son is clinging to her purse straps, almost pulling her over. She has a 1-year old in her arms and is literally trying to pry her 4-year old off her and shove him into the classroom! "What can I do to help?" I ask over the top of his screams and yelps. "Just get him off me and make him stay in school." The poor woman is desperate. I attempt to help gently, but it does no good. "May I?" I ask. "Please," she answers. I pry one hand, she gets the other, then I literally straight-jacket the boy with my arms, while he screams for his mom. She immediately turns around and leaves the school - practically running! I carry maniac-kid into the classroom, only to find that 3 other children have started crying. Its like an insane-asylum in here! What am I doing? Am I even a teacher? Oh, my goodness! I DID NOT SIGN UP FOR THIS!

So what do I do? I take maniac-boy on my lap and say in a really loud voice (attempt to be heard over the crying), "We are SO sad today. I don't like to be sad! What can we do to be happy again?" One saving-grace little girl (whose name is actually Grace!) says, "We can think happy thoughts!" Yes! That's just what I need! Happy thoughts! So for the next 10 minutes we talk about playing football, drawing, colouring, hugs, yummy sweets, watching tv, playing with friends, painting, and more. All happy thoughts. And finally... they all stop crying. Ahhhh. Peace at last. Well, peace for at least for 3 minutes, before Rafferty takes Olivia's pencil away from her and the crying starts again. What a day.

My only question - Where in the schedule did I leave time enough for the teacher to have a good cry session?! I must remember to put that in for next week...

I need to Wee!
Thank goodness the toilet is close to our classroom because these children have to wee like no class I've ever seen. My assistant (I'm so thankful for her!) is constantly shuffling children back and forth to the loo. By the third day of school, we both thought that they could attempt using the toilet without 100% supervision, so I sent my sweet, curly red-haired Theo off to the toilet on his own. Little did I know that children from another class were in the toilet too... also unsupervised. However, a passing teacher noticed a bit of noise in the toilet and opened the door to find Theo showing his bare bottom to the other children! To top it off, he thought it was so funny, he forgot he had to "wee" and when the teacher caught them, he got nervous and wet his pants. He was brought back to the classroom literally dripping wet. Totally disgusting. Let me repeat myself - I didn't sign up for this! Thank goodness the boy can dress and undress himself because I wasn't ready to get into that bit too!
Needless to say, we now supervise every trip to the toilet, regardless of how often or annoying it can be!