Celebrating Presidents Day with Love and Learning

I taught 2-4 year olds for years and I still can't resist sharing the love for our great nation, especially on special days like Presidents Day!

As I sit here on this very cold February morning, sipping my tea and watching the sunlight stream through my window and the icy wind blow with my family home today I can't help but feel a rush of pride and nostalgia. Today, February 17th, we celebrate the legacy of some of our nation's most remarkable leaders – our Presidents. 

My husband and I are watching a Washington documentary on The History Channel as I type this, our flag is flying as it is everyday and I think it is as important today as it ever was to teach our kids pride for our country. It was how I grew up and have instilled this in my children as well as the kids I taught in my classroom. 

When I was teaching, I always made this day a special one in the classroom. We'd start with a circle time, where I'd tell stories about George Washington, the father of our country, and Abraham Lincoln, the man who believed in unity and justice for all. I'd share how Washington, with his cherry tree tale, taught us about honesty, and how Lincoln, with his tall hat and kind eyes, showed us the strength of compassion and perseverance.

We made little paper top hats and beards from cotton balls, just to imagine what it might feel like to be a president, making decisions to better our country.

But beyond the crafts and the songs, there was a deeper lesson. I taught my students that every person has the potential to lead, to make a difference, no matter how small they might be.

Today, as I reflect on this holiday, I think about how these lessons resonate through time. Presidents Day isn't just a day off from school or work; it's a moment to honor the values of leadership, integrity, and service that our presidents have embodied or strived to achieve.

I encourage all of you, whether you're young or young at heart, to take a moment today. Perhaps visit a museum depending on where you are because I am not leaving my home today, read a biography, watch a documentary of our great country, the presidents or just share a story with someone younger about why we celebrate this day. Let's all be teachers in our own way, fostering a love for our country, understanding its history, and inspiring the next generation to dream big and act with kindness.

As we celebrate, let's remember that while we honor our past leaders, we are also the ones shaping the future. So, with love for our nation and for each other, let's make every day a day worth celebrating.

Happy Presidents Day, my dear friends. May we all carry a bit of that presidential spirit in our hearts, every single day.

Here are great craft ideas from some great websites

Housing A Forest

Fantastic Fun and Learning

The Effects of Gentle And Passive Parents On Your Toddlers

Toddlers are not nice! Toddlers say things that shock me. Toddlers can be very mean and aggressive with their peers. Toddlers are also very sweet, loving, kind and make my job with it but it is NOT an easy job by any means.

I am in my 10th year of working in a daycare and I can tell you it is not for the faint of heart. My coworkers and I have seen such a drastic change in the children we work with and it is not a good change.

Prior to last year I was in a 2+ toddler room and this coming September I will have my 3rd older 3 class which is the class right before PreK. 

In my first year of working in the daycare my kids were 2+ and learning to potty but also learning many other things. They were capable of waiting their turn, listening to instructions, hearing their name, following directions and more. The teacher I worked with at that time use to talk about how we were working at a kindergarten level with them. They were well behaved and had critical thinking skills. They were able to retain information and it was a pleasure to teach them.

Last year the children I worked with in my new older 3s room were kids I moved up with so they were mine for 2 years. They knew my expectations and we worked together. I based my curriculum around their interests and built on their learning. They listened and could follow directions. They were a pleasant class and I grew to love them and their families. I still babysit for some of them outside of work hours which is a pleasure. 

This past September I got a whole new class. They came from two different classrooms based on ages and 14 out of 19 have already turned 4 this year with the others turning over the next few months. I started things exactly the same as my last class. I laid out the classroom rules and expectations. My assistant and I work like a team and were very successful last year. Our group moved onto their PreK class ready, willing and able. They are great kids but this years crop are nothing like them. 

None of them listen to directions. All of them need to be mico-managed to get them moving. 1-2 out of 19 have critical thinking skills. 10 out of 19 can identify their names. 19 out of 19 cannot hear their name called. 19 out of 19 can not use walking feet. 4 out of 19 have spatial awareness the others act like they are just learning to move around the world. 1 out of 19 can retain the calendar with prompts. 

I spend my days stress out, trying to get their attention over the noise level of a hockey game and helping them move forward to the sink to wash their hands. No one understands that once someone leaves the sink move forward so the next person can wash their hands and it goes on and on like that.

There is no need to wonder why children are such a mess. I can see it daily. Parents who give all the power to their toddlers. Kids who come in with pajamas on, no shoes, won't carry their own backpacks, and a parent often times frazzled because they couldn't get their child to do what they wanted or needed them to do. Parents who give children all the power are creating problems for themselves in the future. 

What Children Need:

Children require boundaries, rules and direction. 

They can be given choices but no more than 2 and only ones you can live with. 

Simple instructions that are easy for them to follow.

They need to be held accountable. If you ask them to do something and they don't your job is to help them. Sometimes it is hand over hand. Sometimes it is saying it another way and sometimes it is demanding they listen to you.

Parents must understand that children are children. They are not your little friends. Your job as a parent is to parent and sometimes that means raising your voice. Sometimes it means allowing your child to cry. It is okay. They will be okay I promise. They will still love you. Is it hard!? Yes! Very hard. But our job as parents is to make sure other people want to be around our children long after we are gone. 

My suggest as a teacher is allow your child to be bored sometimes. Do not give them an IPad, IPhone, computer or game system until they are older. It is okay for quiet. They do not need you to entertain them all the time. As a child I did my my creative work when I was bored. 

Do not give them every single thing they ask for. Wanting things keep you humble. I hear it all the time at school. If I break/lose it my mom/dad will buy me another. No! Children should respect their things and should learn to appreciate their things. 

I do positive affirmations every day with my class. They repeat after me. 

I am strong

I am smart

I listen to my teacher

My mommy and daddy loves me

I am not better than anyone else

No one is better than me. 

I am loved.

We also sing a song before we have our snacks and lunch. 

Let's be thankful, let's be thankful

Let's be glad, let's be glad

for the many good thing that we have, that we have.

Children should be grateful. They should give thanks. They don't know to do this unless they are taught. 

Teach them to respect others. 

Teach them that there is a price to their actions and that things they want have a price

Teach them to be kind to others 

Teach them empathy

Teach them to be patient 

Teach them to share

I can teach your child letters, colors, shapes, but I need your help to teach them how to be good people.

What Your Teacher Wants You To Know

Passive or gentle parenting is setting children up for failure and it is an epidemic. 

As a preschool teacher I have seen the decline in children over the past nine years. They can no longer focus, there is no attention span. They DO NOT care if you, an adult is asking for their attention, they can't sit for a 10 minute circle time without talking, moving around, touching or talking to their friend, interrupting, disrupting or just making noises. 

9 years ago I could do kindergarten work with my toddler class who were 2-3 years old. Now with a class who are 3.5 - 4.5 years old they are incapable of sitting or playing at a center for more than 3 minutes. I believe this has to do with the onset of tablet kids and kids who are being raised by passive panrets. 

Kids who now watch shorts and then scroll to the next thing are bored easily. They have no respect for adults, their friends, things that aren't theirs, or anything else. They hit rather than use their words to voice their wishes and are very self-indulgent wanting only what they want. 

Many parents are explaining too much, offering choices then reneging when their child doesn't chose what was offered. Children want structure and boundaries and your boundaries have to reflect something that is a win for both of you. It has to be a boundary your child and you can live with. Don't offer a boundary that you yourself cannot live with. Like don't say "if you don't do this, we are not going to blah blah" if you will be going regardless. Give your child choices and stick with it. 

When you don't follow through with what you are saying you will, your child loses respect for you and themselves and will push the envelope even further next time. 

By not setting up boundaries and giving all the power to your child you don't show them that there are rules and expectations in life and they must be met or you will lose your job, relationship, fail school, etc. 

Children must be exposed to rules, boundaries and expectations at an early age or they will not understand. We all know the world is a big scary place at time. If you grow up in a world of no boundaries where you the child is in charge you flounder through life and grow to think that everything will bend at your whim but we all know that is not right. Life is hard. We have a world of anxious teens who are afraid of their own shadow. Parenting is NOT for the weak at heart. Sometimes it is loud and that is okay. You are not going to always be here and your child has to grow up and blend into society, be someone others want to be around. 

Teach with Love In Your Heart!

Teaching Almost 4 Year Olds

When I started in daycare I was a floater the first few days and eventually settled into the 2 year old potty training room as an assistant to a new teacher. She was younger than me and our way of teaching very different but I was there to assist so that was what I did. As the potty training room, we had many challenges as with every age. After she left to have her own family, I asked for a break from toddlers and hoped to move to the 3s but found myself assigned to PreK.  While my class is not quite PreK I was excited as these are my kids from the last room. I know them and I know their families. It was a perfect way to start my “new” classroom on the other side of the building. 

I thought 2 was great. I loved holding them, caring for them, loving them, but this is a whole new ballgame. Teaching this group has been my favorite thing since I started working here 6+years ago. Seeing them grow, mature, LEARN, I mean really retain information has been a beautiful thing and I will not ever forget moments I’ve experienced with them. Yes there are challenges but when you see the lightbulb flash, notice critical thinking skills, hear yourself coming out of their mouths, all challenges have been worth it for this!

When I introduced writing to them in October and my class thought tracing their name was “too hard” to hearing one say literally 3 weeks later “it’s not hard for me anymore, Ms. Maria” a moment that still makes me tear up, I wish I had gone to school for teaching. Another tear up moment was when one of my kids noticed that the P in Jeep was like the P in his name. Omgosh nothing better.

There is nothing like knowing you are making a difference in their lives and while they may not remember  you in the long haul, you shaped their educational foundation. 

As we close 2022 I hope that somehow, someway I become an even better teacher to my next group, I hope these kids who all love books read to them (OMGOSH I love that they can sit for more than one tiny book and ask for sometimes 5 during the day) become avid book readers or who knows even writers one day. 

What a blessing it has been to teach these almost 4 year olds I wish I could do my own kids all over again but since I can’t helping my daytime kids is one of the best things I have ever done.

So What Makes A Year? Toddler Lesson Plan

Today my class starts a lesson on What Makes A Year? 

It's a hard concept for children under 3 who don't understand a year, a month, a week, tomorrow or even today. We usually tell them they get to stay home for three sleeps with mommy and daddy before they return to school so how do you teach the idea of a year to toddlers?

We will start by looking at a calendar. Show them the pictures, boxes, the word at the top of the page and the numbers inside the boxes. We will try to count as high as the class can and see where we go from there. We will mention the holiday on the calendars and what months they fall in. I will point out their birthdays on each month and date. 

When my kids were in preschool they sang Days Of The Week to the tune of The Addams Family. I have been doing the same since becoming the Head Teacher of the Toddler Class. I love it! 

We will also do the song "These Are The Months of The Year".

For the activity we are going to do a Four Season Sort/Match Up from Totschooling. My daughter laminated them for me and cut them all out so that they can easily be matched up and wiped clean for the next person to try.

Hope to keep them interested! The first week of the year means kids who have been home with parents and new kids in the class. We do our best and hope for at least 15 minutes of structure. If the class is small tomorrow I can work one on one with each on the sorting activity. I hope so! 

WOW It's Been Crazy

 

The past few weeks have been insane. Actually, the past 4 months have been ridiculous.

 September my kids returned to school and everything that comes with that but as a preschool teacher, I got a few new students and that has its own learning curve but then there was no assistant in the class and still actually isn't. They sent floaters to cover the time which sometimes meant I had 4-6 different people with my class on any one day. That isn't good for me and it isn't good for toddlers who need consistency. I've had someone in my room for the past three weeks and it has really made a difference, but it came too late. I am DONE! Exhausted and WIPED!

October my family was planning for a trip to Disney. Or very first trip on a plane but with Halloween coming it meant weeks of planning for my class to have a fantastic Halloween and do a lot of arts, crafts and activities all while working with random assistants who honestly could care less.UGH!

November, we came back from Florida and before you knew it I was planning Thanksgiving for my family but also for my class. The holidays are so much fun in preschool and I love doing things with them but the days were long and sometimes I bite off way more than I can chew because I want my class to experience anything and everything. 

December is ridiculous! Thankfully I've got a really, hard working assistant at the moment. She wasn't planned or hired for my room, but I have requested to hold her until they have someone in there. She is a Godsend. I have spent the past three weeks working on the kids gifts to their families. We are doing a snowglobe and magnets kinda like last year. It takes so much time. 

So between school stuff, home stuff, holidays for my class and holidays for my family along with everything else that happens in life I am OVER it. 

I pray for the day I can handle all this and actually enjoy the holiday. You know, head out with my daughter to see the lights, Santa, town things, friends, etc. I feel like each day just flows into the next day with it all being kinda the same. 

Anyone else feeling stressed, over worked, stretched too thin and guilty for not enjoying the best part of family during the holiday time? 

The photo above is our grinch hands and our melted snowman. Working with 2-3 year olds is so much fun!

Why Teaching Toddlers To Tear Is Imporant

Today we worked on tearing paper for our traffic light for letter T. This is a great exercise for toddlers. It isn’t as easy as it looks. Tearing requires strength and endurance in the small muscles in their hands. We kept reminding and modeling how to use their pincher grasp. Just three fingers (thumb, pointer and middle) on both hands are required and that takes a lot of practice. They tend to want to grip and twist. This is an important skill because the children’s non-dominant hand has to assist the dominant hand which will help them when it is time to hold paper as they cut with scissors and when they write with a pencil.

If you want to work with them at home I suggest giving them a bin, box, basket of paper they know they can tear so they don’t start ripping up their books or your important papers. With my Own kids I used our junk mail, scrap paper, and Shoprite flyers.

Panda Plate Craft #chinesenewyear #pandacraft #platecraft

This week for Chinese New Year my plan in school  included a Panda craft. My kids being 2-3 love anything with animals.  I held up my sample plate asking them if they knew what it was and they all said Panda so I knew I was on the right track. I told them to all kiss their brain because they were so smart and we headed to the table 3 at a time to start our Panda craft.

It is funny with 2 year old children. Sometimes they all want to participate and sometimes just a few but this time they were all excited and all wanted to sit and watch the other students do theirs shouting my turn, my turn.

This is a craft with a lot of pieces so I cut each piece out using a template I found at DLTK a great resource for crafts and more.

I did tell the kids where to place things by asking them where their eyes, ears, nose, mouth, etc were. They pointed on their face then I asked them to put the Panda's eyes, nose, mouth etc on. They did pretty good for toddlers don't you think especially those little angry upside down brows.

Valentine's For Veterans #valentinesforvets #valentines

This week there was a post on the wall in my school asking for Valentine cards to be made so we can send them to veterans. Since I work with 2-3 year old children I figured just make them pretty simple.

They actually came out really cute.

I folded red and pink paper so the kids could have a choice. They choose the color and together we glued on a heart.

Then I let them just color the card however they wanted and with whatever color they wanted. I think they were excited to use the markers because we usually use crayons. Every single child sat and made out their card. I asked them to make some smiley faces and write their names. They think they did which is really sweet.

Then I wrote Happy Valentine's Day and their first name adding their age.

I would love to receive one of these myself. They are simple and cost pennies. The hearts were from Dollar Tree and the cards are construction paper.

Working In A Preschool Is The Very Best Job For Me But It Is Not For Everyone

I never wanted to work in an office. My mother always worked in an office and I remember as a kid thinking OMG she is tied to a desk everyday. That is not for me! Well wouldn't you know that my very first job was in an office for the same Uncle that hired my mom back in the day when she eventually met my dad through said Uncle! I didn't hate it. I was a young girl and his office was next to an office with a lot of young guys. They were wonderful to me and I learned a lot working for my Uncle that I was able to use in my future office jobs.

When my husband and I started a family we decided I would be a stay-at-home mom. It was nothing I ever thought I would be able to do. My mom worked but his mom hadn't when they were little and that was what we decided we wanted for our children.

Being a mom was and is my absolute favorite job. I was good at it. I had the right balance of patience, love, structure and discipline. I was rational and never let my emotions get to me. If you discipline with love in your heart you can't go wrong and I loved every moment I was home with my kids even on the most challenging days.

When I decided to start working again, I worked in the my children's elementary school and eventually in their middle school. I loved it! I could see them every day. Our schedules were the same and I got the spend my day with many children. It is amazing how much you can care about children when you are with them every day. I was called Ms. G and loved it!

Eventually my job was abolished. The school found me some temp positions and I found a part-time job in a preschool. Working with 1-3 year olds! Oh how I missed this age. It is crazy, busy, insane, exhausting, challenging and some days very hard but I love it!

As a preschool assistant teacher I work with 10-12 2 year olds depending on the day and in the AM 5-15 1-3 year olds. Some days I get to play head teacher which I love!!! Running a classroom is exciting. In preschool I am Ms. Maria or Ms. Ria depending on how they say my name. Not all toddlers can do it. 3 syllables is hard. 

Over the course of 4 years I have seen kids come and go. I have loved so many children deeper than I ever knew possible. These kids are not my kids, they are not family but during the day they ARE my kids. I love each and every one of them. Some more than others.

At 2 they need a day time mommy. They need to feel loved, cared for, protected. They need to be held, they need hugs, they need someone to wipe their tears, make them laugh, be excited when they use the potty, or try the potty, wash their hands, eat all their lunch and listen to directions. I am their cheerleader, their daytime mommy, their friend, their sister. I am whatever they need at that moment.

This year there is a little boy who reminds me of my son when he was a toddler. I never had this before and I love him as if I birthed him myself. I miss him on the weekends and fortunately like his parents as well. I have sent them photos of my son and they agree they look alike. It is crazy how much I see my son in his face. They are not carbon copies of course but there is something about him I adore. I have never loved a child that wasn't mine like I do him! 

It took a month for him to finally say my name. It killed me that he asked for everyone else. Eventually he did and now he looks for me, calls for me and runs to me when I come in. It's obvious that he knows how much I love him and I love it. 

This is the absolute best job for me because:

1. I am not tied to a desk
2. I get to talk to toddlers all day and honestly they are way more fun than talking to adults.
3. They are funny. I laugh all day.
4. At 4'11 I have never felt so tall before
5. I get to play every day. I get to act like a big kid and it is keeping me young.
6. Hugs! Hugs! Hugs! There are so many hugs and who doesn't love being hugged without conditions.
7. I get to feel smart. Hey come on I know way more than these kids right!? Right?
8. I am reliving all the fun things I did with my own kids. I miss them this young.
9. I get to bring my daughter to work with me. I love watching her work with the kids. It has been great for her confidence too.
10. Depending on the weather I get to spend time outside.
11. They think I am cool.
12. My boss rocks!

The reasons it isn't for everyone:

1. My back hurts all the time. Lifting kids, holding kids and sitting on the floor has killed my back.  I have been at a chiropractor a lot!
2. Potty training. It is hard enough to potty train your own kids but now I am doing 10 kids at a time. Yeah that can be hard. Really hard.
3. They are not yours. You have to remind yourself often!
4. Kids are loud. If you don't like yelling, crying, screaming, whining this IS NOT FOR YOU.