Adventures in ECE

Fire drills are so much fun. You had fire drills in school right? So you know what they are like.

Well, in day cares, they can be even more fun. Especially when they happen during sleep time.

And especially when they are not planned fire drills, but real fire alarms because someone somewhere else in the building has had a problem and pulled the alarm. Yes, during nap time. Yes, in the winter.

And of course, during nap time, who wears shoes? Most of our kids remove their shoes at nap time - and many also take their socks off too.

So when the alarm went off, we had to usher more than 60 kids under the age of 6 out into the cold without their socks and shoes. Fortunately, we grabbed as many blankets as we could from the beds on our way out, so we were able to lay out blankets on the ground, huddle a bunch of kids together, and cover them up as best we could.

Since then, we’ve changed things - so that now when the kids go down for their naptime, all of their shoes go into one basket by the door. They’re still responsible for their own socks, though - which is enough of a problem at the best of times.

During a fire drill is not the best of times. But it does give everyone something to talk about.

And did you know that fire trucks can show up very, very quickly for day cares? They did for ours - and blocked off two streets within minutes too. Good to know.

With the holidays, lots of our families celebrate Christmas - or not - with different traditions and beliefs.

There is always at least one that has been told that there is no such thing as Santa Claus - and of course, there are also kids who firmly believe that there is.

The other day, while a group of children were talking about what they were asking Santa for Christmas, one child piped up and started to say that there is no Santa Claus.

Fortunately, that particular child stutters - so before he could get out the sentence that

my parents told me that there is no …. no…. no….

we were able to interupt him and derail the conversation. Distraction can be a wonderful tool!

Seems to me that no matter how much cleaning or how fast we do it, the kids are always faster.

I no sooner finish putting a basket onto the shelf, turn around, and it is all over the floor again…. and you never seem to be able to catch which kid did it, either.

Of course, there are the usual suspects, but somehow they always manage to be off in another part of the room looking totally innocent.

There are a few things I have found that can help:

1. Never leave the puzzle centre unattended! And always have only 1 or 2 puzzles out at a time. It can be very time-consuming to have to sort puzzles - even when they are fairly simple ones.
2. If children are old enough, have them put their name on a chart for the area they’re playing in - then you know which kids should be helping to clean it up.
3. Wear running shoes and move fast
4. oh yeah - and don’t let cleaning fluids spalsh in your eyes, either.

From my previous post about sorting by colour, you might have gotten the impression that I am organized.

That would be a big fat NOT!

One of my biggest challenges in working in daycares is making sure I know where all of my paperwork is.  I am supposed to keep track of

• my immunizations
• my health card
• my diploma
• my criminal record check
• my proof of first aid and CPR training

And the WORST thing is that I am supposed to know where those things are when it is time to get them redone.

Right now, the most pressing thing is that I need to have my TB test redone by January. To do that, I need my healthcard.

To get that working again, I have to find my birth certificate, my old health card, an envelope that was sent to me in the mail at this address, and another piece of id. ALL AT THE SAME TIME. As if! And then I have to find my way to the OHIP office. Uh yeah… I know where that is. NOT.

I am not wired that way.

Maybe if they were all the same colour!

…is a test of who among us is the most neurotic.

We have multicoloured cups and plates and bowls… it makes perfect sense to me to keep the red cups with the red cups and the blue plates with the blue plates and the…. well, you get the idea.

Apparently, this is weird. Or something. But I am not the only one that does it, HONEST!

And anyway, it is not like it takes any more time than doing it the messy way.

I like them my way.

But just so we are clear, I would much rather be in a classroom than the kitchen.

In the classroom I can keep myself occupied putting the red beads with the red beads and the green megablocks with the… well, you get the idea.

Sometimes tattling gets them in trouble - sometimes it gets you.

It is pretty funny sometimes…. kids will come running to complain that she - or he “hit me back first!”

When I point out that they should not have hit at all, they whine “yeah, but s/he hit me BACK!”

Oh the humanity.

One of my favourite complaints is “She yelled at me LOUDER!”

It is not like any of the kids really get in a whole lot of trouble though - we use short time-outs for discipline; the child is sent to go sit in a chair, and they are allowed to rejoin the group as soon as they’re calm enough.