Well, it's that time of year (late April through the end of May) when life gets really busy, and the end-of-school rush really picks up. So don't expect a ton of interesting blogging from me at this point.
However, I'll still do my best to chime in when I can! Last week left me a little wiped out...but in a good way. It was my last week teaching Celeste's preschool class! Hooray for me! The theme for the week was "My Feet Can..." For the Tuesday class, I had the kids stick their bare feet into some paint, then put their footprints on a piece of paper. Not being a craft genius, it wasn't the most amazing craft ever. I used too much paint (it was welling up between everybody's toes!), and I used computer paper, which was just a little bit too small and weak to hold the weight of the paint. Here's what Celeste's paper looked like:
At any rate, they had a lot of fun making the picture, and then getting hosed down afterwards!
On Thursday, I was in the mood to "mix up" the formula, so I decided to do a mini field trip. All of us used our feet to walk to a small park a block or so from our home...
...where we proceeded to do even more "foot-related" exercises, like running races across the grass, kicking soccer balls, and climbing all over the playground like monkeys.
Afterwards, we went home & had a snack. They are all such cute kids--plus it was fun to see Aurora participating in everything, like the grown-up girl she is slowly becoming.
Now that preschool is finally done, I can say it wasn't so bad! I know that sounds like low praise, but in reality it went pretty well. I have stressed a lot about preschool all year, mostly due to the many other things on my plate, with preschool being that "one other thing" I never felt I had time for. I did enjoy coming up with the crafts (even if they often ended up a little lame; I
told you I'm not all that crafty), and I enjoyed planning lessons/story times/etc. I also thought Celeste really enjoyed the class and had fun with all her friends--and really, isn't that the most important thing? I would consider doing another preschool for Aurora, but I will definitely want a year or two off (and maybe a release from my current calling) before I attempt another co-op preschool!
Speaking of my current calling...the other big event from last week was a Primary Teacher Training seminar that the presidency and I put together. Since it was a night event, we weren't sure how many teachers would be able to come...so we added a light dinner and child care to the night to sweeten the deal! In the end, about 15-20 people showed up, so that seemed to do the trick.
Since I'd never put together an evening like this before, I thought I'd make a panel discussion the centerpiece of the evening. That way, several different people could share their knowledge and we'd all benefit as a group. So we had five people (myself, my second counselor, the stake Primary president, and two Primary teachers) on the panel, with each one given a specific topic to cover. These topics were chosen from the manual pictured above--
Teaching, No Greater Call, which is a wonderful teaching assistant for teachers in the LDS Church. In fact, the manual would probably help almost
any religious instructor or lay educator. It gives wise, thorough counsel that would benefit any teacher, and offers lots of ideas for making your lessons more exciting, meaningful, and thorough. It's a great resource!
The evening went really well; besides just the panel speakers, many audience members spoke up and provided very helpful comments. Everyone involved was awesome! I am so blessed to have such a wonderful Primary presidency who helped plan this evening every step of the way; I hope I can take some of this knowledge into preparing future Sharing Times and teaching other classes in the future. Plus, it was nice to have an evening for Primary workers
away from kids for a short while, to objectively talk about how to best serve them, without having to shout to be heard above them! :)
More news coming soon!
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