Week of January 10th to 19th- 2024
The first week back, I was able to only make it to the first half day. The following week, I was able to make it for the whole week. I think the long break and coming in only for a half day on my first week back, made it a little bit harder for me to get back in to the routine. I was able to go about the day, but I kept feeling this huge pressure and I felt that I wasn’t doing my best. I sat down and let my mentor educator know and I was nervous about telling her how I was feeling. I wasn’t sure, what I would hear back, but she was so understanding and infact talking to her helped me. And just being at the center and with the children for the 2 full days, it helped me get back to it.
Being assertive is something that I struggle with a lot. I had to come out of my shell when a rather interesting situation took place. We have these baby dolls, and two of the children wanted the same doll. A child started to be more forceful and was threatening the other child. The situation was out of my experience, I had never handled a situation that escalated so quickly and was not sure of what to do. I wanted to do my best and also make sure that both children were safe and felt heard. I tried to look for help, but unfortunately, everyone was a bit further off and occupied in doing something else. It was on me, what was I going to do? I stayed there and put myself in the middle of both children to not escalate the situation further. I stayed there for a while, talking to both the children and trying to find a way for both of them to feel heard. Finally, after a while, one of the children got tired and walked away. I had to run to my mentor educator and talk to her and confirm if what I did was right. Hearing that reassurance from her was all I needed.
Week of January 24th -26th – 2024
It was a good week. There were some care plans that got updated and I was brought up to speed on it all. My mentor and I spoke about the different changes and how to go about it. It felt good to be kept in the loop, it was like I was a part of the room itself, not just student anymore, I really appreciated that. I was able to help a child go to rest, usually one of the educators have to sit with the child, however, today was busy and so, I stepped up and helped and it took a little bit to get the child to rest, as she was really sleepy and was now getting upset that she couldn’t sleep, but I was able to get her to go to sleep and it went well.
We went on a walk to the TRU hills and it was nice, the children all went sliding down on the snow, and it was a lot of fun to see the children slowly moving away from the mats and just sliding down on their bums. They were having so much fun, and I had so much fun watching them. We saw airplanes and it made me realize that the children have MUCH better eyesight than I do. While we were on the walk, I had to keep reminding the children of the road safety and I felt like I was a tape recorder, I spoke to my mentor about it and we both had that feeling, but she told me how it does feel like we keep saying the same things, but it is for the safety of the children.
Week of January 31st to February 2nd- 2024
The weather was starting to get better, so we had snack outside. It was really good as it meant cutting down one transsion and the children were all happy as well. When we started outside, I saw a huge change in the children and how they were doing much happier, as compared to starting inside and then moving out.
We also had a fire drill today and it was really nice to see the children all together, it was a first for a few children and it went by quite well, actually.
We also went down to the ELC and it was so beautiful to be there. The children had so much fun. They were climbing all the different structures and they were having so much fun doing everything. We heard a lot of birds and were trying to spot them, but then it got quite foggy and we couldn’t. We played the gingerbread cookie game and had fun running around together. It was a really beautiful day.
Week of February 7th to 9th- 2024
As the weather has gotten better for the last few days, we decided to start the day outside again, as I said last week, the children were responding to this really well. It was a busy week as we had an educator down. But, we still did have a lot of fun. I had set up an afternoon, post nap activity for them. It was a “scientific, exploring” sort of an activity. We had shell and the children started telling me that we could hear the sound of the ocean if we keep it to our ears and we were all taking turns listening to it.
Madi, one of our educators had an activity of her planned out and she sent all the children out and brought them in groups and took me and Marielle in turns to experience it with the children. It was really interesting. Especially when the children were done and we asked them what they made or why they chose to make what they did and their answers were quite interesting. Some responding by saying they made it for mom or dad, some said it were different characters, like a T-rex and one child said wait and see. When she was done she didn’t tell us what it was and when asked if there was a specific reason that she chose the same colour of cloth, she said it was just because they were the closest to her.
