We love your kids, I promise. I know you’ve seen your teacher friends share different quotes about their students being their kids. Well, it’s true. We spend 8 hours a day with your kids and it’s hard not to love them. Teaching them and figuring out what makes them tick is so fun! It’s what we want to do. We want to help shape and mold them into respectful little people who love learning. People often ask me what it is that’s so great about it and it’s those light bulb moments. Seeing my kids faces light up because they figured something out is MAGICAL! That’s what makes the late nights, weekends, and summers all worth it. I can not say enough, we love your kids.
Yes, some days are tougher than others. Sometimes the “blah” part of our job gets to us. Sometimes the whole class is having a blah day and then lesson plans are thrown out the window. I mean I just change it up quickly on the spot, wink wink. There is a lot of prep-work: paperwork for days, meetings, tweaking something, telling kids to stop licking the desk, etc. But those magical days out-weigh it all or we wouldn’t get paid dirt to do it. We are resilient people. We talk to our teacher friends, maybe over dinner and drinks, about ways to get over the hump and go on with life.
We are currently wrapping up our summer where we spent it, and our $$$ making sure our rooms are ready for our next set of kids. My own birthed kids helped in getting my classroom ready for the next year. They didn’t really have a choice because they had no where else to go, but they were there willing to do what I asked of them. We know your kids want a fun, safe learning environment, and that’s what we strive towards. We are as nervous and excited as your children are at the beginning of every year. We stress over the dynamics of the new group of kids. Is the room set-up going to work, can I incorporate our school theme or mascot somewhere else in my room, are my lesson plans really ready, did I make enough copies, what other organization systems to go over with the kids? The list goes on. We have crazy nightmares about showing up late for the first day. Those first few weeks is a giant learning curve for us. We are constantly tweaking things to see what works and doesn’t. We do these things because we want everything to work and for our classroom to be a comfortable place for the kids to be all day.
We can’t do it all alone. We need your help and support from home. Please read with your kids. It does all kinds of amazing things for your kids brains: it exposes them to so many more words, you get to talk about vocabulary, and you get their imagination working. Talk to your kids, too. Here is a great set of questions besides your basic “how was your day today?” If you ask that, you will probably get the most basic answer and not really find out what makes your kids tick at school. Please keep in contact with your kid’s teachers. I know this takes time, believe me I have four in school this year, but if there is something going on at home that’s a big change just give us the heads up. I’m not saying you have to go into details, but just a heads up that they might need extra encouragement for a little while. We love any support you can provide and the kids notice when parents and teachers are working together.
One last little tidbit…as much as we might LOVE coffee, we probably don’t need another coffee mug.
