One week to go

My first day is drawing near! This Monday I'll be trotting into the pre-school alongside a group of nervous 3 and 4 year olds. I'm so excited to get to know all these new little people with whom I'll be spending the next year. At the same time though, I'm so nervous. What happens if the children are desperately home-sick and nothing I can do will console them? What if they run to their parents at the end of the day and tell them their new teacher is boring? What if the other teachers think my ideas are ridiculous and naive...?

But I can't think like that, I know. No sense wasting energy worrying. So, I've been working on my scrapbook and ideas, trying to be as prepared as I can be. At the open day the other teachers told me that we'll be basing a lot of our activities on the seasons, so I've been thinking of some Autumn crafts and activities.

Aswell as Autumn activites, I've been thinking of some practical life skills that may need to be developed. This may be the first time that many of the children will be part of a group outside their family, and there are certain skills they'll have to learn, like turn-taking, listening, empathy and kindness. So I've been working on some lessons around this too. I've been looking into Aistear; its section on Identity and Belonging is incredibly useful.

Would you like to have a peek inside my journal? :)

This is towards the start of my journal, where I'm keeping my ideas for activities to foster a sense of group belonging and personal identity. The 'My Home' project is taken from a story one of my lecturers told us about a pre-school in Norway (I'd love to visit there, check out their fantastic creches).

(As I do each activity in the pre-school I'll post more detailed lesson plans, as well as how they went and what I might improve in the future)

I thought it might be nice to do a project on birds. I've included stretching activites and physical education lessons, crafts, songs and circle time ideas.

And now, for some reason, the internet won't allow me to upload any more pictures! I'll put up some more pictures from my journal in the coming weeks.

So I'll say goodbye, until The First Day!

Away we go!

Hello!
So, here I am at my very first blog. I've decided to use this slice of the internet to document my journey as a brand new Pre-School teacher, and I am so excited.

I have just finished up with college. Boy howdy, was I glad to shake my head out after all those exams, a dissertation, and countless projects and essays. I got my results recently, and it turns out the hard slog paid off, because I am now the proud owner of a First Class Honours degree in Early Childhood Care and Education!

And it is armed with this knowledge and enthusiasm that I take my first steps into employment. I went for a couple of interviews and managed to bag a great job as a Pre-School Teacher in a village within driving distance of home.


My contract is for 38 weeks, so the plan is to keep this blog going for that time, as I explore the ups-and-downs, rewards and challenges of being a first time Pre-School Teacher.
The kids I'll be working with are between the ages of 3 and 4 years old, and are all Irish kids. There are two other pre-school teachers in the centre with me (and they are such lovely, enthusiastic ladies!), and there are 30 kids in all.

The way it works in this particular pre-school is that I'll have a group of 10 children, with whom I'll go through my lesson plans and activities with, for one week. The other pre-school teachers will each be working from their own lesson plans with a group of 10 kids each, and after the week is up, we rotate our kids and start again! After 3 weeks, it's new lesson plans and activities. I think this will be an interesting way to do things, as we can constantly improve our practice, and get a really good idea of what works and what doesn't.

So! Here's where the blog comes in! I'll be documenting what I'm learning as I go along, as well as all my ideas for lesson plans, activities, my influences and the future!
I get a lot of inspiration from the Irish Early Childhood Curricular Framework, Aistear (it's Irish for 'journey', nice huh?), which you can read all about HERE. It's a pretty great curriculum and worth a read. It has pieces for parents too, which is handy!
I also love the Steiner philosophy and will be working a little with that. You can read more about how Steiner works for pre-schools HERE.
I'm really interested in the Reggio-Emilia school of thought too, but I'm still learning!

I'd love to hear from any readers of this blog; if you come offering advice, suggestions or ideas all the better! For the moment, I'll keep preparing my scrapbook of ideas for when I begin (I'll post some pictures up in my next post). So looking forward to the Big Day of starting Pre-School!
Bye for now!