One year in a jiffy

Yup! Not realizing it, I have been teaching for a year now. Since the first time I heard ‘Teacher Debbie’ being called, now it’s not foreign at all. I have questioning / reckoning looks from my corporate work colleagues when I speak on the phone addressing myself either as ‘Commander Debbie’ or ‘Teacher Debbie’. There goes again, time to explain what I do and the children around it.

It’s far from all thrills and spills, but it’s sure rewarding. My patience have stretched quite a bit dating 365 days back, my sense of humor has lighten and my intrigue for the little ones has increased since then. There are times when I’m totally beat just approaching my last class for the day but the thing that makes it worthwhile is the connection I managed to make with them. It takes time to warm up and even more time to crack open a tough nut … but when it happens – everything else is history.

Looking forward to the end of this year, my students will be performing in a small musical concert and as a treat I’d be throwing a Christmas party for them! Sharing the meaning of that day with a fireplace, snowflakes (fake onesJ), Christmas tree, presents and carols. I’ve got a rough schedule planned out but wouldn’t mind more ideas!

Ideas and more ideas… never too much to handle. Speaking of which, whilst shifting a couple months ago, I found a treasure chest full of scrap stuff. I think others would have donated them, but I knew I’d find use of them. Last week, I took a stack of old lunch bags of various sizes to class and made my younger students create their own super hero paper bag puppet. Then we stringed up a puppet stage and did a short improvised story. Take a look…