Thanks for asking!

Dkzody of Dkzody's Weblog was nice enough to leave me a comment yesterday wanting to know how the new job was going. So far it's been great. Every day when I punch in the code to enter the building I get excited about all the new things I'll get to do before I leave for the day.

The first week of my life as a preschool teacher assistant is almost finished. I came home exhausted after the first day, but each day has gotten better. The biggest challenge right now is that each day is completely different. I'm working in two different areas (Classroom A and Classroom B). In Classroom A some days I arrive at lunchtime, one day I'm there for the entire program, and one day I come in for a staff meeting, leave, and return for lunch. Classroom B is an extended-care program that begins when Classroom A ends. Depending on how many children are in the area, I may leave at 3:00 or 5:00. I suspect that it will settle into a routine in a few weeks, but right now just figuring out when to be there has been interesting.

Classroom A is by definition more structured, with units, goals, and objectives. Since the school is inclusion based, a portion of the children in the classroom have special needs. One of my responsibilities is to make sure these children are participating to the best of their ability. Teacher A has been doing this for a long time, and can keep track of dozens of things at once. I hope I can get there, but this week the best I can do is one thing at a time.

I'm enjoying interacting with preschoolers again, especially at circle time. It's amazing how the songs I sang with my boys when they were young weren't removed from my brain, just temporarily buried.