Top Ten Things I Have Learned At Day School

Yes, I have learned....not just Corban. For those of you who didn't know, I agreed to help out the Westwood Day School on Thursdays for this semester. Wow, how it has not flown by so quickly! But I will tell you what I have learned:

1. Patience - With a CAPITAL P. One particular day, I took the kiddos on a nature hike (which consisted of the gravel loop around the building). Easy as PIE...wrong. I had one sweet one who would not grab a colored ring that was not PURPLE. When I finally gave into her complete disobedience and gave it to her she refused to walk with us at all. She was quite stubborn and was PERFECTLY fine being put in time out for the remainder of our time.

2. Thankfulness - I am very thankful I did not have to do this every day for the entire time the kids were there. I am perfectly fine sending my kid to drive other parents crazy and when he comes home I can be stress free. HA!

3. You have to have a sense of humor! I think on my first few days of working, a kid came up to me, stuck out his hand, and said "here you go!" Little did I know that he would be handing me a booger! Gross!

4. You have to set rules for everything! If you think you have covered all your bases...well, guess again! I told the kids to share, don't hit, kick, scream, tackle, etc, but what I didn't tell them was don't eat the playdoh! All I could do was laugh when a little girl was chewing on the scissors trying to get something out of her teeth. She looked up with playdoh filling every crack in her smile!

5. God loves every little kid! Especially the ones who raise their hand (sometimes) to tell constant stories and one of which included "Ms Elizabeth, sometimes I like to lay eggs!" What can you say to that?!

6. Accidents happen even when you are 2 feet away. I had the kids play a game with tennis balls. It goes something like this: I roll the balls out of the can and the kids pick them up and put them back in the can. 4 rules to go along with that: No pushing, No tackling, No taking someone elses balls, and No Whining about not getting a ball! Not 5 minutes into my very last class I hear a scream while I am telling someone not to whine. I immediately know something is very wrong. I look at the kids arm and it is very apparently broken. Twig fracture...I was distraught at the fact I this had happened on my watch. A good lesson for me that I can't control everything.

7. Perfectly said prayers - After the accident mentioned above, the kids were trying to tell on a particular person. I just asked them what the rules were, they repeated them back and I told them it was an accident and that is why we have rules. So I asked one of them to say a prayer. "Dear God, Please be with _____ while his arm is hurt. ---------Most best of all, Thank you for unbreakable things!"

8. Good food! If you are going to help out at the Day School, you should sign up for the first Thursday of the month. They serve a delicious home cooked meal to the teachers for lunch! YUM!

9. Kiss Confusion - Since Corban would come into my class as well, he would always give me a hug and a kiss before leaving. Well, the other kids would witness this and they would start to line up for their hugs and kisses. I got some really good hugs!

10. Time is valuable. I missed my time to get things done at home, but I wouldn't trade the experiences I had. The kids are all so sweet and Landice was able to spend time with her Nana & Papaw.