P365 - Day 133 helping out (13/05/2011)

I signed up to do parent help at Juniordwarf’s class today. I had no idea what this would involve, other than that I’d be turning up and helping some of the children with an activity.

I was the second cab off the rank. One of the other mums had her turn on Wednesday, and she said she’d had a great time. She'd only had to work with a small group of children, and had helped them with their cutting.

I didn’t really imagine that the teacher would leave me in charge of more than a couple of kids at a time, but still, the idea of spending an hour and a half in a room of 20 or so four and five year olds was slightly overwhelming.

On the other hand, I was excited to have the chance to sit in on Juniordwarf’s class and see what they did and how he behaved. I didn’t tell him until Wednesday that I’d be in his class today. He told me how his friend’s mum had been at school that day, so I told him that I’d be coming to his class too, and he was really excited about it.

I told him that I’d be there until recess and then I’d have to go back to work. I was desperately hoping that he wouldn’t cling on to me the whole time and refuse to do anything the teacher said, or that he’d get really upset when I left, given our experiences earlier in the year with school dropoffs.

Neither of those things happened – by now he knows that he has to do what the teacher says. I had to remind him a couple of times to pay attention, but other than that he was great. He stuck very close to me until it was time for him to go off and do something else, which was really sweet.

My job was to work with one child at a time – perfect – and help them threading wool through holes. The kinder aide was doing the same thing so I could check in with her if I had any problems, but I didn’t and I really enjoyed it.

I loved seeing what they did at school, but I was pretty busy, so I didn't get a chance to take any photos. Here's one I took when I picked up Juniordwarf this afternoon.