A Teacher's Inner Struggles

Ugh....I never feel fully satisfied with myself. I got to school early this morning and got my lesson plans all ready to go. I took all of my Christmas decorations down and put them away. (This is huge for me. I feel as though my biggest weakness is my inability to stay organized for more than two days in a row.) I even remembered to hit up the grocery store to stock up on juice for the next couple of weeks. It was going really well.

Then the kids showed up. I forgot to unlock the back door, so one of my families had to walk all the way around the building to come in a different door. Oops. Then I just felt off all morning - like suddenly I had no clue how to teach. There were lost minutes and awkward silences during group time. I spent a good amount of one of the center times, which is supposed to be for group work, cleaning up the library center...Just in general, I was a horrible teacher.

Maybe my expectations of myself are just too high. I really want to have that knock-your-socks-off, waiting-list-a-mile-long, top-of-the-line, amazing preschool; I'm failing at that. I need more time with the kids. I feel like we barely scratch the surface with the two and a half hours we have together, especially considering about 20-25 minutes of that is devoted to snack. While I try to include quality discussions and activities involving snack, I want those minutes for more in-depth learning experiences. But, at this point, I'm questioning whether or not I would even be able to do that.

I'm so stinkin' lazy. Even right now, I desperately need to be doing laundry and unloading the dishwasher. Yet, here I sit. Blogging and watching The Bachelor.

The bright spot of my day, though, was my introduction of our new whiteboards. I really think they'll be useful. Today, I had them writing the number three. My intention isn't necessarily that they do it perfectly. I simply want them to recognize it, and I think becoming familiar with it through song and practice will help with this. Hopefully. I also had the kids make name trains, because we're studying transportation right now. I was really surprised to see that the youngest in the class was able to recognize all of the letters in her name (this used to be a challenge for her)!

Another worry for me: I have to write a report for the church board about the events of the preschool. I have an example from past years, but I'm still struggling. In the past, they've included a full calendar year in the report; however, I've only been at this preschool for a semester. I'm worried I don't have anything worth saying...

Ugh....Please let tomorrow be a better day.