Once in Winslow, we get the children ready for the day by seeing them to their classroom and settling down for rug time where we take attendance and meal counts, listen to stories and recite poems. We help the children at breakfast and lunch times with different tasks and encourage them to eat.

We again have more rug time where we share story times, sing songs with them and even do fingerplay to some of the songs which helps to get the children involved with the song even if they are unable to communicate well. We have calendar time where the children are exposed to counting numbers, days and months. We have a show-and-tell and then a playtime. We also go the gym different times during the week where we work on the childrens motor skills like running, jumping, playing with balls, and using scooter boards.

Some children can do things on their own and just need a little guidance, where others require more help. We do a lot of painting, either with brushes or finger-painting, playing with Playdough, string beads, cereal, or straw on yarn, crumpling tissue for crafts, we build with blocks, use peg boards and much more to help with their developing. We go to the school library once a week where the children are allowed to choose their own library books to look at. We take the children on many field trips in the area to expose them to things like the Pumpkin Patch, local parks, plays at Highland Community College, and many other activities.

We take the children outside (weather permitting) for noon recess where they swing, use the merry-go-round, and go down the slide. At 12:20 PM, the buses take the preschoolers right to their homes.

After my lunch break, I then go into the Kindergarten classrooms to help the teachers as needed. My tasks range from helping the children with projects they are working on in the classroom, preparing projects or papers for the teachers for the next day, monitoring the classroom when a teacher needs to give a child individual attention or has to step out of the room, or helping the teacher test children on different things like numbers, letters, tying their shoes, and colors.

My day finishes with a bus ride back to the Lena Elementary School with the Kindergarten children and ends at 3:15 PM.