- We had two visitors. One girl is staying with our neighbors until her family can find a home. She moved here from Molokai, Hawaii. She kept calling me "Auntie" which is what children call the adults they trust in Hawaii. It made me feel so good to have her call me that.
- I like to ask the kids a question about themselves every week. This week I asked them to name their favorite foods. Bennett's was flax seed (I'm skeptical about that one). Kylie and Josh both like mac 'n' cheese, which caused other kids to mention Chuck E. Cheese, and then it was Chuck E. Cheese stories for a good 5 minutes. Stephen said he liked everything. He's probably the easiest-going kid in the nursery, as evidenced by his favorite foods. Quincy still isn't speaking too much yet. The younger kids mostly just sit there and stare at me.
- We discovered that with the younger kids, to get them involved during singing time, you should start with, "If you're happy and you know it." Singing other songs, we just got a bunch of blank stares. But with that song, they got involved and sang along.
- Julia said she wasn't able to go swimming this week because they ran out of time. That made me laugh. How many times have I said that very phrase to my kids?
- Brooklyn saw her dad through the peep window and started shrieking with joy. It made me kind of emotional thinking about how much these kids love their parents. The lesson this week was on families, and seeing Brooklyn react like that brought the lesson full circle. Summarily put, families are just great.
The nursery runs like clockwork in our ward, thanks to some excellent nursery leaders who predated us. They set it up so that half of the time, kids are in a structured room having snacks, playing with playdough, having a lesson, and singing. Then the other half of the time they are playing with the toys in a separate room. We divide the children up into two groups: the older kids and the younger kids. The older kids stay in the structured room for one hour, and the younger kids stay in the structured room for 45 minutes (smaller attention spans). Kulani's arm was hurting pretty bad today, but he toughed it out with the toddlers. I'm grateful he's with me in this calling. We really do have a great time together.
3 comments:
You seem to be enjoying it more. What about Kulani?
Hey, here's an idea for singing time:
We put a bell on a pipe cleaner and twisted it to make a bracelet (those eventually broke and we used zip ties). The kids like to shake them to the beat of the music as you sing. Notice I said, as YOU sing.
I can promise you that Bennett's favorite food is flax seed. He is obsessed with The Nature's Path Organic Flax Seed cereal from Costco. He eats a super healthy cereal while I eat Golden Grahams and Captain Crunch! Oh well.
P.S. You and Kulani are the highlight of Bennett's "church day". You guys should be professional nursery teachers!!
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