Teaching is a profession that holds a significant effect in all the lives they touch. What you teach and how you treat your students will affect how they will view the world of learning in the future.
We also know that you love your children with all your hearts and leaving them in our hands, even for a few hours each day, might send you worrying. You would want to know the kind of people you leave your children to.
Unlike a person who does not have to face people early in the morning, teachers cannot wait for the coffee to kick in by answering emails and spending a few minutes on the desk reading the paper. For teachers, the first few hours of the day are crucial and a preschool teacher is expected to spring into action.
Upon arrival at work, greeting children is always first on the list of to-do tasks. You need to welcome them so that they become excited to be in school and they become okay with being left at school by their parents. These exchanges are especially important. This is when parents leave you with missives like “They have to take their cough syrup by 10 after eating some snacks” or instructions like “Please make sure they do not take a nap today”. You might be getting instructions for all 10 – 20 of your students so that is a lot of information to retain and remember.
With all the children in the area, some potentially competitors for toys and attention, children will become clearly distressed. That is the next challenge that preschool teachers have to juggle. Preschool teachers have to make sure that children interact well with other children. Teachers prepare activities like singing songs, greeting each other and playing simple games.
Now snack time comes, teachers have to assist children through the hand-washing process and have them sit quietly at the table while waiting for the snack. You also have to deal with finicky eaters and teaching the kids to clean up after themselves.
After snack time comes playtime. This is usually the meat and potatoes of a preschool’s curriculum. At school, much of the time is spent outdoors where they can play games, have regular gardening classes, climb trees and other enjoyable activities. At this time, you have to be especially keen and attentive to make sure that the children are safe and having fun.
After this, we wrap up and prep for when the parents pick their kids up. These reunions are truly sweet – especially when you hear the kids relay how much they had fun during the day.
Being a preschool teacher can be one of the hardest jobs you can have. It is important work. But at the end of the day, we, as teachers learn more from these tiny beings than they learn from us. All we need to do is to listen and observe.
Know more about our preschool teachers at Renanim Preschool and Summer Camp, a Preschool in Briarwood, New York.
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