That's my view about 40% of the time I'm at work. Sometimes it's the boys' bathroom, which is right next door. Because this is my unofficial post, I do a lot of bathrooming related reminding; remember to wash your hands, please turn off the water while you rub your hands, let's sing a hand washing song.We ask the children to sing a song to themselves while they wash their hands to make sure they are washing their hands for a reasonable amount of time to get most of the germs off. The suggested song has been Happy Birthday, but I think it may confuse the birthday issue, so I prefer this one, sung to the tune of "This is the Way We Wash Our Clothes":
This is the way we wash our hands,
Wash our hands,
Wash our hands,
This is the way we wash our hands,
So they're nice and clean!
In general, the time I do spend in the classroom has been alright. The class is definitely not normalized, which is to be expected. What I didn't expect was how tired I would be! Of course, everyone warns that the first month and possibly first 6 weeks will be tiring as the foundations are set with each individual child and then the group as a whole. The integration of the new children is a slow process, but the reward of a normalized classroom will be well worth the work and wait. I thought that managing my own classroom of 19+ children who were all 3 or 4 years old would have adequately prepared me for this. Was I ever wrong. Maybe the difference is that this year, the room is not "mine" in the sense that I am not the lead teacher. It is not up to me to set the ground rules or organization of the space, physical or interpersonal.
I'm feeling a little overwhelmed by it all really. Being a very sensory person, I think I am more easily over stimulated, by sounds, sights, touches. In an as yet non-normalized Montessori classroom, those things abound. With no breaks in the day, barely a chance to get a sip of tea or
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