This week at work

This week at work, I brainwashed several 2 year olds[and a couple of 18 month olds] into a real love of school buses…I also petted a tarantula, shook hands with a large furry bear, sang a million verses of “The Wheels on the bus” [well, actually only 2 or 3 verses, over and over and over…] presided over a car wash, and came close to being vomited on. My job is so exciting!
On Tuesday, We ran a hose into the playground and used a basin and rags to wash some dusty riding toys and our two jeeps [that used to be battery operated before they were given to us]. That was a lot of fun, and we ended up getting very wet. I was really thankful that it was such a warm day…
On Wednesday, a group of children were playing in our cardboard box aka bear cave/house/garage, when one threw up. I ended up stripping his best friend down to her diaper and washing her shoes to get all the vomit off her. That was the sad end of our box...
We had a special field trip scheduled for Thursday, so I started indoctrinating the kiddos last week-this Tuesday we were invited to get on the bus and sit in the seats. I had to carry the youngest onto the bus, she was very nervous about it at first. After a few minutes she warmed up to the idea and started exploring the bus-at least I think that is what she was doing-she did seem to be paying special attention to the emergency exits.
Since I switched hours with my aide and started arriving a little later, I always hit the ground running when I enter the classroom door. On Thursday, it was a mad rush to get everyone fed, diapered, and sun screened. We met the deadline and boarded the bus. We were barely out of the parking lot when my ESL student indicated to me that he wanted to sing “The Wheels on the Bus”. He looked over his shoulder, back at me, said “bus?”, “wheels?” and moved hands and arms in a circular motion. I am so proud of him; his grasp of English has just exploded lately. So of course we sang for all of the fraction of a mile it took us to reach our destination.
We disembarked and started looking at the amenities available-a magnet fishing pool, a play dough table, a foam and paper craft table. We made spiders from Styrofoam and pipe cleaners, and met a tarantula named Faith. One of my little dears wanted me to “Touch it! Touch it!” So I got permission and gave poor Faith conniptions by gently touching her back. Already some of the kids were chanting “Bus? Bus?”
Smokey the Bear approached us as we were having some water, and my kids’ faces froze…I shook his hand and patted his arm, and my bravest lad also shook his hand, but then one of the children started to wail and we had to beat feet. We did manage to plant some flower seeds, but the rest of our visit was punctuated not only with chants of “Bus, bus!”, but with cries of alarm and pointing as Smokey came ever closer… Finally we boarded the bus for the return trip. I tell you, I had some tired little teddy bears! They were so overtired, it took almost an hour to get them all settled down for naptime after they’d eaten lunch.
For the next day and a half, we had screams of joy every time we saw the bus, and all of our play was peppered with enquiries of “Smokey Bear?” Overall, a very successful and productive week at work.