Hello Little Children....

On Sunday I taught the six year old primary class. I'm not gonna lie. I was pretty nervous at first.

My senior year of high school, I volunteered for the Learning for Life program. I taught a first grade class for a half hour every Monday afternoon. I LOVED IT.

They called me Miss Amy. I loved being at the front of the room and trying to command their short attention spans. I loved their genuine expressions and their funny comments, and their little six year old innocence. I learned a LOT from the teacher, Ms. K. She was so pro at keeping the class in control. Even when I wasn't doing a very good job, she wouldn't step in unless I asked her, and then she would just tell me what to do.

It made me decide I wanted to be a teacher. A good teacher. The kind of teacher who always has control of her class. Who really cares about her students and instills in them curiosity and excitement for learning about the world.

I am so inspiring

This year as I started all my prerequisites for elementary ed, I began to seriously doubt that I wanted to be a teacher. First of all, EVERYONE seems to be in elementary ed. Well not everyone. But somehow it seemed whenever I told someone that they'd say, "Hey me too!" And also, teaching doesn't always get a ton of respect.

Today in Primary, I was reminded why I want to teach. I love it! And I feel that same desire to be an elementary ed major once again. Which is good because I'm starting classes again in two weeks!

Well, to be honest, I only had 3 really good kids in my Primary class, so even if I hadn't done much it would have been fine. But I really tried to keep it together, and to apply the teaching strategies my mom taught me. By the end of the class, they actually listened to me and obeyed everything I asked them to do right away. I love learning how to motivate kids into wanting to choose good behavior. I can't wait to learn all about the way children think and how to work with them! Its so exciting to me!

Hopefully I'll look this hot when I'm a teacher!

The best part was the actual teaching. Its weird because I am terrified of speaking in front of adults, but in front of kids I feel really comfortable. I strayed from what I planned and went with the flow. I had all boys in my class, so I started telling cool stories about good guys and bad guys with voices and hand motions and related it to the lesson. I don't know where it came from! But they were so into it! I told a story from the lesson manual about chickens, and I pretended like I was an angry chicken, flapping my wings and making chicken noises. It was awesome.

I was just glad no one walked in on my class. It would have been a little startling I'm sure.

The story was about a little boy visiting his grandma on a farm. His grandma told him not to touch the baby chicks, but he did anyway and got pecked by a chicken. So then his grandma told him again not to touch baby birds. Then he went and tried to touch a baby goose. The big mama goose started hissing at him so he ran away. The moral of the story was that "he finally learned to obey his grandma." But to me, it wasn't so much obedience as being terrified of a large, angry goose ready to attack. But that's just me.

My blog is so weird.

It was just fun to pretend I was an angry goose.

Oh, and all that reaffirming of my career choice and such was good too.