International week blows. Chunks.

I know, I need to put on some pictures. But for today, I just have to vent. Let me set the scene...

It is a pre-school. International week. And we have "flown" to Canada, of all places. Not a single thing against Canada, or the people there, but there is not that much interesting to report on the Northwest Territory. Inuit people. Cold weather. And bears.
So, my room got "culture". Grrr. Ok, I thought, I can do this. No problem...
My plans - we have 30 minutes. I will have kids that are 2 1/2, 3, 4, and kids that are 5. That is a HUGE age gap - twice the entire life of the first group for the last group. So, I have Michele pre-cut 137 Canadian flags, complete with the maple leaf. Thank God for the Ellison machine.... The kids can glue a white strip in the middle of the red paper, and glue the leaf on top of that. Simple. I smile.
Now....that will take about 5 minutes, so I have 25 more to fill. Ok, throw in a few non-fiction picture books, a few dolls, and we're done. I have now done it for 2 days, and both days it took between 28-31 minutes. Pretty good, huh?

So, why does it blow chunks, you ask? (If you don't want to read a gripe, just go to your next blog now...) Two of the classes - the OLDEST two, I might add - aren't having anything in their room. They just come to all of our classes to enjoy our work. So, some days, I have 22-24 kids in my room. Yes, we are in compliance with "codes" because their aides come with them. But try to do an activity with that many kids in a room sized for 1/2 of that!! My new suggestion for next year? If you don't have an activity, you don't travel from room to room. Why should the rest of us have to accomodate you?
Other gripe. After I had had Michele cut out the flag supplies, the other teachers all started making the flag in their rooms!! NOW what am I supposed to do? Why make the flag in your room before you even travel around for the week? If you want to supplement the week, wait until AFTER you know what everyone else plans on doing!!
Today I had the 2 1/2 class, and a class of 3's. (Molly's class) Of course when they got to my room all they wanted to do was go see the toys in MY class. Because they are different from the toys in THEIR class. I can't blame them. I didn't know the tiny kids names, they were all over the place, couldn't sit on their bottom for a 45 second story or directions, they twitched the entire time. Therefore, I twitched the entire time.

Thank God I took Monday and Tuesday off to hang out with Karla. All I have to do is the 24 kids on Wednesday, and we "fly back" on Thursday. Maybe next year for International Week, I'll get on a real plane and just leave the country.