Christine and I both agreed that I would lead this morning’s activities. This is a Friday and I arrived at the daycare at 8:00, and I talked with Christine about the plan that I had: giving children space and time to do free-play until 9:30, then move to diaper change, snack time, and I will make a small circle with children to read a book about Chinese New Year that I brought with me. I have prepared a simple art to do with children after the circle time, and if there’s still time left, I’d like to bring them to the backyard and spend some more time outdoor. Christine told me that it sounded great to her, and she will be there supporting me.
But apparently, there are some factors that I missed. First of all, it’s a Friday, and we usually have a child (Orin) who will come in around 11:15. Then, I did not consider another factor that Hazel would come in later too (I got this news from Christine in the morning) around 11:00. If I stay with my plan, these two children will not have the opportunity to do the art, and most probably I would only have 3 children doing the art project. What is my plan for children who have not participated? Do I plan to do with them later? Or I should simple forget about them?
Apparently my hesitance affected the whole plan that I had in mind. I did not call-out for clean-up until 10:15 because I wanted to wait for more children to come in and to play a little bit (one did come before 10 and was able to play for a few minutes), and when I was almost finishing the art with three children who were present, two more came, and I invited them to do the art while not really finding an activity for those three children who had already done their arts. Luckily I had Christine’s support and she directed the children who had finished their arts to the living room and made a circle with them, while I stayed in the art room to be with the other two children. When everything was done, it was almost 11:15, and the parent of the last child who came stayed to talk with Christine, so we decided not to go outside.
I was feeling very frustrated during and after leading this morning’s activity. For me, nothing went well and I was not being consistent with what I had in mind, and most importantly, what I had in mind was changing over time easily. I talked with Christine afterwards, and here was her feedback to me:
