simple gift

 I wanted to give my co-workers a little something without spending much money and something that wasn't a baked good (we get so many of those from families and several co-workers are pretty health conscious so the amount of sweets is already a bit overwhelming).  I decided on cinnamon sugar-- probably the simplest thing possible to make but a nice treat (and it'll keep for a long time so it can just sit in their cupboard til they want a nice treat in a few months).  Basically it's a ratio of about 1 cup of sugar to 1 tablespoon of cinnamon mixed together.  I got some cheap spice jars from a $2 shop but decided to fix them up a bit so the scratched, painted silver plastic lids don't show.  Fortunately I've been collecting bigger size scraps of fabric from work and I hadn't come up with anything to do with them so I cut a bunch into circles to cover the lids.  Simple, easy and nice small gift (and it will come with a small photo card of Wombat in a santa hat).  I'm thinking next year I wanna make little bottles of vanilla extract (from this recipe).  It takes 6 weeks though so I'd have to get on to it early (I was going to get onto making gifts early this year but that never happened).

sick kids

In past years we've had a lot of problems with parents giving their sick child Panadol or other fever/pain meds and sending them in to kinder. Then they try to act surprised when we call them at lunch time to inform them their child is miserable and has a fever. This year parents have been much better (with a couple exceptions). Yesterday a parent came in and stated that his child had felt like they had a fever (they didn't actually take his temperature but he said he felt quite hot) so he had given his child Panadol and brought him into kinder saying he was fine. Upon hearing this both me and the teacher tried to explain to him that his child can't be at kinder because a fever means your body is fighting an infection and there are some nasty flu type illnesses going around. He seemed quite surprised when we said he would have to take his child home and the look he had was one that made me think that today he would bring his child in on Panadol but know not to say anything to us. Fortunately he didn't do that and the child was away today hopefully having a good rest at home and recovering from his illness.
This morning we were chatting to a parent about illnesses and we said that we do get parents bringing them in on Panadol and we don't find out until lunchtime when the meds wear off that the child is sick. His response was "That's not fair!!" Finally a parent that really understands the importance of keeping sick children home (and was quite upset that others may not do the same). He had actually had to cancel a meeting at work today so he could go home for a few hours in the middle of the day to take care of his possibly sick child that they decided they didn't want to infect others at child care and his wife who was sick as well. They also called into kinder about midday to make sure their kinder child was ok and not showing any signs that he may be coming down with what the rest of the family has had.
I spent half my planning time yesterday researching children and illnesses to try to type up a nice email for families stating the importance if keeping an unwell child at home (and how sick is too sick to bring them to kinder). I'm sure it is hard for working parents to keep sick children at home but it is sooooo important for the child to rest and that they don't share their germs with the children and staff at kinder.

DONE!!!

we finished for the year yesterday!!!! 6 weeks off!!! of course i managed to wake up with a cold on the last day (it was our clean up day though so at least i didn't have to deal with children when i wasn't feeling 100%). it meant i didn't get to celebrate the end as much as i wanted. we were all exhausted at our end of year lunch at C.E.R.E.S. (and probably really quiet for a table of 12) and the one beer i had made me want to just go to bed (i struggled keeping my eyes open walking home and curled up in bed as soon as i got home). i never even opened my mini bottle of sparkling wine i had been saving for yesterday.
after i recover from the end of year work stuff and this cold i'll have lots of time and energy to make some of the good food i've been waning to make for a while (vegan cheesecake, some ethiopian foods, more homemade cheeze, salsa, refried beans and other foods i used to make all the time until i got too tired from work).

poor whales

the other afternoon one of the children started talking to my co-worker about whales. he was saying something about his dad being naughty when he fishes because he might catch a whale (he's not usually very clear when telling us things so we're not exactly sure what he was saying cuz his dad isn't a commercial fisherman or anything). my co-worker asked him if he knew there were some people meeting to talk about fishing whales (he didn't) and then she asked if he wanted to write a letter to them to let them know that fishing whales is bad. he thought that was a great idea. i think he got a bit confused though cuz he kind of addressed the letter to whales and then added in "to the meeting boys" at the end. the letter is a bit hard to read in the photo but it says:

Dear Whales and the meeting boys,
I think you are sad because you are getting fished. And the whale from Little Mermaid. She tried to save the whale.
No whales have to get fished. Because they will die.
My sign (on my picture) says NO.
I'm thinking with my picutre and pencil does that.
From, ------

i didn't get a photo of his picture but it was a great drawing of a whale. after he finished his picture and dictating the letter he went around the room trying to get other children to sign the letter or make a picutre. by the end of the day we had about 10 pictures of whales to go with the letter so my co-worker made it into a display in the hall. she was a little worried about getting all political with the children but it was all the children's ideas.

busy possums

this morning a child noticed a nail hammered in (poorly) in a brick wall of a building at work. it's been there for years but he's never noticed it so he decided that last nite some possums must have come and hammered it in. when another child came over and asked how the nail got in there i told him that henry had a pretty good idea. henry told him and as he finished the second child got a big smile on his face like "that couldn't have happened, you're making that up" but he turned to me and said "possums would have accidentally hammered their fingers if they tried to hammer a nail."
when they aren't driving us crazy the kids at work are funny sometimes.

working hard

we've had 6 days with the new children at work (and 3 of those days were just small groups of 10-14 children, the last 3 were groups of 22-25). it's gonna be a hard year. we have several children with difficult behaviours, a few that have very little english, a few that have never been in any kind of child care and some special needs. fortunately our new team in our room is quite good (3 of the 5 in our room have either switched to the other room because they needed to work less hours or moved onto another job, they have been replaced by 2 new full time people who fit in perfectly). since wednesday when we started doing the full groups i've spent most of my day (including rest time which usually just involves moving around the room sitting with children, patting them while they--and i--get to rest) running from one issue to another. it takes me several minutes to write a 2 sentence note in our diary for my co-workers because every half word i have to jump across the room to stop a child from biting someone, throwing things, grabbing things...... (and there are 1 or 2 other staff in the room also supervising and dealing with those issues at the same time). once the ones who are doing these things (and its not all of them, we've got some really sweet kids in the group too) learn it's not ok and they aren't going to get away with it at kinder it'll be better. it'll also be better when they know the routine and can do most things on their own (like putting their belongings in the right places and making their own beds at rest time). february is just going to have very long days (and lots of glasses of wine after work).

i don't get it

this week we run a holiday program for children who were at kinder last year and are heading off to school in a week or so. this morning one of the children told my co-worker that his water bottle was filled with cordial and he wasn't supposed to tell us (we only allow water at kinder because it's much healthier for teeth and body than the juices/cordial that a lot of them would probably bring). near the end of last year his mum had given him cordial one day, which we told him he could have when he goes home and we gave him water for the day. his mum is a pretty sensible person so i'm not sure why she would give him cordial again, knowing we don't allow it (and i'm sure she knows water is much better for him)-- especially since she told him not to tell us (and every 5 year old is going to tell us things they have been told not to tell us, that's what they do). it was a HUGE bottle of it too (if it had been a tiny drink bottle that was in his lunch and he'd had a separate water bottle for the day i probably would have just let it slide since it is holiday program and these children are heading off to school where i'm sure half their lunch boxes will be filled with the junk that we discourage at kinder. i don't get why a parent would do that-- it's not helping their child out at all and none of them have any problems drinking just water at kinder. it's good for them.

i want a gun

i had this conversation with a boy at work today:
boy: i want to be a policeman when i grow up because i want to find where the baddies are....and cuz i like guns a lot.
me: police don't get to use their guns very often. they have to try a lot of other things first before they can use their guns on a baddie.
boy: oh. can they shoot at a tree?
me: no. they would get in trouble. they can't even shoot baddies unless nothing else was working.
boy: oh. maybe i don't want to be a policeman then. pirates get to have guns. maybe i'll be a pirate........ but they're baddies and if i was a pirate i'd have to shoot goodies. then i wouldn't have any friends and i'd have to eat yucky food (i never did get to ask him what yucky food pirates eat).
me: maybe you could be a policeman that just helps people.
boy: no. i want to use a gun.
um yeah.....
funny cuz he's not a boy who seems really into guns and violence (i actually wouldn't be surprised if 15 years from now i heard that this boy had become a very feminine, possibly gay man).

how to flush

last week we realized some of the kids didn't know about the half flush and whole flush buttons on the toilets (in oz a lot of toilets have these 2 flush buttons to try to help save water). one girl who's a bit short said she didn't even see the 2 symbols on top of the tank until her friend pointed them out. we decided to do something about this. first i taped up the whole flush button on each toilet because they'd rarely need it (most of them tend not to flush at all). then came the group time discussion. the teacher started explaining the two buttons (using a quick diagram she drew up). i walked in and out of the room several times. the discussion was STILL going every time. it went on for at least 5 minutes (everyone talking about how their toilets flush since there's at least a 1/2 dozen varieties of toilet flushers here). it was kind of funny. the next day one of the parents came in and said that their child had taped up the full flush button on the top of their toilet at home. we just laughed. today i designed signs on the computer to stick on the front of the toilet tanks in the kids' bathroom so even the short kids can see which button is which.
now we just need to work on the kids making sure the tap is off when they walk away from the sink.

the epicenter

melbourne has now become the epicenter for swine flu in australia. we are now the equivalent to mexico, panama and japan. children who visit victoria are now being told they have to stay home from school for 7 days upon returning to their home state. in victoria they aren't even going to test everyone exhibiting syptoms anymore but just give them all antiviral drugs. only high risk patients and those with more severe syptoms will be tested to confirm whether or not its swine flu. surprisingly we've only had 1 case at work (and it was a child who hadn't been at the center for a week at the time of her diagnosis). we have taken lots of precautions like getting rid of all the hand towels for children and staff (its sad the amount of paper towel we now go thru each day), no more shared fruit and veggie platters and we are making sure parents are vigilant in keeping unwell children home (even if it isn't swine flu but there are so many other illnesses going around too). we sent a child home today with flu syptoms (headache, fever and no appitite). hopefully just a seasonal flu bug or something. fortunately swine flu hasn't been any worse for most people here than just a regular seasonal flu so it's not a huge deal-- just a few days feeling sick.

getting closer

up until a couple days ago swine flu was just a worldwide problem that was just out there. now australia has started getting its first cases. the majority of them are in melbourne with a few confirmed case children attending a local school that several of our families from work have older children at. the problem went from being a issue that was just sort of out there to being right in our neighbourhood. as of yesterday afternoon the health authorities are thinking about closing other schools and child care places in the area. i'm assuming they'll make a decision later in the weekend depending on how many new confirmed cases come up and how people have contracted it. so i may have a few days off because of this whole thing. the past 2 days at work we've been careful in asking families how they're all doing (even if it's not swine flu there's other flu bugs, gastro and croup going around). apparently 1 family brought their child in on thursday knowing she wasn't well (i had the day off). staff ended up calling parents to pick her up in early in the afternoon. by the next morning her doctor had confirmed she has croup. because her parents didn't keep her home and KNEW she wasn't well it's now very likely she has given croup to her friends (fortunately with croup its very unlikely for an adult to get it so its not as annoying for the staff as last year when parents sent their children in with the flu and staff were dropping like flies making everything even more difficult). i would have thought with the whole swine flu thing being in the media so much it would make parents more careful about sending children into kinder/childcare/school when they're not feeling well knowing that they will be spreading germs to everyone they're in close contact with.
(the piggy above is "baby" the 400+ pound pig that was one of 2 pigs that lived at the outdoor education camp we worked at in california)

lizards and snakes and crocs (oh my)

my favourite visitor to kinder is wild action. they bring in australian animals for the kids (and staff) to see and touch. mostly there's different kinds of lizards, frogs and a couple snakes (which are all really cool). there's also a wallaby (poor little joey got rejected from its mothers pouch-- she was pretty big but would normally still be living in a pouch so she was being hand raised).
this is oli the olive python (she weighs somewhere between 10-15kg):

jack the salt water croc (i'm not sure what his story is but "gucci" the croc we saw the next day was rescued from a croc farm):

29kg of "baby" salt water croc

recycled

for the past week or so i have been making recycled paper with the kids at work. my co-worker found a paper-making kit at savers (the australian name for value village-- its the same company, same font style and colour on their signs, same price tag design, their gift vouchers actually say "value village" and have the u.s. company info on them). funny thing about the kit is i think it's the same one i tried to buy at the same store about a year or so ago but i put it back on the shelf while i tried a couple things on and one of the 3 other customers in the store must have grabbed it. i'm pretty sure its the exact kit and not just the same kind of kit (a weird mark on the box and the contents were still in excellent condition just like the one i missed out on). i think after 2 batches of paper i've got the process down to an art form and batch 3 (which is soaking overnite and will be formed into paper sheets tomorrow) is gonna be pretty close to perfect (i had trouble getting all the paper sheets to be "paper thin" but i think i've figured out the trick). i'm impressed with most of the results so far. much better than anything i've made on my own before (with d.i.y. paper making equipment-- although i now know what to change on my homemade kit to make it work better in the future). i think i'm gonna keep making paper with the kids for the rest of the year. it's a good activity, they're learning lots and we get to have good chats while we sit there tearing used paper and old magazines/newspapers into little pieces (and of course they all love just playing with the pulp we make before turning it into sheets of paper).

wet and cold

i know it's not actually cold but it feels SOOOO cold (especially overnite). we had some REALLY good storms on friday. i went home for lunch a bit early because a storm was heading in (i had no rain gear with me and i really didn't want to be out with lightning). the rain started coming down a couple minutes after i got home. after i ate the storm got going with LOTS of thunder and lightning. me and wombat sat in the laundry room with the back door open watching the rain POUR down and the flashes of lightning. some of them were pretty close. there was one point where a HUGE flash of lightning went and less than a second later a MASSIVE crash of thunder came. both me and wombat looked at each other with wide eyes-- it was kind of scary. funny that she's not really scared of thunder storms (she continued to watch with me after that). she's scared of the wind, doesn't know how to react to other dogs..... but big bangs and flashes of light from nowhere aren't a problem. meanwhile, my coworkers were trapped in the covered area at the back of the yard (they had gone outside just as i went home for lunch). the main teacher just huddled all the kids in close and started singing songs with them (and she did pretty well at hiding her own fear when the storm got really close and loud). fortunately the kids did well (most of them wouldn't remember any storms like this one) but apparently the 2 assistants with her were pretty scared. we had another storm pass thru during rest time but again the kids did well (i did sit with one little girl who was huddled under her blanket on her mat with her hands over her ears-- she fell asleep a couple minutes after i sat with her). unfortunately i don't think much of the rain actually made it into the catchment areas but maybe we'll have lots of good rain storms this winter and get the water levels up(?)

on the same page

yesterday was the most horrible day at work. it wasn't really anything big (mostly) but a lot of repeated little things (several difficult children that were at their worst), an issue between some staff, a photographer trying to get children's photos (even on the best day that's gonna be somewhat disruptive but on a bad day.....). i pretty much ran out of the building at the end of the day (10 minutes after i was supposed to because of issues). i got home and poured a nice big glass of wine (i learned that white wine doesn't seem to go off after it's opened-- i had a bottle of white in the fridge that when i pulled it out i realized it was opened and i hadn't touched it for a month or so. it smelled good and tasted good). that relaxed me a bit. then when zac got home we went for a his belated birthday dinner which was really good (lots of tamarind "fish" at white lotus).
today when i got in to work, me and my morning co-worked debriefed. we both had left work yesterday feeling the day was horribly stressful. when my afternoon co-worker came in we also talked about it (and i assured her that so far today had been really nice and i was feeling much better about work). even though we all agreed that the day was HORRIBLE yesterday it was oddly comforting to know our whole team felt it. we (me and my afternoon co-worker) both feel really bad for our other co-worker from yesterday who doesn't work today. even though she had today as a break from kinder she doesn't get to see how nice and quite thursdays can be (especially after the most horrible wednesday ever).

flower girl

this morning one of the children asked my co-worker where her friend was. my co-worker explained that she wouldn't be here the rest of the week because she was off to a wedding where she was going to get dressed up and be a flower girl. the girl walked off to a group of friends and said "guess what! krista won't be here today because she's going to be dressed up as a flower and go to a flower wedding!" i can just imagine the image the girl has got in her head about what it means to be a "flower girl" (and apparently watching 2 flowers wed). i think she'll be slightly disappointed at the photos her friend will bring next week of her dressed up just in a pretty dress, possibly holding some flowers.

pure exhaustion

26 kids (all of whom have only had 1 other day of kinder with us, a day where they came with only 12 others), no yard to use because it's being completely redeveloped (and because they couldn't work in the extreme heat all last week the workers are a week behind), several tears (although i was surprised there weren't more tears), lots of kids wondering around lost and not sure what to do at points (or not following instructions on what they should be doing), lots of cleaning up very large messes (i'm sure i packed every block away at least twice today), hearing my name being called out in a whiny tone over and over and over again (mostly the same 1 child but a few others did it at points too). i think i need to go to bed (less than 13 hours before i have to start at it all over again).
it'll be good when they all get the kinder routine down and make some new friends.

done!

i finally finished work and now have 4 (much needed) weeks off to relax and recover. the end was pretty hard. on top of just being tired and over it all there were staff issues (which i stayed out of as much as possible cuz the team in my room was getting on well), tired kids, a lot of good-byes in 2 days, late nites (the annual staff-committee christmas dinner ended up being after work on the last day of kids. we still had to get up the next morning and go clean up work), way to much so-good-but-so-bad-for-you food, too much alcohol, too many late nites....... i woke up this morning with a bit of a cold. i'm sure it has to do with all of the above. i took some zinc tablets and multi-vitamins and so far this morning (in the hour i've been up) i've managed to keep away from the very tempting treats laying ALL over the place. of course we're going to celebrate christmas with a bunch of family today so i'm sure i'll end up not eating right again. i am gonna be in bed early tonite though. hopefully that'll kill the cold and i can just relax for a few days.

new action figure group

during group time the other morning, the teacher was talking about the nativity scene and pointing out to the children that we have a wooden one they can play with over on a shelf. one of the kids put his hand up then called out "i have a Jesus set at home too!" somehow the teacher managed to not laugh while she asked him if his nativity had donkeys and camels and other animals.

something a little different

when i arrived at work this morning several kids were working on things at the pasting table. as i looked around i realized most of them were making angels with large paper doilies that had been cut into quarters (that was the dress part of the angel. they cut out circles for heads and some added limbs or hair or wings). most of these angels were also covered in glitter (we managed to go the entire year without glitter at the pasting table and we've just brought it out as a treat for the last couple weeks). one girl came up to me with a doily piece that just had black and red circles drawn on it with texta. i was a little shocked that her angel dress wasn't in "pretty" colours like all the other ones and didn't have glitter on it. then she told me "its a pepperoni pizza slice!". i was impressed--- something different. she went back to work and i was talking to other children. a while later she came up to me holding 4 doilies taped together in a circle with red and black. she'd made an entire pizza. then she went to the box collection and found a big cereal box. she layed it on it's back and cut open the top so it opened like a pizza box. then she put her pizza inside. its looks pretty good. it was cool to see someone come up with something different (and un-christmas related) when all their classmates are making the same thing.