Weird Things I Say At Work

I say a lot of things at work that would sound really weird if heard out of context, and so I thought I would share every now and again.

Back story for todays: At work we have a family wall in our Nursery room. It's basically a magnetic board with individual photos of all the children and their parents and siblings. It's a real comfort to a lot of the children, and just plain cute. Anyhoo, Harry was walking around looking a little sad, so I asked what was wrong and he held up the body of his dads picture and the head of his dads picture and said "Daddy..." to which I replied the above and went and got him a spare daddy we had made incase these sort of things happened.

Work Stories

I haven't shared work stories in forever! So...where to start?

- One of the kids at work is very good at animal noises. She is also very good at "uncle" noises. If you ask her "What noise does uncle make?" She will fake a burp. It's so awesome, and one of my favourite things to ask her.
- We got these gorgeously comfy rugs for work which the kids love lying and rolling around on. We also like to lie down on these gorgeously comfy rugs, which turns us into awesome climbing frames for the kids. My colleague makes a good climbing person, and I as it turns out make a good practicing balance person. One child in particular like to stand himself up on my bum, steady himself and then try to walk. When he falls he gives out the biggest laugh, and tries again.
- The child that would cry all day long, and only sit with me, has settled. Yay! I do not come home feeling like the need to cry anymore!
- A little boy in the Toddler room has come in wearing a tutu quite a few times now. I love that no staff member or parents made any negative comment about this. I also love that his parents are supportive of this. Go world!
- I swear one of the kids at work who is only just starting to babble says "potato", she says "potato" a lot.

Work is going pretty awesome, and I am enjoying it so much more now that I am not studying as well. (First Aid this weekend and I'm done!)

Ass-aur

Yes, when I previously told the story about the unique way to say 'dinosaur' it was 'ash-aur', but it has since changed to 'ass-aur', which is worse. Not only that, but this child seems to like asking for dinosaurs ALL the time, with no dinosaurs in his hands, and no dinosaurs in sight. He has also taken to calling quite a few other animals 'ass-aur's'. Yesterday a mum was dropping off her child when her 'ass-aur' child approached her with a tiny tiger toy, he raised it up to her face (she was crouching) and send in his very loud voice 'ASS-AUR' (did I mention he does a pretty mean looking face when he says things loudly?)...her face went red. She didn't know what to say.

I can only imagine wondering around in town with this child yelling 'Ass-aur! Ass-aur!!' is quite embarrassing. We're doing our best to teach him 'dino'.

So: dinosaur, firetruck and clock. All interesting words to ask children to say.

What Colour are You?

One of the children in the Toddler room at work was carrying around three pegs. When I asked why, he replied "This is Mama, this is Papa and this is me." pointing to the two blue pegs and then the orange peg. This prompted me to ask if his mum and dad were blue, to which he said "yes!". I then asked if he was orange, and again he said "yes!". He then wandered off.
Another child, who was sitting at the table whilst this happened, then told me he was black (he's caucasian). We then had the following conversation:
Me: "What colour is your mummy?"
Him: "Blue."
"And what colour is your daddy?"
"mmmmm...White!"
"What colour is Katie?" (that's me)
"No."
"No?"
"No."
"What colour is Katie?"
"mmmm...No."
"What colour is A?" (I feel weird using the children's full names, so you'll get letters)
"Orange."
"What colour is N?"
"Pink."
"What colour is J?"
"Black."
"What colour is L?"
"Black."
"What colour is Katie?"
"No."

I was both fascinated with the assigning of colours...and the fact that either he didn't want to give me a colour, or I had no colour. Children fascinate me so much.

Arvo Tea and Bibops

I love working with children. I love that the children in my room are learning to speak and so pick up a lot of things from us, or create their own words.

We've been teaching most of our older children, 16-20month olds, to say 'ta' when we give them their food etc. They've not only picked up saying 'ta' in these situations, but they also like to use it when they want us or other children to take things. The most common time for them to say 'ta' is after they have wiped their hands for meal times. Our youngest child, now 12 months, has recently begun to say 'ta' too, and it is so adorable. His parents have also begun to gel his hair up, which looks so adorably funky.

Another phrase I've been trying to teach the children is 'Arvo Tea'. We have a morning tea and an afternoon tea at work. Most of the children can say morning tea, and excitedly chant "morning tea, morning tea" when they see the food tray come to our room. They also chant 'morning tea' when afternoon tea comes to the room. I started trying to teach them 'afternoon tea' but quickly decided 'afternoon' was too long for them to pick up so switched to 'arvo tea' as arvo means afternoon in Aussie.  I wasn't seeing much success in this approach until yesterday when one of our children started chanting "Arvo tea! Arvo tea!" in the afternoon. It made me pretty happy.

The child who picked up the phrase 'arvo tea' is one of our better speakers. She has an adorable word for lollipops (which we like to make with playdough and popsicle sticks), calling them 'bibops'. Today I was trying to correct this to lollipop asking her if she could say "LOLLI-pop", the best I could get out of her was "lolli-bibop". Too cute.

Highlight of Work Today

We know one of the children in this ad, so we all got quite excited when the ad was e-mailed to our director. It's also a pretty funny ad. :)

The Best Bits About Work

I am loving work at the moment, and these are some of the reasons why. 

Getting the tightest hugs ever from some of the kids. It's not just any hug, it's a super-tight-i-love-you kind of hug.

When the babies learn how to blow kisses, and will do so whenever you blow them a kiss. Melts my heart.

Smiles from babies who are still unsure of this new place they are being left.

Giggles. I love children's giggles.

The general amazingness of children. They are so much smarter than I ever gave them credit for, and it is amazing watching them discover the world and grow. 

Adorable

I realise that I am currently just posting youtube video's, but life is just work and eating at the moment, so not much to report on. Plus this is super adorable. :) Enjoy!

Ecole Maternelle Pajol

 I'm feeling a bit Paris homesick. I may be experiencing some post-Paris depression...I have been feeling low since we got back (I think the fact that I have to sort things out and pack by Friday may also be a factor), so I have decided to day dream about living in Paris. Ah, Paris!

In my daydream I have studied to be a teacher and am working in this awesome school: Ecole Maternelle Pajol. I already know I love working with children, and I know I love Paris, and seriously who wouldn't want to work in an environment as fun as this?

It's wonderfully designed by Palatre et Leclere Architectes, who I think you'll agree have done an amazing job making the building a super fun place for children to learn! Gah! I'm in love with it!

All I need to do is scrub up on my French and we could work on getting me working there! :P 

Work work work

Just some more stories from work...because I would like to remember them in the future. :)
1. Two girls at the centre are from Ireland, well their parents are from Ireland. The oldest is in one of the pre-school rooms, so I thought I'd ask her if she was from Ireland. Her reply? "No, Mummy comes from Granny, and Daddy mumble mumble. Me and *sisters name* come from Mummy, when she was married."

2. Child: "My mummy is going to pick me up soon"
Me: "That's exciting, what is your mummy's name?"
Child: "Mummy."

3. Kids seem to confuse my name with Kacey.

Some stories from work

Source

I shall spare you all any rantings from work (James knows I had quite a few things to rant about this week...) because while ranting can be fun it's just a bit too negative for the mood I'm in at the moment.

Things that made me laugh:

1. A while ago, whilst we were playing outside, I noticed one of my toddlers was scrapping his shoe on the floor funny, so went over to check it out. He had green paint on it. I then noticed green paint on his face, and hands, and bike...where was this green paint coming from? I looked over to where children had been painting in the morning and see another little boy painting the poles with paint. I go over to him and ask what he is doing. "Painting a smiley face" he says... I take the paint off him, do all my telling off, then take the two boys to wash their hands because they are pretty green. The bit about this whole situation that made me laugh was when they decided they were the Hulk because they were green, and started doing Hulk noises and 'flexing' their muscles. Boys can be cute.

Actually, boys seem to love superheroes. We get so many Batmans. I call all the kids dressed as Batman 'Batman' because most of them are from the pre-school rooms and I don't know their names. It's quite funny how many respond to it. 

2. During lunch one of the girls was saying she was a boy. This upset one of the little boys on her table, who started a little argument with her over whether or not she was a boy. The situation got sorted. The little boy, however, was still upset that the girl thought she was a boy so told her "You can't be a boy, because only boys play rugby and cricket!". He was dead serious. I was laughing, then looked down at him and he was not happy with me, which made me laugh more. At the age of 2 or 3 this kid already thinks girls can't play sport...oh dear!

3. Later on the same day, after play time outside, we had all the children from the toddler and pre-school rooms sitting in a circle whilst most of the staff finished tidying up the playground. Whilst the Toddler staff (myself included) were getting the toddlers to line up at the gate to go back inside one of the pre-schoolers jumped up. He lifted up his top and started thrusting his hips, and then he yelled "Sexy and I know it!". I was speechless.

Those are the only 'funny' things that happened at work. The kids do a lot of cute and funny things, but I think I would probably bore everyone with my ramblings about it. They are all getting cuter, but I think thats because they are liking me more. They know my name, they'll come running to me if they are scared and one of them screamed my name when she had an accident in the bathroom (she also gave me a kiss on the cheek for helping her, seriously cute). I won't be in the toddler room next week because both permanent staff will be there. I think I'll miss the kids, I might have to go in for a little visit. I do get to work with the babies next week though, and I do love babies, plus nurseries are so much calmer to work in. :)

I'm going to be sad when my 6 months is up.

Some children are just so darn cute

This is so cute. I also love how almost everyone waved back. :) I feel all happy now. :)