You Can Find Me Elsewhere: The Munchkins

Teaching was certainly one of the highlights of this adventure. From teaching, I learned how to do more crafts than I can count, and how to get six kids to make the craft at the same time. I learned to appreciate every little hug and every time they said (meaning they wanted to come with me), "I want to Teacher Jessi!" I learned not to get so frustrated when they cover the table in glue or spill water everywhere or just start running in circles for no apparent reason. I learned how to get them to lay on the floor so I could take a nap for a minute. I learned how important and how helpful it is to plan and prepare. I learned how to talk about scissors and a piece of paper for five minutes, and the list goes on. Of the many things I learned from these kids that will help me in various areas of my life, perhaps the greatest lessons of all were patience, love, and how crucial it is to make kids feel important, loved, and capable as they are still growing up. I've loved teaching these kids. Not always, I will be honest. There were days I did not want to go to school, times I got so frustrated and lost my temper, times that I just lied on the floor and let them run in circles around me, and times that I caved and didn't make the older ones do the lesson at all because I was just too stressed to fight them on it. I had a lot of those moments, and I regret them some, but those are also some of the times when I learned the most. It was when I yelled at them that I learned how important it is that they feel loved, and when they covered the table in glue how important it is to have patience, and when I ditched my lesson how important it is to be willing to instead just change and adapt my lesson to what they wanted to do. I will remember my time with these kids forever, I've changed for the better because of these three months I got to spend with these crazy munchkins.

Here are pictures of my kids & they're names (left to right)! I would like to say a little bit about each one of them, but there's no need for this to turn into the novel that that would make it. So all together, they are kind, sensitive, selfless, big-hearted, real sassy, smart, hilarious, energetic, helpful, caring, absolutely crazy, loving, and welcoming. I sure love them a lot, and I'm going to miss being Teacher Jessi. <3

Kindergarten & Basic Reading (about 5-7 years old):