Starting in January...

I'm going to have 20 two-turning-three-year-old kids in my nursery class at church! That's more than a kindergarten class! Can I just scream and pull my hair out now in joyful anticipation?!? If you're in my ward and you're reading this, feel free to drop in at any time to lend a hand because I'm sure I'll be needing it!

I've already got some great ideas brewing for how I'm going to make it work (rotations/stations), but my ideas won't work unless we have at least 3 leaders in the nursery including myself (ideally 4 would be awesome!). This would require people to say yes to this calling. Why does everyone think nursery is so bad/hard? I've been in for almost a year now, and have really enjoyed it, except for the occasional really, really, really bad days. If there is good structure in the class, things run smoothly and it is not a difficult calling. Hopefully I'll have some help in my class come January!!!

Special Visitors

I'm really starting to enjoy teaching nursery each week at church. Some weeks are definitely better than others (it depends on how many kids are there as well as how many boys are there). I work hard each week to try to prepare something fun for the kids. This past Sunday, we had some special visitors come visit us during our lesson. Our lesson was on following the prophet, and we had 4 prophets come and visit. The children have never been so well-behaved or listened so well! They were so excited anytime another prophet knocked on the door. Here are the prophets we had:

Joseph Smith who talked about the Book of Mormon

Daniel who talked about the power of prayer

John the Baptist who talked about the importance of baptism

Samuel the Lamanite who talked about the importance of following the words of the prophets

I really appreciate my hubby and these men for helping me out!

My Little Stud

Posing for the photo shoot

Caleb is 18 months old today! Although it's a little dry for other people to read, for my own purposes I have to post another 'Caleb Update', especially for my siblings that don't get to see him very often. At his check-up this past Friday, Caleb weighed a little over 25 lbs (44%) and was 32" tall (43%). His growth is steady and average. I tend to think of Caleb as 'small' because his cousin 6 months younger than him weighs the same as Caleb! If he's not already, he's very close to being taller than Caleb as well.

New words Caleb has added to his vocabulary: up, ball, cat (dat), and doggy. Going on walks in our wagon is so fun because we are constantly looking for cats and dogs. He gets so excited when he sees one and says the words 'cat' and 'doggy' over and over and over again. From our walks, he is starting to recognize airplanes and helicopters (we've only seen one) as well. Caleb is also becoming very good at doing puzzles. We have a shape toy where you drop the shapes through the correct hole. He has mastered those shapes (circle, square, triangle, cross, and star). We have 3 different puzzles that we work on daily...one is types of vehicles (ambulance, train, motorcycle, etc.), numbers, and sea animals. He really does learn by miles everyday, and I love that I'm a stay-at-home mommy so that I can work on all these things with him. Alphabet will be next.

As far as nursery goes, he's improved a lot. It really takes some adjustment and learning. We play with playdough almost daily so that we can work on not eating it when we're at nursery. It's definitely still a work-in-progress. He's so good at holding onto the rope when we're taking a walk around the church building. Caleb is improving each day about drinking from a cup too. He can now throw his trash away all by himself after eating a snack, and although there's still more work to do, he'll sit on his carpet square for a little bit during the lesson and songs. Matt subbed in nursery with me today, so he got a taste of what the last two hours of church are like for me each week! It can be exhausting and frustrating, but there are so many sweet moments when you see a kid learning or singing with you or excited to see you that make it fun.

Wishes Granted

So Matt and I have been counting down the weeks before Caleb can attend the church nursery (he has to be 18 months old). We're tired of taking him to every class and trying to keep him entertained, quiet, and still...three very tough feats. Imagine our excitement when Caleb got invited to attend nursery for the first time last week, which would be 6 weeks early! He did pretty well, despite the fact that he tried to eat the play dough, refused to sit on his carpet square for the lesson, and dumped water all over himself during the snack (he's pretty good about drinking from a cup until he's all done and decides to dump the rest out...I've learned to only give him very small amounts of water in a cup). What did Caleb do well? He was fabulous at playing with the toys!

Our nurseries in our ward are organized heterogeneously, meaning all the age groups are mixed together and there are 3 classes of nursery. So there are some experienced nursery-goers in Caleb's class. The reasoning behind this decision was so that the older students could set an example for the new nursery comers and help them know what to do. At first I thought it was a great idea until I started thinking back to all my elementary ed classes and my teaching career. I am a huge supporter of homogenous grouping. I don't feel that the 'smarter' students are stretched as well if we're always 'dumbing down' the lessons. Last week in nursery, there was one student who knew all the words to 'I Am a Child of God' and all the answers to the questions in the lesson. It was all too easy for him; he needed to be stretched and asked harder questions and maybe learn the second verse to the song. Because there were other children who were completely clueless and had less of an attention span, we moved on. Maybe I'll be able to share my own opinions on the matter in time to come.

So why is Caleb able to attend nursery 6 weeks early, officially on the rolls and everything? If you haven't guessed it already, I was given a calling to work as a nursery leader. When I got a call to come meet with a member of the bishopric, I knew of two callings available (unless they were going to reorganize something): RS teacher and nursery. It has always been my secret longing to be a RS teacher. I would love it! Maybe not always, but being a teacher forces you to know the material really well and study it in depth. I do prepare myself for the lessons each week, but obviously not as well as if I were presenting the lesson. Plus I love to teach, and I miss teaching so much! I am excited to be in the nursery though and still have an opportunity to teach, although at a very basic level. It will be fun to be in there with Caleb too. He wasn't clingy at all last week like I thought he might be. I don't know if they will have him move classes in the near future so he's not with me, but I love seeing him interact with other children. It helps me to better know the things I need to work with him on (like sharing), and seeing the material in the nursery manual will help me know what we need to be teaching Caleb for Family Home Evening lessons.