For the Kids

Mornings are hard. I feel that way every single day when I wake up, and as you must be able to see, I am not a morning person. I dread every day when I wake up to make the long journey to campus and then to our partner preschool, I'm just too tired! But then session starts and I see my partner children run up to me, grab my hand, and then lead me to my designated reading area for reading time. This makes me feel appreciated and loved, and as much chaos as my kids might give me, the fact that they remember the cycle of session and where they need to be during reading, circle, center, sharing and goodbye time lets me know that they do pay attention and they do care what Jumpstart is doing.
I've been involved with Jumpstart for about 5-6 months now, and I can say that there have been many rewarding events.

One that I'd like to talk about happened a couple weeks ago with one of my partner children. I was in charge of Dramatic Play for center time that week and had been working on playing with the children and incorporating stray pets and taking care of them from our core storybook “One Dark Night”. While feeding our stray cats, my partner child wanted to write about what we were doing on some paper he found in the center. I coaxed him into visiting Writing to tell his story there. He came back with his new book he had written in Writing center and dedicated it to me about our time feeding stray cats. He told me his book was about the storm and the stray cats and how we were taking care of them just like Jonathon did with the three kittens in his book. Little moments like these are the ones I cherish because it shows me that although the kids may be rolling around, screaming, and ripping up paper, the kids do retain what I am telling them and take lessons away from our stories. That's all that matters at the end of the day.

-Jessica Wu
Corps Member
Team Kindness