My entire experience with Jumpstart seems to center around this learning curve. I am still at that point in my Jumpstart experience where my team is rotating centers for the first time, and I feel like the initial craziness leads to the second class where I learn from the first experience and make the center so much better. Dramatic Play seems like a particular learning experience that is almost like a rite of passage for a Corps Member. There is a lot of terror leading up to it, and it’s very crazy during the center, but afterward there is a lot to learn from it. My second Dramatic Play session went so much better than my first Dramatic Play session, and I felt more capable as a Corps Member after my second session. In my second session I had prepped more materials and changed the format of the center and to make it a lot more engaging for the students and fun for everyone involved. Even in centers like reading, I felt a lot more confident and able after improving in my second session; my reading was more involved and exciting than before. The trend makes me excited about what will keep happening to my centers and readings.

Not to mention it has just been amazing to work with the students. They are hilarious and make me smile so much that sessions calm me down. When I was in reading one time, a normally calm student got so excited about one of the books he yelled, “READ THE WORDS!!!!!!!!!!” And each student in my reading group has told me that, yes, they all have two tigers at home, not toy tigers like the toy crocodile in Peter’s Chair that we were talking about, but real tigers.

-Angela Phillips