Storytime, week 1; writing woes

[edenfalling]

Today was Sundae Sunday, the first regular church service after the summer sessions. It was also water-sharing, but I was so busy remembering that I had to get there early for RE that I forgot to bring a bottle of tapwater symbolically representing Cass Lake. *sigh*

I am teaching RE (Religious Education, or Sunday school) again this year, after taking last year off. I volunteered to fill in gaps in the schedule, and was promptly dragooned into teaching Pre-K. Um. I really have no experience with kids under 6 years old, unless you count about ten cumulative hours of watching my cousin Benjamin and one two-hour joint session watching a neighbor's kid with my sister.

I think the biggest problem is going to be my inability to understand what the kids are saying half the time -- they don't always project or enunciate well at 3 or 4 years old, and I am bad at distinguishing muddled sounds. For example, if you have a strong accent, I will misunderstand you a lot until I get used to it. I suck at picking out individual instruments from orchestral recordings, even if other people assure me they sound very distinctive. And I tend to interpret a lot of half-heard conversation as meaningless noise even when it's in English, spoken not three feet away from me, and about things I should be paying attention to. *bigger sigh*

Still, the kids seem cheerful and willing to listen (within limits), and lesson plans for this age group are mostly one story, one mini-activity, and then free play, so there isn't too much pressure. Unless they have crises. I don't know how to cope with toddlers having a crisis; you can't reason with them.

Oh well, that's what co-teachers are for. :-)

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On another topic, I would like to know when my subconscious decided that 'work on your really delayed femgenficathon story, or any of your really delayed fanfiction!' actually meant 'start writing an original paranormal romance story set in Ithaca, involving a were-tiger and a cook at the local Mexican place.'

*headdesk*

Some days I hate my brain.

Comments

[willowgreen.livejournal.com]

Preschool isn't my favorite age to teach either, but those little ones can be darn cute. And after a few weeks, I'm sure you'll start picking up on their toddler accents just as you would if you were working with people from a non-English-speaking country.

Also, I'm thrilled at the prospect of reading an original paranormal romance story set in Ithaca!

[edenfalling]

The terrifying thing is that this story ("The Lady Is the Tiger") is the second paranormal romance I've started writing using Ithaca as my setting. The other one ("Chains") involves the owner of an occult shop who is deeply into schadenfreude and haunted (in a non-guilt-inducing way) by the ghosts of her two best friends, and a local high school librarian who moonlights as an exorcist.

I find these setups far too amusing.

[annearchy.livejournal.com]

You're braver than I am, teaching the little ones. I found last year that I enjoyed working with the 7th-12th graders so I'll be doing a segment of Neighboring Faiths with them sometime this winter.

[edenfalling]

My prefered age group is 6-8 years old, but the pre-K kids are awfully cute and I think this should work out all right. But next year, or even in the spring, I'm jumping on the wagon sooner so I get a choice instead of filling in the empty slot. :-)

[annearchy.livejournal.com]

I like the older kids because they're past the age of doing crafts, at which I suck :P They're fine with sitting (or lying) around the high-school room, talking, or watching movies and discussing them.

[edenfalling]

Ah, see, I kind of like crafts. I don't do art nearly often enough in the rest of my life, and I like to help the kids figure out how they want to arrange construction paper scraps and stuff. It's fun. :-)