Deep Breathing

I feel lately as though my patience has been thin, last week I was chalking it up to settling back into to routine after Spring Break but it seems to be carrying over to this week and it's only Tuesday.  Yesterday morning I felt that part of my lack of patience at school was due to needing to change some materials and so I spent an extra 45 minutes after school working on my environment.  I had seen some neat materials that others had made online and so after dinner I went to Michael's and bought some of the things I would need to make some new work for the class.  The one I finished last night turned out beautifully and I couldn't wait to get to school to share with my friends.  Several of the children noticed it on the shelf immediately and so when we started work time there was a mad rush to get to it.  However it was one of those mornings where we needed a lot of reminders about how to treat work gently, work was being stepped on deliberately, a pom pom got pulled to shreds, a few of my older friends had to be excused from certain works because they were throwing them...in all it was just a very frustrating morning.  I found myself simply counting the moments until naptime and that was still 2 hours away.

So I turned the lights off which is my signal to the children to come to the carpet and I talked about why I was feeling so unhappy.  I re-presented a few of the materials that were being misused the most (the brand new work being one of them).  And that was when I heard the anger in my voice and I stopped.  I said, "Let's start over from here by closing our eyes and taking some deep breaths.".  We have been working on this a lot lately when we have friends who need some help calming their bodies.  Usually I have one or two children who actually do this the others just watch, but I kid you not seven out of the nine in my class actually placed their hands together in "Namaste" over their hearts, closed their eyes and took some big deep breaths.

Silence...for a whole two minutes...it was incredible

I found myself not needing to count the minutes anymore, we went out and burned off some pent up energy.  The rest of the morning went well, nap was peaceful and the school day ended.  I was glad to know we were able to find our way back to calm because I was able to come home and not feel frustrated towards my own girls, which is something I often do when I carry stress home.

But I am still a bit frustrated with myself for getting to the point of hearing so much anger in my voice.  Tomorrow is another day, tomorrow we start all over again...and we breathe deep breaths.