Week 1

I am working at both Our Lady of the Pillar in a 4 year old classroom and interning at St. Louis Magazine for the fashion section!  Week 1 was crazy busy at both places.

I got to Pillar at 8am on the first day and upon my entrance into the classroom, had 19 little preschoolers at my feet asking question upon question about who I was and what I was doing there.  They were incredibly inquisitive and decided to ask how old I was.  Immediately, a few kids screamed 45, 41, 30 and a few other numbers around those.  I responded with a hint that there was an 8 in the number, only to be told that I was 81.  After we finished our little meet and greet, the kids returned to their respective tables for free play, which always is followed by circle time.  I sat in the circle with them as they sang their good morning song, days of the week and months of the year.  They assign a job for each preschooler every week, so the calendar helper counts the days in the month and tells the class what day it is.  We practice spelling the month, and they really love to spell May backwards.  We also help them figure out a pattern on the calendar (this months is: 2 ladybugs, 2 butterflies, 2 flowers all repeated).  After circle time, there is more free play around the room, which usually involves some sort of art project that they must complete on their own.  This day, we combined shaving cream and glue to create a sort of fluffy substance with food coloring.  The kids had to choose which colors and combinations to place onto a piece of paper with an ice cream cone attached, and then add sprinkles and a red foam ball as a cherry.  After these projects, it is time for their specialty class of the day.  It rotates between Music, Library, Computer, Spanish and Art.  We went to computer, which just involves the kids sitting on a desktop computer and learning about a letter of their choice through songs, games and drawings.  After computer, we eat snack in the cafeteria and put out placemats for each preschooler.  They all fought over where I would sit, and decided that tickling was the new favorite activity.  Recess comes right after snack, and it is temporarily on the blacktop while the new playground for preschool is being constructed.  We haul out a huge box of bubbles, chalk, hula hoops, soccer balls and paint brushes with water for marking the sides of buildings.  They all pretty much do their own thing, running around and consistently falling.  We go to recess with the 3 year old classroom, and on my first day, one of the little boys in that class fell down and scraped his knee.  We got him a bandaid, and when the other 3 year olds saw that he was garnering more attention than they were, they all began to cry and say that their "boo boos" were much worse.  Recess only lasts for around 30 minutes, and we return to the classroom for a little lesson of some sort.  It always deals with a letter and involves a "sight word," simple words such as the, I, too and see that are consistent in sentences and aid in the beginning of their learning to read.  They trace the words or letters, think of words that start with the specific letter and then must read a page of sentences to us before they are allowed to grab a book and read until lunch.  At lunch, my day ends because they nap after they eat and have another recess, and then the day is over.

The St. Louis Magazine office is right across from whole foods, so I grabbed a quick to go lunch and headed in for my first day running on little energy, as the 4 year olds are truly exhausting.  I was a little shocked at the size of the office, as I had assumed it would be much bigger than it is due to its prevalence as a major magazine.  Helene is the fashion editor and she truly does know everything there is to know about fashion.  My first task was to identify fall fashion trends from the runway, which meant surfing through vogue, refinery29 and harper's bazaar to find what they thought were the new trends.  After compiling a long list of all that we could find, the vogue website was where I spent my next two hours, searching for pictures from each designers runway show to feature in Helene's September article.  STL Mag is always 2 months ahead of schedule, just logistically in terms of publishing and layout.  We must make sure that we choose designers that we have a good relationship with and that will let us use their photos, which I was shocked to realize were very high in numbers.

The rest of the week at Pillar involved pretty much the same schedule, differing only by the change in specialty classes and the rain.  It was honestly a very hard week, as 4 year olds just have an insane amount of energy and never stop going, leaving me needing a nap!  There were no major issues that week with the kids, only a few minor outbursts that involved the inability to share or the "I was there first" argument with toys or seats.

STL Magazine for the rest of the week revolved around an upcoming shoot for swimwear, so I was sent to Splash, Fun in the Sun, Lori Coulter swimwear and a few other small boutiques to pick out swimsuits that I thought were "in" as of that season.  These errands took almost three days, as only working from 12-3 does not leave much time for driving all across St. Louis.