Hello-o-o-o-o, THAT'S Not Nice!

Let me set the stage by giving you a picture of the "star" of this story. When I entered his kindergarten
classroom at 1:00 Friday, all the children were sitting on the carpet anticipating my entrance. Since they'd just returned to class from the playground, they were hot and sweaty and tired. This was obvious in the children's appearance, as their faces were red, their hair looked damp and tousled, and some of them looked "slam worn out"! One short orange-haired boy stood out. His freckled face had vertical streaks of dirt down both sides. As she greeted me, his teacher noticed his filthy face, grinned, and asked him to go wash it. She later explained that the little boy had been crying on the playground and had wiped his eyes, evidently with very dirty hands! Now fast-forward to later in my guidance lesson. We were learning about making I-Messages, which are statements that help us express feelings respectfully and assertively, even when we're upset. After practicing making a few, we read a book called STAND TALL, MOLLY LOU MELON! Molly Lou kept getting mistreated by another story character, Ronald Durkin, and my students came up with I-Messages that Molly Lou could have used to deal with Ronald's meanness. Well my red-haired buddy, who was calm and happy by this point in the lesson, was very familiar with this book. He was bouncing with excitement because we were reading it and could predict that we'd be deciding how to help Molly Lou stand up for herself when Ronald Durkin struck. When I read about the first incident, which depicted Ronald calling Molly "shrimpo" due to her small size, the little boy pointed to the ceiling with an upraised hand and blurted, "Hello-o-o-o, THAT'S not nice!" Next, Ronald called Molly Lou "bucky-tooth beaver", making fun of her teeth. Again, my friend threw up a hand and said, "Hello-o-o-o, THAT'S not nice!" When Ronald made fun of Molly's unusual voice, "Hello-o-o-o, THAT'S not nice!" When he told Molly she'd made her snowflake all wrong, "Hello-o-o-o, THAT'S not nice!", all accompanied by that upraised finger. Seriously, I was so tickled I could hardly read. I have about 8 more kindergarten classes to teach this lesson to, and if it was possible, I'd take my "assistant" with me to all of them. I can guarantee he'd liven up the lesson and have a fan club by the time he left the rooms. He's already got a fan in me!