Kids can say the sweetest things, the funniest things, and yes indeedy, sometimes they say the GROSSEST things! Be forewarned if you decide to continue reading this story.... During a kindergarten guidance class today, a little girl with a beautiful braid stood up and walked away from the group while I was reading a story. Since I don't like for children to leave without permission, I asked her where she was going. Looking down at her finger, she said nonchalantly, "I'm going to wash my hands. This booger is stuck to my finger and won't come off." And to that I said, "By all means, Ladybug, go right ahead!"
Any Big Bang fans out there? If so, this story will make sense. While teaching a first grade class this week, I was introduced to a new student named Penny. "Oh I just love that name!" I exclaimed. A brown-haired spitfire sitting at the table beside me raised his hand as if he urgently needed to say something. When I called on him, he knocked on the table in staccato rhythm...Knock knock knock "Penny!", knock knock knock "Penny!", knock knock knock, "Penny!" I hee-hawed! In case you aren't familiar with this tv show, that's exactly how Sheldon knocks every time he visits his across-the-hall neighbor Penny's apartment. Now that's what I call quick thinking on this little mischievous boy's part. He just needed to hear the name Penny and instantly made this connection!
Children with a good sense of humor are such fun to joke around with! One of my favorites is a freckle-faced blond first grader who has an adorable cowlick and reminds me of my brother Robert. Each time he visits me, we review what we talked about the last time he came in order to refresh our memories. We have an ongoing light-hearted conversation that we usually get to, which is the little boy's crush on a curly-haired brunette in his class. He always claims that she loves him but that he doesn't love her back, but his ear-to-ear grin causes me to HIGHLY doubt his denial! To begin our session, we talk about good news and bad news from the previous week, covering the areas of school, family, and friends. I typically draw a happy face and a sad face on a paper and write the child's news under the corresponding expression. This particular child often takes my pen and draws a third face, one with a straight mouth, to depict "okay" news. One day this week, he came into my office talking about his girlfriend. Once again, he smilingly said that she still loved him but that he didn't feel the same way about her. As I always do, I teased him about the big grin that kept me from believing him and then sent him to my mirror to see what I was talking about. While he giggled and blushed, I said playfully, "I see your face, and I KNOW how you feel about her. You've got pink and red hearts floating in the air around your head. Oh look, I see a PURPLE one, and it's throbbing with love!" Ducking his head and laughingly protesting, he came and sat down, and we got down to the business of discussing his current good news and bad news. After talking about several topics, the little boy took my pen, saying that he wanted to draw one more face. Expecting it to be the straight-mouth face, I cracked up with surprise when I saw what he had drawn. Near the bottom of the paper, this little imp had drawn a face with a huge smile and a mass of HEARTS in the air above it. Ha ha! The boy has been bitten by the love bug big-time!
Apparently I entered a first grade classroom very quietly the other day. I say this because a couple of children jumped and gasped when they noticed me setting up to teach, and one little boy said, "Miss Mimi, you SCARED me!" Playing along, I grimaced and growled, "Good! I'm MONSTER Mimi today." Clawing the air and looking as ugly and ferocious as I could, I burst out laughing. As I gazed across the smiling upturned faces of the students, one elfin boy grinned and said in a small voice, "Can I have a hug?" Opening my arms and walking across the room to meet him halfway, a group of other boys and girls jumped up and joined in to form a big group hug. "Well rats!" I said. "So much for being scary and mean. I reckon I couldn't scare a FLEA!" And on that note, we settled down for a guidance lesson. What fun I have with our silly children every day!
We all know that kindergarten students often take things quite literally. Well I've been teaching their classes (all 16 of them!) how to be peacemakers. I've read them a story about a peacemaking cat and a troublemaking cat, and we've been looking at the differences in the two cats' treatment of their friend, as well as the effects of their behavior. During the story, Coco, the troublemaking cat, makes fun of her friend Lilly's paws because Lilly has a thumb. (Think Ernest Hemingway's 5-toed cats in Key West.) Since Coco has "straight paws" instead of the thumb, she tells Lilly she's weird and questions why her gentleman caller Joey would want to hold her hand. (Visions of Mean Girls!) For the first time Lilly sees herself as different and ugly and feels embarrassed. Before Joey comes over to take her on a walk that evening, Lilly tries several ways to hide her paws. Among her ideas are to wrap them in yarn, tie blue rags around them, put socks on her paws, and bind them with bandages. Of course the point of the story is to teach the kindergarten children that we all look different but we all have feelings that can be hurt. Because of this, we need to be respectful and kind, even though we may not like the way someone looks. However, one tiny boy, who had a fresh crew cut, blurted with passion, "Duct tape, Lilly! Try the duct tape...it fixes everything." Although he may have needed some help in seeing the bigger message of the story, he was intently listening and thinking, and yes, he provided me with one of my daily doses of kid cuteness!
