When the cat's away, the mice will play! While hurrying through the halls the other day, I passed a kindergarten class on its way to lunch. A purple plastic Easter egg grabbed my attention because its owner was holding it up in the air jangling it rather loudly. Thinking it contained coins for buying ice cream, I said, "Well THAT'S a fun way to carry your lunch money!"
"It's got SKITTLES in it," she explained.
"Well what a yummy dessert THAT will be," I replied. Raising her left eyebrow, she answered, "Ummmm, I don't think they're gonna last THAT long!"
And with a giggling swagger, she proceeded on her way to lunch. I guess when Mama's not around to oversee, skittles can indeed make a DIVINE appetizer!
Personalities. There are all kinds in this big old world, and in second grade classes, we're discussing them as part of a unit on respecting ourselves and others. We're learning that the world needs all types of personalities because, for one thing, they help guide people in choosing careers, and of course our world needs all kinds of workers to fill all kinds of jobs! As part of the lesson, we talked about a variety of personality traits, and then I asked the children to rate themSELVES on some of them. They were to use their fingers to show me how much of each trait they considered themselves to have. For example, if they were naturally super friendly, they might hold up 8, 9, or 10 fingers. If they were more reserved and shy, they'd only hold up a few. I stressed that there were no right or wrong answers and asked them to be honest in their assessment of themselves. In a Thursday afternoon class, we were nearing the end of this activity, and that was a good thing because the last answer from the class cracked us up and created a moment of chaos! The question was this: "On Saturdays when you have a free day to have fun and be yourself, how LOUD do you like to be?" As students thought about the question and started holding up fingers to answer, one little Dennis the Menace who almost always has enthusiasm written all over his face blurted at high volume, "I'm gonna need a few more FINGERS!" Immediately, two of his buddies sitting on the carpet near him held up all their fingers and lined them up with "Dennis's", enabling him to have a score of 30! Yep, that's about right!
Boss yourself around! That's one of the self-control ideas we're learning in kindergarten guidance classes. Since strong feelings can come upon us anytime and anyplace, we need to have some ways that we can ALWAYS use to calm down as well as some ways we can SOMETIMES use (such as talk, rest, exercise, play). The ways we can always use are breathe, count, click, boss, and push-pull-dangle. After introducing the first four ideas to a kindergarten class last week, the children and I practiced taking deep belly-breaths, counting backwards slowly, clicking onto happy thoughts, and bossing ourselves around. We learned that it's not good to boss your FRIENDS around, but telling yourSELF to do the right thing is helpful. While we were practicing this bossing technique, we stuck our bossing fingers in our faces and said such things to ourselves as, "Calm down. Chill! Get a grip. Suck it up, Baby! Ho-o-o-o-ld your horses! Cool your jets, Dude. Do the right thing. Slow down, stop and think!" Looking around the room, I noticed a tiny dark-haired boy wiggling around in his chair inattentively and not participating. Calling his name, I said, "Sweetie, point your bossing finger at yourself for me. Stick that finger in your face." Still squirming in his chair, the child solemnly took his index finger, pointed it at his face, and then promptly stuck it up his nose! Ummm, that's not precisely what I had in mind, but it did crack me up!
