The Gifts

Today I moved from teaching kinders to teaching sixth grade.  The kinders heard Frederick by Leo Leoni and they made some little ripped paper mice.  The kinders were so cheerful and kind and silly.  The only huge disaster was some kinder holding his milk carton upside down and letting all the milk spill onto the table and floor.  Annoying as heck, but a fantabulous assistant teacher was there and she took care of the whole deal.

The sixers were neither cheerful nor silly, but they do have a kindness about them that I love.  They were a bit ticked off today for some reason but they followed all my directions even as they scowled at me. The sixers talked about a Langston Hughes short story about a robbery.  They wrote about personal connections.  Most had something stolen from them. One sixer was walking in his neighborhood and someone stole his cologne.  I asked why he was carrying cologne and he said, "I can't remember.  I guess just to freshen up a bit." I was sad to read one sixer's writing about having her Xbox 360 game stolen during the night by someone who visited her home.  She never got it back.

At recess I went to a first grade class.  Most of them misbehaved for Officer Friendly yesterday so I came in to help them practice their listening skills for 5 minutes before walking them down to recess.  I pretended I was a police officer talking about safety and those firsties just listened like I was the most fascinating person they'd ever met. We all got out to recess in plenty of time for some fun.