Kindergarten

I have been helping with the kindergarten classes. (Our school has an abundance of boys. There are double the boys than girls in almost all of the lower grades.) They are absolutely adorable. They say the funniest things and don't hesitate when they think something. The teacher is amazing with them and it has been fun to see all the lessons. On Thurs. they got to make snow storms. This involved a blue sheet of paper in a tray and then they kids rolled a marble dipped in white paint on the paper. The "snow storms" turned out great. The morning class was told to write their last names on the back of their paper before painting. At lunch time the teacher hung up the projects. I was sitting in the room eating my lunch as the teacher attempted to read the last names. One of the last names was written "bblb". The teacher looked very confused and set that one aside. Then she got to another one and said, "I don't have a child with this last name in my class." As she pick up another paper, she figured it out. The child copies what their neighbor writes, so, this child had written the first letter of their last name and the complete last of the child sitting next to them. Needless to say, the afternoon class wrote their first names on the papers instead of their last names.
Yesterday, I was helping the teacher assess the children for report cards. I was taking them into the hall one at a time and having them read different things. I asked one of the children when his birthday was and he said, "far, far away." Then I asked what his phone number was and he said, "I don't have a phone." (He didn't know his mom's phone #) I took another kid into the hall and asked his phone number. I got "1,2,3." Then I asked for his address and got, "8,9,10" I took one of the refugee boys into the hall. (Now, this little one is hysterical. He can get really mad and shout at you in his broken English. One day he looked at me, shook his finger and said, "That's it! That's it! Stop following me!") I asked him to identify the letters and that went ok. (He doesn't know the names, but he does know most of the sounds.) I then asked him to identify the sounds. By this point he was done working and he started grunting, "uuuuuu, eeeee, ggggggg, iiiiiii, oooooooo, uuuuuuu." You can get the picture. When I went in and told the teacher, she just laughed.
Yesterday, the kids had library and it was runny exceptionally late. Three of us that help out in Reading groups were helping the teacher put sorting trays together for the kids. Keep in mind that one is a Title 1 tutor and then me (special ed. assistant). The two of us were given rhyming cards and asked to put them together and then put a few in each tray for the children. I was having a horrible time finding the 3 cards that went together. Then when we had to count our sets the other gal couldn't count. The teacher loved it. She said it was so fun listening us try to do something the Kindergartners are being asked to do. Later, when the kids came back to class, the teacher was reviewing their "ig" words ie. pig, wig, fig. She had gotten some dried figs at the store and wanted the kids to eat them. She told them the fig tastes sweet and is like a raisin. When she set the tray down in front of me, I just looked at them. They look funky and I wasn't really sure I wanted to try one. I did and really like it. Then the AmeriCorps girl who helps out said to me, "Do you eat Fig Newtons?" I said, "Oh, I love them, but Grammie and I always called them 'Nig Fewtons' so I didn't think about the fig part." She just kind of looked at me funny, but I was serious. Now I know where the crunchy part of the cookie comes from-the fig. Then I remembered I can't have Fig Newtons anymore. Today, I realized I could make my own, so I got online and found a recipe. I will report back when I make them.
I am learning a lot in kindergarten too. Just not the same things the kids are. ☺