O is for....? Rainbow!

I really love these young ones. In fact, I was surprised by how quickly I really, truly fell for each of them! You know you are a kindergarten teacher when fifteen three year olds are on your mind all day every day, stickers make your world go round, your legs get hugged throughout the day, and you are incessantly singing "This Old Man", "Twinkle Twinkle", "The Wheels on the Bus" and "Music Man" (among others) to a point of driving all other non-three year old folk crazy.

Currently I am preparing them for their first test of the year (four in total). I'm constantly reviewing what we learn, like a kindergarten drill Sargent if you will. It's so funny, this morning I asked, "O is for...?" And they excitedly scream everything else we have learned this week: "Rainbow! Elephant! Blue! Five! Tuesday!" Then I tried again, "O is for...?" And then Tiger (Yes, his English name is Tiger!) jubilantly screams, "Octopus!" I was like, oh my goodness, you are BRILLIANT. Four year old geniuses, so proud, so proud....

Another funny story about Tiger, he is like a four year old line backer. We were running a relay race outside, where the kids run towards me, hit my hand, turn to run back, and hit another kid's hand. Tiger was tearing it up, he was so fast and he is such a strong, compact little fella that as he sprinted into me, he totally knocked me over. So I said, "Whoooooooooaaaa, Tiger!" And then I totally realized what I said and cracked myself up and was laughing on the ground and the kids were like, hmmm, what is up with our teacher? It was so funny. Maybe you had to be there:)

Think it is safe to say I am obsessed with the youngsters. When I am not with them, I wonder what they are doing and how they are doing and I miss them! I think one my biggest challenges is like any classroom, all of the students are at such different levels. Some can say entire sentences in English while others can barely say a word, but everyone has great potential.

Last week, we were working on raising hands when they have questions or comments, and I called on of the particularly gifted four year old, Michael, and with a big grin on his face, he sheepishly said, "Megan, you are a good teacher, Megan." I thought I was going to keel over. Officially in love with a four year old. It's nice they can be so affirming. If I slip out to go to the bathroom for a minute, when I come back, Peter runs and hurls hugs at me like we've been apart for....a bit longer than three minutes, hehe. They are such a hoot, yesterday Yuan Yuan told me she liked me too much in Chinese...it was very cute, she thought it was very funny and we had a good laughfest over it.

Also, kids are mighty fashionable these days! I have to say, their clothes are far cooler than mine-- I have a class of trendsetters! My clothes do have a mighty colorful display of recording every time we have ever used crayons. I do have a jacket that some of the girls like, and it is really cute because I help them button up their jackets for recess and now they try to button me up too.

Same with wiping noses. It's amazing how quickly illness topples through a classroom and the kids go down like dominoes. I am always on wiping noses patrol. Then when I inevitably get sick some of the kids try to wipe my nose. Or they just wipe their noses on my hands if we are holding hands! (We are working on not doing that so much).

We have gone on two field trips thus far and I have to say, such trips make me want to send thank you notes to all of the teachers that have taken us on field trips. It is hilarious because once you make sure everyone has gone to the bathroom before boarding the bus, everyone has their bags, everyone is on the bus....then comes bathroom and car-sick monitoring, followed by deboarding the bus, another round of bathrooms and car sickness monitoring, then snack time. Insert field trip activity here (even though it seems like 5 minutes, I think it is a bit longer). Then another round of bathroom visits (which is tricky in public bathrooms trying to track all the young ones and make sure they don't fall in--literally, haha). Finally it's back on the bus, if you are lucky enough to still have all the children in tow. I had a slight panic attack and thought I lost Ge Ge (her grandfather came and picked her up early, I didn't know that at first) and oh my, a whole new fear sets in when you think you have potentially lost someones child! Oh my goodness. Tricky letting the young ones run wild outside of the safe, structured confines of classrooms!

In any event, I adore my kids, every one of them is my favorite in his or her own way. To know them is to love them!