Birthdays

As if the social, cultural, and economic gap wasn't obvious enough between my class and the other classes, anytime a students birthday rolls around it becomes painfully obvious. Many of my students' parents do not have reliable means of transportation and/or the ability to take time off of work. In addition to these factors, most my kids come on the bus and a parent/guardian has yet to put a flat of cupcakes in the hands of a 5 year old who is about to be responsible for them for thirty bumpy minutes.
Today, in the morning class across from me there was a birthday celebration that rivaled any I've ever seen. The little boy's family came in and stayed with him the WHOLE day. They brought cupcakes, fruit, and cutesy plates to match. The normally boring and sticky picnic table outside was decorated with bright green paper and last but most certainly not least...everyone got their face painted!! Each little cheek spider, nose rainbow, or set of cat whiskers even received a few sparkly jewels on top.

Wow and wow!

I have seen neither hide nor hair of a single cupcake, cookie, or face painter all year.

I Spy

Today while waiting for the ever more increasingly unreliable bus driver, several little games of I Spy cropped up...just last week I was stranded in front of the school for 25 minutes with 35 kids k-6 and we killed time with Simon Says but my voice paid the price later. So, I Spy it was. It was Mauricio's turn and he stated, "I spy something brown." A couple of guesses later..."Sergio's shoes?", "Xavier's jacket?", the bark on the tree?" and Mauricio can't contain himself..."No, you guys! It's Aniyah!!!"

Wha?
Whoa!
What the what?

I look at Aniyah and she is shocked and frozen. I am speechless. Mauricio was very proud of himself for stumping us and didn't notice the cloud of OMG that surrounded him. In all fairness, he meant it completely innocently and as I thought about it more he might have even meant it as an honor...such as, you are important enough to be my I Spy object for others to seek out (okay, maybe that is a little deep as I reread it, but he has a pure heart like that). Additionally, he was right. Aniyah has a most beautiful complection. Even at six, you can tell she is going to be a stunner some day.

I don't know what provoked Aniyah's response, but she sure felt like that was not an okay thing to say. Once I picked my jaw up off the ground and looked at the three of us though, I realized that we were all varying shades of brown. Probably not very p.c., butI said so and they agreed, shrugged, and moved onto the next person's turn.

Seaweed

Double post today because it is too good to not share. Our reading unit right now is called By the Sea. I follow a blog about a male kindergarten teacher that is hilarious and sweet and inspiring. He calls his kids his "sprouts" and I can frequently picture my students in his stories. Well, we must follow the same curriculum because yesterday he wrote about bringing in seaweed for his sprouts to taste and how proud of them he was for trying it. I ran right out and got a package of seaweed too and let my little friends try it today. My kids also made me very proud! Only a few of them refused to try it and one kid even asked for more!! One kid did dry heave a little and they all opted for a drink of water afterwards, but I smiled the whole drive home thinking about how courageous they were for not being scared to try something new and weird.

12

Actually had 12 students show up for Open House tonight! I met some students' parents that I didn't even know existed. It was great! It was also something I wish had happened a long time ago. Some kids are SO different around their parents and some things just click when you see the whole family unit together. Some kids are way wilder around their parents than they are around me, which blows my mind to see them misbehave and act crazy. On the other hand, one of my little girls who is normally a confident little chatterbox around me and our class acted very shy and vulnerable around her mom. Interesting. Anyhoo, a very successful end to a very long three weeks of planning and a very long day. Time for bed!

A little help?

What exactly am I supposed to do about seeing one of my student's mother and grandmother simultaneously panhandle on separate corners? This is the second time I have seen his grandmother panhandle by the way.

Hello?

It is kind of hard to have a home-school connection when the three homes I tried to contact ALL had disconnected/out of service phone numbers. Very frustrating! It's not like I was looking forward to speaking with anyone anyway. Making phone calls is one of my least favorite teacher duties...that and teaching children how to blow their noses...yuck!

Tooth fairy.

Tooth loss is abundant lately. It started with one student and then boom, boom, boom! Kids were losing teeth left and right. With all the teeth falling out of their little heads has come Tooth Fairy hysteria...and of course, skepticism, but that is for a later time. Ameya showed me her latest loss today and told me about the moola she raked in. She said, "The tooth fairy left me a dollar! Not like the paper dollars, but the special metal dollars...four of them!!" Then, she explained about the little pouch she was carrying the money in. By the way, they weren't special "metal dollars", they were quarters. "The tooth fairy left the money in THIS, but it's my cousin's! She had to go in my cousin's room first to get it and then put the money in it and then put it under my pillow! Pshh, that Tooth Fairy! She is SO silly!"