Real Real

Kids are so real…and I could take a lesson.

I had the privilege and joy of working in a bilingual/dual immersion Kindergarten classroom at Cambridge this morning. Be still my heart. Such joy!

I was just an extra set of hands and eyes in the classroom as the teacher went about her regular daily routine…on “pijama” (aka “piyama”) day and the day before spring break which tells you that there was absolutely nothing routine about the day! I fell right into “teacher mode” as soon as I stepped into the room and found myself helping with putting things away, getting students to the rug, and answering myriad questions.

About mid morning, after Spanish instruction, the kids were sent to their seats to get out their workbooks and pull out “page 296”. That was a challenge unto itself! After helping them get their booklets prepared, I just meandered among the tables seeing where a smidge of assistance might be needed. These 5-6 year olds are actually READING!!! (Their teacher is phenomenal.)

I immediately was drawn to a boy in green Hulk “pijamas” who not only wasn’t participating in the reading activity, he hadn’t even pulled out the page. I pulled up a chair next to him (a very small kindergarten-sized chair), as I observed his avoidance strategies – aka – fiddling around. He was poking his neighbor, picking at his pencil, etc. He clearly was struggling to figure out the reading process, but boy oh boy, he has figured out how to avoid it! But never fear, Ms. D-T to the rescue! Hahaha…if only…

As we got started working on the “sílabas”, he immediately started poking at my hand, noticing my dry skin and he asked “¿Qué pasó?. With my very best “you’re so sweet to ask, but this is not our task” face, I glanced at him and ignored his pokes and his question. This was not my first rodeo and I had a whole bag of tricks I could use to entice him to look at the book instead of my dry winter hands. Back to the book…

When his pokes and question failed to distract ME from our task, he started poking my arm and plugging his nose as he looked at me. I had to curtail my smile when he asked me why I smelled like coffee which reminded me of all the years that kids told me I smelled like coffee – some said they liked the smell, others not so much.

Well here’s the real real…this little one clearly did not like the smell of coffee and he told me that I needed to “cepillarse los dientes”. (Don’t judge my Spanish if I got it wrong!)

Oh my gosh. I can’t wait to go back to Kindergarten!!!