kidswisdom

Super Hero

2007-10-19T14:24:00.000-07:00

I wore a necklace to school today that I had not worn this year. It is a jade circle with black string that is from China. One of the boys came up to me and asked if I was 'air bender'. I guess it has magical powers!

Boy, Girl, or Other?

2007-09-19T18:37:00.000-07:00

I normally do not go inside the bathroom with the child, I wait out in the hallway while the girls finish up and line up in the hallway. Today after being sneezed on I decided to sneak in and wash my hands at one of the 3 sinks. The following dialogue took place

Child: "Teacher, you cannot come in here!"

Me: "Why not?"

Child: "You are not a girl!"

Me: "What am I then?"

Child: " You are a teacher!"

Other child: "She is a girl and a teacher!"

Child: "No she is not!"

What starts with 'O'?

2007-07-24T20:12:00.000-07:00

Going through a diagnostic test with our PreK children we show them the letters of the alphabet, ask them what letters they recognize, what sounds they can make, and what words start with each letter. One of our little ones gets to the letter O, and states the correct letter, and the correct sound. I ask him a word that starts with O, and he states "Oh, snap!"

Gotta give it to him on that one!

Why don't we use the metric system?

2007-05-20T18:26:00.000-07:00

On the bus driving back from a field trip, two of my kids are talking about how big an inch is. One girl holds up her fingers measuring roughly an inch, and asks me if this is how big an inch is. I answer yes, and decide to make this a teachable moment, and expand to tell the girls how there are 12 inches in a foot, marking the length with my two hands. The girls follow my explanation, and when I finish speaking, one of the girls pipes up earnestly, "well how many inches are in a hand?"
Where to begin.....

Where the lost things go

2007-05-14T20:02:00.000-07:00

I had a five year old helper as I cleaned up today and whenever we found something that had no owner, he declared confidently, "this belongs in the lost and fountain!"

How many jobs does your dad have?

2007-05-14T19:54:00.000-07:00

Talking to one of my girls today she was explaining that her dad used to have a different job. I mentioned his current job, and she told me "my dad has two jobs". I asked her what these two jobs were, and she answered "Playing with me and going to school". I told her that would be three things, to which she pondered for a moment, and said "you are right, he has three jobs!"

Dad's Occupation

2007-04-30T10:24:00.000-07:00

One of the boys in my class has a father who works with the major league baseball team in town. On Friday there was a game, and the boy looked up and told me he wouldn't see his father that night because his dad had to do liver stories. He repeated it, liver stories, that he had to count and do math and make sure everything was right. Ah...INVENTORIES. makes sense.

Religious Terms

2007-04-30T10:22:00.000-07:00

As we were doing journals last week, one young spoke in her story of a character who "Signed up the Cross". I was a little confused, but kept writing. A few minutes later I realized she was referring to the "Signs of the Cross".

What is a marine?

2007-04-30T10:21:00.000-07:00

At the park today, the kids were intriuged when a group of marines stopped from their morning jog and began to do exercises on the playground equiptment. They were in the middle of doing chin ups, pull ups, etc. when one young boy exclaimed to his friend "those are the strong boys who like to eat hot dogs!". The school had a yard sale the previous weekend and apparently lots of these strong boys came by for hot dogs.

What is a marathon?

2007-03-19T11:58:00.000-07:00

Reading a book, "Dogs can't run marathons", we ask the children if anybody knows what a marathon is. One little boy quickly raises his hand. When called on, he answers "a marathon is when they show sponge-bob over and over and over again".

What is a hippie?

2007-02-28T18:18:00.000-08:00

During the afterschool program today, I sat with a male staff member, and a fourth grade boy. Out of the blue, the boy turns to the other staff member and says "you are a hippie". Laughing at this comment, my coworker asks "and why is that?"

The fourth grader replies without missing a beat, "because you have a big nose, you have a mustache, and you have funny hair".

"Tell me what you REALLY think of me", my coworker replies.

(mind you, this man is in his early 20's, shaved this morning, and has hair that looks pretty normal!)

Where grapes come from

2007-02-12T10:15:00.001-08:00

At lunch today one girl was eating her grapes with great enthusiasm. She looked up to me and told me, "My mom made these grapes for me. She made them using apple juice and orange seeds".

So THATS where grapes come from :)

Meat Eaters

2007-02-06T05:09:00.000-08:00

Dialogue from one of the four year old boys:

Can people eat pigs?
They can they wash the mud off? And then they are nice and clean and then they cook and they eat.
I don’t think its good, I guess I will not try it

Marraige

2007-01-05T04:46:00.000-08:00

During my aftercare I was confronted by two of the boys who told me "we KNOW you are married". I was curious and asked how they knew I was married. "Because we saw you get in a car with a boy yesterday". I was opening my mouth to respond that merely being in a car with a boy does not mean you are married yet, but before I could speak, one of the boys cut me off and state "please do not talk about marraige, it upsets me, kind of like talking about going to the doctor." I was silenced.

Potty Talk

2006-12-23T14:55:00.000-08:00

Outside on the cold playground during recess, one of the girls asked me to let her in to go to the bathroom. I let her in, and then went back to sit down with the kids on the playground. A few minutes later, she returns from the bathroom, and comes near where I am sitting. She mopes around for a few minutes, without saying anything. I ask her what is wrong, and she says "I am wet". To which I ask, "are you wet from the sink or are you wet from potty?". She replies "from potty". So I walk her inside to change her out of her wet clothes, and I ask her if she didn't make it to the bathroom. She replies, "I made it to the bathroom, but I didn't make it to the commode on time".

Suprised that she would use this word, I asked her if she learned it from her parents, and she said "no, I learned it at school".

Not at my school!

More wisdom on aging

2006-12-18T11:14:00.000-08:00

On the way inside after a trip to the park this morning, one of the verbal little girls in the class looked up at me after a few pensive moments, and out of the blue stated "when you get old, you shrink a little bit, and then die". I didn't really have a response, so we just kept on walking up the stairs. How these thoughts enter their little minds, who knows!

Maturity

2006-12-05T09:00:00.000-08:00

On the playground during after school, to keep from freezing I was joining the 2nd graders in a game of tag. Running around the playground and having a good time, one of the girls stops and asks me, "Ms. Conner, do you feel more like a grown up or a kid?". Hmmm...wonder what she was hinting at!
I told her you can feel like a kid and an adult at different times. That you are never too old to act like a kid sometimes!

Very removed from the concept of "farm"

2006-12-01T07:44:00.000-08:00

When reading a story, the word "Flock" came up. We asked the kids if the knew what flock meant. One girl quickly raised her hand, and authoritatively stated that "it is like a flock of vilosa-raptors, or a flock of unicorns. A whole group of them". How that was the first thing to come to her mind, who knows!

Missing the point a bit

2006-11-24T11:27:00.000-08:00

At five years old, you can't really expect kids to understand a lot of the abstract, especially when it comes to something like religion. Being a Catholic school, the children recite the "Our Father" every day, and have now memorized the words. We also have a section of our room with different religious objects for the children to look at and explore. I watched two girls over in the corner one day, putting on the Rosary beads as a necklace, flipping through the books, and picking up two small crosses that were on the table. They turned around and saw me watching and told me in all seriousness, "These are our 'Tres-Passes".

These kids are used to the bathroom 'Passes' that they must take in order to use the restroom, and for all they knew, the prayer they said every day was about a different kind of pass - a "Tres-Pass".

Concept of Age, and Extinction

2006-11-13T19:01:00.000-08:00

Twice today I had the pleasure of overhearing 4 & 5 year old talk about what is 'old'. The first situation came up when I was mentioning to my co-teacher that my mom made great lasagna. One boy looked up from his lunch and said, "but your mom isn't alive anymore. You live by yourself". I asked him if he had a grandma. And he said yes. I told him that a grandma is a grown-ups mom. And that sometimes great-grandmothers are alive too. This baffled him. That these big tall adults in his classroom actually have families too.

Later on the circle, two of our girls were talking. One told the other that her grandma was old. Which visibly offended the latter girl. To which the first girl replied "OK, fine, just 'sort of' old". This pleased the second girl.

And lastly, today we were reading a story where a dinasaur looked in the window. The story later said that it must have been pretend b/c dinasaurs are extinct. I stopped and asked the class if they knew what 'extinct' meant. A remarkable number of kids raised their hands. I asked one of them, and they said, "they smell bad". Well said.

Magic

2006-11-06T06:49:00.000-08:00

As I was babysitting, the three year old girl who was entranced by the Clifford movie we were watching, asked "How do I go inside the DVD? I want to get inside the movie with Clifford.". Unsure of how to respond without crushing her hopes of entering DVD land, I told her the first answer I could think of, Magic. She quietly pondered this for a few moments, after which she stated, "I'll have to wait until my mom comes home and ask her to teach me. She can show me magic and I will be able to go into the DVD and say hi to Clifford and Emily Elizabeth and all their friends". If only magic were something that simple! Or maybe it is, I guess I never asked my mom!

Baldness, from a child's eyes

2006-11-01T19:12:00.000-08:00

On the playground afterschool, the father of one of the kids came to pick him up. Usually the mother arrives for him, so he wanted to meet some of his son's new friends. They called over one of his son's closest buddies in class, and he comes running across the playground to say hello. Without introducing himself, saying hello, or talking to his friend, he looks straight at the father and states "You have very little hair!" The father had to agree.

It's the little things

2006-10-29T12:40:00.000-08:00

On Friday we had our Halloween party for the children in the after school program. From the adult's perspective, it was a chaotic afternoon, but to the kids, it was something special. As I watched over the Halloween crafts room, one of the verbal first graders stated loudly enough for all in the room to hear, "This is the best day of my entire life". One of the mothers in the room asks why, and she explains "It is free dress day, we get to roam the halls by ourselves during the party, and I get to paint". There you have it. Thats all she needs!

Healthy Eating

2006-10-17T18:58:00.000-07:00

During the kids' lunch today I was standing by the door, beginning to peel the shell off a hard boiled egg that I had brought for a snack today. One of the girls seated nearby calls from her seat "Miss Conner, what are you doing?". I tell her that I am eating the hardboiled egg, but since I do not like the yellow part, I am throwing that away and just eating the white outside. Another girl turns around, and in a very repremanding way, says "but Miss Conner, the yellow part is such an excellent source of protien!".
Not only was I baffled that a 4-year-old understands protien, eggs, and health, but then I felt like I had to explain myself, that I usually eat the yellow parts when my eggs are scrambled, just not when they are not hard boiled.

When did Jesus live?

2006-10-13T10:43:00.000-07:00

Walking down to get milk for lunch, I was with a little boy and a little girl. The girl saw a painting on the wall and mentioned Jesus, and asked if he was still alive. I told her that he was not alive on Earth anymore. And the boy said, with great confidence, that no, Jesus is not alive now, he was alive in the 50s.

Mosquitos

2006-10-13T10:40:00.000-07:00

On the way inside from the park, one of our little girls had just been bitten by a mosquito -- and as she walked to the bathroom, commenting on how she was worried what it was doing to her body, she said "I wish God did not invent mosquitoes" -- to which I agreed!