Overheard in Kindergarten.

Yesterday as one of the Kindergarten classes was lined up in a single-file line and was filing out of Spanish Enrichment, I overheard one of the boys saying, "Logan! Will you stop following me?!"

That one kept me chuckling all day!

A picture is worth a thousand words. Or at least the opinion of one hundred kindergartners.

Every Wednesday I head over to the elementary school and volunteer with the Kindergarten Enrichment Program.  There isn't enough money in the school budget for our kindergartners to receive any official Enrichment classes such Music, Spanish, PE, Art, and Science.  So to make up for this every year the PTO recruits parents to fill the void and teach the classes.

I did this last year when Peter was in kindergarten and I'm doing it again this year with Sarah.  It is a big time commitment but my kids love the fact that I help out and it is a great way to get to know all of the kids that my kids will be going through school with.

I help my neighbor Lisa teach Spanish.  She and I both took French in high school but luckily that doesn't matter.  And right now thanks to Kindergarten Enrichment, I probably know more Spanish than French.   

After the Enrichment program is over most of the parents stay to have lunch with their kids.  And Lisa and I usually jokingly ask our daughters which Enrichment class they enjoyed the most because we know they don't like Spanish.

Sarah always responds with PE and Lily always responds with Music.  Oh, well.  I guess I don't blame them.  We try to make Spanish fun but there's only so much you can do with the names of the parts of the body or with the animal names.

Sarah came home yesterday with this drawing in her backpack.

Her teacher had asked each student to write  their favorite Enrichment class and then illustrate it.  Sarah wrote "I like Sanesh".  Translation: I like Spanish.

How sweet!

She proudly described the different elements of her picture.  Lisa is the woman with the black curly hair standing in the center of the drawing.  I am the purple figure sitting in a chair.   (Which is my normal spot.)  The numbers on the other side of the drawing represent the class singing the Spanish number song.  Uno, dos, tres....you get the idea.

I told her I loved the drawing and then I asked her if anyone else drew Spanish.  She shook her head and said, "No.  I was the only one."  Figures.

And as she walked away I examined the drawing a little more closely.  The red and purple circle is the rug the students sit on during Spanish.  And if you will note, the three students sitting on the rug all have big frowns on their faces.

I guess it's true what they say....

Una imagen vale mil palabras.

Tres Mocos

I'm working with the Kindergarten Enrichment program again this year. I didn't want to do it again but Sarah asked if I was going to "be in her class this year like you were in Peter's last year?" How could I say no to that?

Every Wednesday morning I assist another mom in teaching Spanish to all 5 kindergarten classes. And if you recall from last year when I wrote about helping out, I don't speak Spanish. I took French in high school. Luckily at this stage of the game it's pretty easy to keep ahead of them.

As we were sitting in a circle going through the numbers 1 - 10 in Spanish, I glanced around the circle and noticed one boy absentmindedly pulling his finger out of his nose.

And stuck to that finger was a big ole booger. And I say stuck because it was not a dry flaky one. It was a wet sticky stretchy one.

You know the kind I'm talking about.

And before I could even utter the words "Go get a Kleenex!" his finger immediately traveled from his nose to his mouth.

My eyes widened in horror and I felt my stomach lurch.

I sat still, silent and motionless. The damage was already done. Nothing could be gained at this point by interrupting the Spanish lesson and reprimanding and embarrassing this boy.

So I remained criss-cross applesauce on the floor with the kids trying not to throw up into the circle.

And the little boy continued counting...uno, dos, tres, quatro, cinco.... completely unaware that I had witnessed his indiscretion. Heck - I'm sure he was completely unaware that he had even committed an indiscretion!

But it gets worse.

Not only did I witness this one kid pick and eat a booger, I witnessed ANOTHER KID from another class do the exact same thing. And once again it all happened so fast I didn't have a chance to stop it.

But the woman I work with is more astute and quicker-witted than I am because right in the middle of the number review in yet another class I heard her scream, "Noooooooooooooo! Don't put that on the carpet! Get a Kleenex!"

And she wasn't quite fast enough either because I looked over just in time to see this boy wiping his picker-finger onto the carpet.

TRES MOCOS. That's THREE BOOGERS in one morning!

Next week before we review the numbers in Spanish I think we need to review MOCOS and KLEENEX and how nicely the two go together.