Lessons Learned

I love teaching the toddlers! I almost never get to know whether anything I have taught them sinks in, but a few months ago, we had the lesson of Samuel listening to God. Our Bible words were: "Samuel says, 'Speak, Lord, I'm listening." Elijah said his verse perfectly and added, "And Elijah says, 'Speak, Lord, I'm listening' too!"

A few weeks ago, Natalie was telling her dad that she loved him. He asked if she knew what love was. She thought for a moment, then started singing, "Oh, how I love Jesus... because He first loved me."

I think it was Natalie again who, in the middle of read-aloud from a snake book, said, "Oh, no, I don't think I can handle this!" Was it the snakes, or my reading??

Tonight Derrick read his Bible verses all by himself, with a little help figuring out the word "friends."

Snippets from School

In reading class, my third graders ran across the word "cannibal", so I asked it they knew what it meant. They were very puzzled, but one girl finally figured it out, "Cannibals are the people who live in Canada."
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I read my class a math picture book. It ended with the poem "As I was going to St. Ives, I met a man with seven wives..."
We were working on multiplication, so I drew the man and his seven wives on the board.
My class of eight year olds (all boys) were amazed: "Wow, that's a lot of wives!"
"Yeah, one for every day of the week! Sorry, honey, you're not my wife today; it's a different one."
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One of my students was very excited because they'd gotten new gravel delivered for their driveway, and it was "full of maggots". He wanted to know if he could bring some in to show.
Maggots???
"Did you mean agates?" I asked.
"Oh yeah, agates!"
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I'm starting a unit on habitats and animals' needs in second grade. I gave a brief pretest asking what wild animals need in order to survive. One little guy listed: "Animals need food, like apples; and to run and play and tiptoe." Tiptoe?
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My introduction to one student one year:
"Miss A., Miss A.! Henry's blowing his nose in his hand and throwing it on people!"
I didn't have to ask whether the accusation was true; evidence was dripping from his face and hands.
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Today we were talking about how smoke and hot air rise. So one of my little guys thought it over: "So then if we sweat a lot, does that mean we can fly?"
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As we were sorting transportation toys into "same" and "different", I decided to challenge my very analytical preschooler to sort by something other than color or type. "Travis, do airplanes go on the road?" (Hoping we could start to sort by "road" and "not road".) "Well..." he spoke slowly, "when it lands it goes on the road."

Derrickisms

While I go to evening classes, my son goes to grandma's house. Well, last time, he was fussing, "I don't want to go to Grandma's!"
"Why not?"
"She says bad words to me!"
"Grandma does? What kind of bad words?"
"She says, 'Time for bed, Derrick."
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We were driving to school the other day, and Derrick was very quiet in the back seat, except for some smacking noises... Finally he said, "Mom, guess what? I'm pretending my boogers are medicines!"
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His latest topic was the fire department. The fire department burns down old houses, according to him. If your house is old, they will burn it for you. But you should not have them burn down your new house because then there will be no place for you to sleep or to take a bath or to go to your mom's room to throw up in the middle of the night!
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Derrick's getting very good at riding his bike, so I keep warning him not to go in the road or a car will squish him "flatter than a pancake". Today he replied, "Yes, and then someone will come and take me home and flip me over and eat me with syrup!"
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Okay, maybe I've overemphasized this staying with mom in the store idea. Derrick said today "We don't want to wander away from our moms because someone might say, 'Hey, there's a fine-lookin' little dude,' and take us home with them."
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"A burp starts in your stomach, then it moves a little bit, then it travels through your stomach, then through your chest, then into your throat, then up to your chin, then you open your mouth and burp."
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Never ask a five year old for affirmation. Today I was trying on a new outfit and asked him how I looked. He picked up a piece of paper, "The instructions say that... Mommy is not pretty today. Sorry, Mom, that's what the instructions say."
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I guess when you're only five, you have to celebrate every sign of growth. Tonight as he was brushing his teeth, I heard, "Oh, yes! Finally! Mom, I'm finally starting to grow fur in my nose!"
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D. saw a photo of a pregnant woman's belly, complete with stretch marks. "Mom, what are all those lines from?" So I explained that the lines are called stretch marks, and they happen when a baby starts growing big inside its mother. "Oh, and it takes markers and draws on her tummy?"
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D. was picking out a movie to watch tonight. He chose a movie about the life of Jesus because, he said "lately I've been naughty."
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D. was commenting on how white his skin is... "but if I spoke Spanish, my skin would be brown."
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Derrick was eating lunch with the director at Head Start. She asked if he would like more milk. "Oh, yes, sure. Men like me, we need our God-given strength to defeat those Philistines."
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Today, Derrick was so excited about his school snack. "Mom, you won't believe what we had for snack! We had Jingles!"
Jingles
"Jingles are so good!"
"You had Jingles?"
"Yes. They had frosting inside them."
Ah-hah! "Derrick, were they called Ding-dongs?"
"Yes, Jingles."
Jingle bells... ding dong...
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Derrick has been losing teeth lately, almost faster than the tooth fairy can collect them. He explained to our foster care certifier why he puts his teeth on his bedside table instead of under his pillow: "Because the tooth fairy would get trapped, and if I lifted up the pillow to see what I got, I'd just see a dead tooth fairy."
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He also described how we will deal with our foster baby moving back to her family: "Well, she'll go back to her mom and dad, and we'll feel sad because she's such a wunnerful baby." Pause for a dramatic sigh. "But she will be forever in our hearts."