I Knew Them Briefly
Our paths crossed
Our trails did entwine
For thirty-six weeks
They were partly mine.
They sensed my weaknesses
And I knew theirs well,
But pretty much
We learned to dwell
In decent harmony.
We shared some thoughts
And learned some skills,
I made some adjustments
To third-grader's wills
We've known each other
Only part of a year,
A precious short time
To have had them near.
I've known them briefly
A happy while
To have shared their childhood
Primary-style.
-Marion Kennedy
This is a poem by my great aunt, who passed away at the age of 95 a few weeks ago. I went to her memorial service yesterday, which was a celebration of the long life she led. Like I am studying to be, Marion was an elementary school teacher. This poem really spoke to me. I learned at the service yesterday that she wrote a lot of poems about different things including her teaching. She even wrote poems for her students, which I thought was a great idea. She had a stuffed elf that would be on a different student's desk each day, accompanied by a poem for the student. I felt very inspired after hearing all about my great aunt, and hope to lead in her footsteps and become a great teacher just like she was.
Sunday, September 16, 2012
Saturday, August 18, 2012
Last Day of Camp
As I write this blogpost, my lovely roommate Karlie (Check out her blog here) is blogging about the infestation of silverfish that has taken over our home. Really we've only seen two at different times, (so they could be the same one) but still. It's pretty gross when they are in your kitchen. I will let her focus on that topic though, and I will tell all of you about my last day of camp yesterday!
It seemed fitting to write one blogpost about the last day of camp since I combined the first 39 days of camp into one post. But day 40 will get its own post. So lucky! As I walked into the gym yesterday, a few of my fellow counselors were reading a letter and eating munchkins that my director had gotten for us from Dunkin Donuts. The letter, which I read shortly after, ended up being from the parents of one of the five-year-olds who has been coming to camp since the first week. It was such a sweet letter and made me tear up while I was reading it since I have worked a lot with the boy that it was written about. The parents were so grateful for all of the staff at camp as well as how the camp was set up with different activities for their child to choose from, especially since this was the first full day week long camp that the boy had participated in. They wrote about how he had broken out of his shell, and always had stories to tell them both after camp. It was amazing to see the growth in some of the five-year -olds that came to camp regularly since these children had not even been to kindergarten yet. Another boy had a lot of trouble listening for most of camp, but when asking him to do something yesterday I could really notice how much the camp had helped in his preparedness for kindergarten. He listened to what I said and followed the direction without even asking why.
Some parents also made cookies, which we enjoyed during the day. One pair of sisters made a homemade card that was very thoughtful, and the day before a boy handed out handmade necklaces to the counselors. It is great to feel appreciated especially after putting a lot of my energy this summer into camp. Although it does feel good to have a brief break from camp before I start student teaching, it was sad to say good-bye to some of the campers. I will probably cross paths with at least some of them in the future though. Who knows, maybe I will get a job in the town that the camp took place in. It does have some great schools.
Another anecdote to share from camp yesterday was when we were outside using chalk on the pavement on the basketball courts. After I traced one of the campers on the blacktop, she seemed less than pleased about how it turned out (tracing anything with chalk is pretty difficult). She said, "Emily, I don't want to make you feel sad, but I think this looks kind of silly." She was so nice about it that it made me laugh. Another thing that made me laugh was when we were playing telephone at the end of the day, and the word "oranges" turned into "boo-boo." It makes me laugh even more that it was a counselor that came up with the brilliant phrase "oranges" to start off the round of telephone. I started the next and final round by saying, "I'm sad camp is ending." It turned out as "I'm sad camp is over." The kids did much better with that one. After telephone I said good-bye to all of the other counselors and my director for the afternoon. Since we have a different director and counselors in the mornings, I had already bid adieu to some of them. I walked out of camp feeling satisfied and ready to tackle whatever waited for me at home (most likely the silverfishies).
Thursday, August 16, 2012
Summer Camp!
For the past seven weeks, this being the eighth week, I have worked at a day camp. I work from 8:30 to 5 everyday, which basically means I am running around with small children for most of that time, and am exhausted by the end of the day. The camp is for kids ages 5-12, which is a HUGE range. In the beginning I worked mostly with the five and six year olds, but lately my director has been encouraging us to work with different ages each day in order to keep each of us sane. I have still been working with the younger ones quite a bit though to prepare myself for student teaching in a kindergarten class in the fall! It's crazy that some of the kids in camp have not been to kindergarten yet, and some are about to enter middle school. It works well to split all of this craziness up a lot of the time because surprisingly 12-year olds and 5-year olds do not always mix well. Sometimes the older kids get creepy, long story short. I think the best way to organize this post will be by weeks of camp since we have had a different theme to lead us each week.
Week 1: Vermont Week
This first week was filled with nature walks, tie-dye t-shirts, cows, vermont trivia, and many vermont coloring sheets. One of the first things we did was have the campers decorate two giant cows. Needless to say, they turned out pretty unique. This week was probably one of the most hectic, even though they are all hectic in their own way. The camp has a confusing schedule since there are different counselors in the mornings and afternoons, and only three of us stay the whole day. There are also some campers that stay for the whole day, and some that just come for the morning or afternoon sessions. ANYWAY, that's probably not that interesting for any of you. I also do not remember much from this week, so I will move on.
Week 2: Superhero/Patriotic Week
This week was originally just superhero week, but when we realized it was the same week as the fourth of July, we decided to mix this with a red, white, and blue patriotic week. This actually worked out pretty well because we included local superheroes in our week, which included a visit from the police and fire departments of the city. This week was also great because we had wednesday off for the fourth of July! It was a nice break in the middle of the week, even though it would have made more sense to have a three day weekend somewhere in there. I was sad that I wasn't able to go home for the day, but I did visit the next weekend to get a little fix of southern vermont Fourth of July festivities. At camp, we also had dress up as a superhero day on friday, in which I went as "Super Counselor" wearing a cape that I made earlier in the week. I think one of the most memorable costumes was "Super Monkey," brought to you by a camper that love monkeys. This week also contributed to my continued hate of glitter in children's crafts, and always for that matter. We made sparkling glitter masks, and fireworks displays on black construction paper, and let me tell you..glitter is THE WORST to clean up. The things we sacrifice for these kids...
Week 3: Animal Week
It took me a while to remember the theme to this week even though I am fond of the animals, and the animal weeks. An exciting part of this week was when I led the whole camp in various animals songs. There are a surprising amount of songs about animals, but it is difficult to find ones that all of the campers will know the lyrics to, or that I will know the lyrics to for that matter. Baby shark was a hit as always, even though I only went up to the verse about grandma and grandpa shark, and decided to spare the kids by not teaching them the verses which describe the shark attack. We also had a water day this week, which was the same for most of the other weeks too, especially when there was a really hot day right smack dab in the middle of the week. We came up with a game that involved asking animal related questions and letting campers dump water on the counselors if they answered a question right. If they did not know the answer, we would dump water on them. We did this for superhero week as well. I do not know very much about superheroes, which led to me getting pretty wet. Should have brought a change of clothes...
Week 4: Space Week
Space week involved playing many of the same games that most of the campers already knew, but switching the names of the games to make them relate to space. We would also change some of the content of the game, but when the campers would say "this is just like -----," we would assure them that it was NOTHING like that game, and a completely different game. (Lies) Anyway, we continued to do this for all of the other theme weeks as well. Needless to say, most of the kids caught on to our trickery. Speaking of games, I would just like to say that I have learned SO MANY GAMES this summer. It is great, because I am sure I will use many of them in my future as a teacher. Maybe not the ones that involve lots of running around and tagging, but still a bunch of them. I have started a list of all of the random games I know to use a reference tool when I am trying to think of something to play with my students. I also realized that my knowledge of space does not go much further than what I learned from my dad watching Apollo 13 repetitively during my childhood, plus the names of the planets. Oh! and the musical Even Stevens episode with the "We went to the moon in 1969..." song. Yep, I think that's about it.
Also during the fourth week of camp, we had a "midsummer training" for two hours after camp...at a bowling alley. This involved the director of the camps talking at us for a while about things we had written down about how camp was going so far, and then they provided us with one free game of bowling. The actual training wasn't super useful but the highlight of my night was bowling the best game ever. For me, that was a score of something around 154. You can tell me if that is actually good or not, but I know I got a lot of strikes and spares and impressed my fellow counselors. Or maybe they just thought I was weird for being good at bowling? I'll never know...
Week 5: Disney Week
Disney week was great. We watching Toy Story 1 and 2 during the course of the week, and we went on a field trip to get ice cream one of the mornings. We sang and listened to a lot of disney songs, and played freeze dance and musical dots to different disney songs. We also had a costume parade at the end of the week. One six-year-old wore a Winnie the Pooh costume, which was clearly made for his 3-year-old self. So that was pretty amusing. Also, a five-year-old Jack Sparrow was pretty adorable. I put on a tiara and we paraded around the field for no one in particular.
Week 6: Olympic Week
Olympic week put me into shape more than any of the other weeks of camp. We played a lot of games every week of camp, but this week was definitely more active than any other. I started to become more competitive, especially when we split up into different countries to compete in olympic games. Interestingly enough, the four countries the campers chose were Italy, USA, China, and South Africa. South Africa won the whole olympics. My favorite event of this week was playing volleyball with a beach ball, campers against four counselors. We dominated, obviously. We got way too competitive, even though it was four twenty-something-year-olds against 8-11 year olds. At least it wasn't the five and six-year-olds, right? The counselors also finally decided to participate in the slip-n-slide this week, which I did not regret at all. Even when I was so wet that I made a puddle underneath myself on the cafeteria floor. Ironically, this was the same day that two campers peed themselves on the slip-n-slide.
Week 7: Carnival/Circus Week
Even though this was the second to last week of camp, we seemed to have more new campers than ever on Monday. I guess families had arrived back from vacations and were already sick of their children. We did not end up doing too many carnival related activities until the last day of the week that involved face painting, balloon animals, and many carnival games in the gym since it was raining outside. Also on this rainy day, we watching Dumbo, which I do not think I have done since I was five. I could not pay attention fully since most of the counselors were multi-tasking and planning other activities for the afternoon, so I should probably re-watch it sometime since it is sitting on the shelf in my living room. I probably won't actually do that ever though.
We had another ice cream field trip this week, which was great. We also went to the local high school for a musical performance from "Mister G." Apparently he has been nominated for a grammy? He's better live than recorded, so try not to judge if you look him up.
Another highlight of this week (I use the word highlight very loosely), was when a girl came up to me and said "I just did a little poop in my pants..." I think this gave me a little sneak peek of what I will be dealing with a lot in a kindergarten classroom. She explained to me how she "just didn't know how it happened." At least she was cute about it... Since then I have dealt with another child peeing themselves. I'd rather have to deal with number 1 than number 2...if ya know what I mean. So yeah, that's that. Yay 5-year-olds!
Week 8: Water Week
Water is the current and final week of camp. It worked out well that this was the last week of camp because also this week we lost three of the four spaces that we normally use in the school. So we basically just have the gym and outside to use for camp. We have been trying to be outside as much as possible, even though the weather has not been completely ideal. I think it is supposed to rain tomorrow, so we might have to watch a movie. It will be Muppet Treasure Island though, so water themed. We have been playing water games outside and using the slip-n-slide and sprinkler quite a bit. We have also played pirate games such as shipwreck (great game), and today we did a treasure hunt, which the kids seemed to really enjoy. One quote that I will remember from this week was from a six-year-old wearing a bikini. She came up to me and said "Look! I'm wearing a bikini! I like it because it shows my tummy." Classic six-year-old... This week has made me hate transition time even more, when it takes what seems like hours for the campers to change into their bathing suits and put on sunscreen. I will not miss that once winter rolls around.
Well, I think this blog is just long enough. I am sure I am forgetting a lot but this is all I have the energy for at the moment, and I want to finish it before water week is actually over! Hope you've enjoyed my ramblings!
Week 1: Vermont Week
This first week was filled with nature walks, tie-dye t-shirts, cows, vermont trivia, and many vermont coloring sheets. One of the first things we did was have the campers decorate two giant cows. Needless to say, they turned out pretty unique. This week was probably one of the most hectic, even though they are all hectic in their own way. The camp has a confusing schedule since there are different counselors in the mornings and afternoons, and only three of us stay the whole day. There are also some campers that stay for the whole day, and some that just come for the morning or afternoon sessions. ANYWAY, that's probably not that interesting for any of you. I also do not remember much from this week, so I will move on.
Week 2: Superhero/Patriotic Week
This week was originally just superhero week, but when we realized it was the same week as the fourth of July, we decided to mix this with a red, white, and blue patriotic week. This actually worked out pretty well because we included local superheroes in our week, which included a visit from the police and fire departments of the city. This week was also great because we had wednesday off for the fourth of July! It was a nice break in the middle of the week, even though it would have made more sense to have a three day weekend somewhere in there. I was sad that I wasn't able to go home for the day, but I did visit the next weekend to get a little fix of southern vermont Fourth of July festivities. At camp, we also had dress up as a superhero day on friday, in which I went as "Super Counselor" wearing a cape that I made earlier in the week. I think one of the most memorable costumes was "Super Monkey," brought to you by a camper that love monkeys. This week also contributed to my continued hate of glitter in children's crafts, and always for that matter. We made sparkling glitter masks, and fireworks displays on black construction paper, and let me tell you..glitter is THE WORST to clean up. The things we sacrifice for these kids...
Week 3: Animal Week
It took me a while to remember the theme to this week even though I am fond of the animals, and the animal weeks. An exciting part of this week was when I led the whole camp in various animals songs. There are a surprising amount of songs about animals, but it is difficult to find ones that all of the campers will know the lyrics to, or that I will know the lyrics to for that matter. Baby shark was a hit as always, even though I only went up to the verse about grandma and grandpa shark, and decided to spare the kids by not teaching them the verses which describe the shark attack. We also had a water day this week, which was the same for most of the other weeks too, especially when there was a really hot day right smack dab in the middle of the week. We came up with a game that involved asking animal related questions and letting campers dump water on the counselors if they answered a question right. If they did not know the answer, we would dump water on them. We did this for superhero week as well. I do not know very much about superheroes, which led to me getting pretty wet. Should have brought a change of clothes...
Week 4: Space Week
Space week involved playing many of the same games that most of the campers already knew, but switching the names of the games to make them relate to space. We would also change some of the content of the game, but when the campers would say "this is just like -----," we would assure them that it was NOTHING like that game, and a completely different game. (Lies) Anyway, we continued to do this for all of the other theme weeks as well. Needless to say, most of the kids caught on to our trickery. Speaking of games, I would just like to say that I have learned SO MANY GAMES this summer. It is great, because I am sure I will use many of them in my future as a teacher. Maybe not the ones that involve lots of running around and tagging, but still a bunch of them. I have started a list of all of the random games I know to use a reference tool when I am trying to think of something to play with my students. I also realized that my knowledge of space does not go much further than what I learned from my dad watching Apollo 13 repetitively during my childhood, plus the names of the planets. Oh! and the musical Even Stevens episode with the "We went to the moon in 1969..." song. Yep, I think that's about it.
Also during the fourth week of camp, we had a "midsummer training" for two hours after camp...at a bowling alley. This involved the director of the camps talking at us for a while about things we had written down about how camp was going so far, and then they provided us with one free game of bowling. The actual training wasn't super useful but the highlight of my night was bowling the best game ever. For me, that was a score of something around 154. You can tell me if that is actually good or not, but I know I got a lot of strikes and spares and impressed my fellow counselors. Or maybe they just thought I was weird for being good at bowling? I'll never know...
Week 5: Disney Week
Disney week was great. We watching Toy Story 1 and 2 during the course of the week, and we went on a field trip to get ice cream one of the mornings. We sang and listened to a lot of disney songs, and played freeze dance and musical dots to different disney songs. We also had a costume parade at the end of the week. One six-year-old wore a Winnie the Pooh costume, which was clearly made for his 3-year-old self. So that was pretty amusing. Also, a five-year-old Jack Sparrow was pretty adorable. I put on a tiara and we paraded around the field for no one in particular.
Week 6: Olympic Week
Olympic week put me into shape more than any of the other weeks of camp. We played a lot of games every week of camp, but this week was definitely more active than any other. I started to become more competitive, especially when we split up into different countries to compete in olympic games. Interestingly enough, the four countries the campers chose were Italy, USA, China, and South Africa. South Africa won the whole olympics. My favorite event of this week was playing volleyball with a beach ball, campers against four counselors. We dominated, obviously. We got way too competitive, even though it was four twenty-something-year-olds against 8-11 year olds. At least it wasn't the five and six-year-olds, right? The counselors also finally decided to participate in the slip-n-slide this week, which I did not regret at all. Even when I was so wet that I made a puddle underneath myself on the cafeteria floor. Ironically, this was the same day that two campers peed themselves on the slip-n-slide.
Week 7: Carnival/Circus Week
Even though this was the second to last week of camp, we seemed to have more new campers than ever on Monday. I guess families had arrived back from vacations and were already sick of their children. We did not end up doing too many carnival related activities until the last day of the week that involved face painting, balloon animals, and many carnival games in the gym since it was raining outside. Also on this rainy day, we watching Dumbo, which I do not think I have done since I was five. I could not pay attention fully since most of the counselors were multi-tasking and planning other activities for the afternoon, so I should probably re-watch it sometime since it is sitting on the shelf in my living room. I probably won't actually do that ever though.
We had another ice cream field trip this week, which was great. We also went to the local high school for a musical performance from "Mister G." Apparently he has been nominated for a grammy? He's better live than recorded, so try not to judge if you look him up.
Another highlight of this week (I use the word highlight very loosely), was when a girl came up to me and said "I just did a little poop in my pants..." I think this gave me a little sneak peek of what I will be dealing with a lot in a kindergarten classroom. She explained to me how she "just didn't know how it happened." At least she was cute about it... Since then I have dealt with another child peeing themselves. I'd rather have to deal with number 1 than number 2...if ya know what I mean. So yeah, that's that. Yay 5-year-olds!
Week 8: Water Week
Water is the current and final week of camp. It worked out well that this was the last week of camp because also this week we lost three of the four spaces that we normally use in the school. So we basically just have the gym and outside to use for camp. We have been trying to be outside as much as possible, even though the weather has not been completely ideal. I think it is supposed to rain tomorrow, so we might have to watch a movie. It will be Muppet Treasure Island though, so water themed. We have been playing water games outside and using the slip-n-slide and sprinkler quite a bit. We have also played pirate games such as shipwreck (great game), and today we did a treasure hunt, which the kids seemed to really enjoy. One quote that I will remember from this week was from a six-year-old wearing a bikini. She came up to me and said "Look! I'm wearing a bikini! I like it because it shows my tummy." Classic six-year-old... This week has made me hate transition time even more, when it takes what seems like hours for the campers to change into their bathing suits and put on sunscreen. I will not miss that once winter rolls around.
Well, I think this blog is just long enough. I am sure I am forgetting a lot but this is all I have the energy for at the moment, and I want to finish it before water week is actually over! Hope you've enjoyed my ramblings!
Saturday, August 11, 2012
Many Months Ago
It has now been somewhere between four and five months since my last blog post. I kept telling myself that I would blog about certain teaching events that ended to be able to reflect on those experiences. I am not really sure if anyone is reading this blog, so for now I suppose I will just write things to remember myself. I started this blog as a way to record little snippets of things children said to me because they are hilarious sometimes. No one can argue with that except maybe someone that hates small children running around with never ending energy supplies, kind of like the energizer bunny. Anyway, I think it might be more useful to use this blog as a journal starting now to record my work/education experiences with children. Maybe I will start a twitter account to record random quotes. Or I can just turn my rarely used twitter account into that, and use it in addition to my stalking actors from The Office and the UVM Men's Basketball team.
To fill those of you in that do not know me personally (probably no one right now, but one day this blog will be famous...that's what usually happens, right?), I am an elementary education major. I am nearing my final semester of studies, which means student teaching! (More about that later)
For now I will try to focus on an afterschool program that I worked at for the duration of the school year. This was a fantastic part time job when I had classes, and luckily my boss was kind enough to give me more hours once I was done with the college school year that ended at the beginning of May. For the remaining of the elementary schoolers year, which lasts just long enough for them to get out of school when actual summer is beginning, I worked five days a week. I have been thinking about writing this blog post since June but never actually got around to it. Now that I am writing it, I am sure I do not remember as much as I would have two months ago. So it probably would have been better then. Oh well.
Working at the afterschool program made me think a lot about the kind of school I want to work at in the future. The program that I worked at took place at a Catholic school right near campus, which was super convenient for me. I should say that I am not Catholic, and do not know very much about Catholicism for that matter. I really only got this job because my friend had worked at the school the previous year and I heard about it through her. Luckily, we did not really do anything differently at the afterschool program than at any elementary school that I had previously worked at. No praying. No hail Marys. No communions. No Confessions. The main difference about this school was that I constantly came in contact with children whose parents obviously had a lot of money to spend on them. Of course this is a huge generalization and was not true for all of the students, but was still very evident. I had many children tell me about the technology that their parents had already supplied them with; things that I did not have until I went away to college. I think this is partly because of our changing culture in addition to the money that these children's families had, but I would like to think that a first grader has no need for a MacBook Pro, especially when this twenty-two year old only has a regular old MacBook. No Pro. Another moment that I remember clearly was when two girls told me they liked my shirt and asked me where I got it. When I told them that I had bought it at a thrift store, they did not understand what that was. They did not seem to understand the concept of used clothing. This is sad to me when there are children and parents in their own communities that are struggling to make ends meet. I know this is the case in most cities and towns in America, but either way, it still makes me sad. This is what makes me wonder whether I want to work at a school where there are a majority of struggling students, whether this struggle occurs because of a lack of money, English-speaking skills, or another of the many possible reasons, or at a school where children have no worry about where their next meal or clothing item is coming from. Of course, there are also many schools that sit somewhere in between these two extremes. I suppose in the end, when the time comes, I might not have a huge say in where I end up working. I'm sure I will apply to many jobs and just take whichever one wants me. This is scary but also exciting to think about. Who knows where I could end up in a few years!
Coming Up Next: Summer Camp Adventures!
Expect more details of my actual experiences since I am still in the midst of camp, about to begin the final week!
And after that: Student Teaching Adventures!
To fill those of you in that do not know me personally (probably no one right now, but one day this blog will be famous...that's what usually happens, right?), I am an elementary education major. I am nearing my final semester of studies, which means student teaching! (More about that later)
For now I will try to focus on an afterschool program that I worked at for the duration of the school year. This was a fantastic part time job when I had classes, and luckily my boss was kind enough to give me more hours once I was done with the college school year that ended at the beginning of May. For the remaining of the elementary schoolers year, which lasts just long enough for them to get out of school when actual summer is beginning, I worked five days a week. I have been thinking about writing this blog post since June but never actually got around to it. Now that I am writing it, I am sure I do not remember as much as I would have two months ago. So it probably would have been better then. Oh well.
Working at the afterschool program made me think a lot about the kind of school I want to work at in the future. The program that I worked at took place at a Catholic school right near campus, which was super convenient for me. I should say that I am not Catholic, and do not know very much about Catholicism for that matter. I really only got this job because my friend had worked at the school the previous year and I heard about it through her. Luckily, we did not really do anything differently at the afterschool program than at any elementary school that I had previously worked at. No praying. No hail Marys. No communions. No Confessions. The main difference about this school was that I constantly came in contact with children whose parents obviously had a lot of money to spend on them. Of course this is a huge generalization and was not true for all of the students, but was still very evident. I had many children tell me about the technology that their parents had already supplied them with; things that I did not have until I went away to college. I think this is partly because of our changing culture in addition to the money that these children's families had, but I would like to think that a first grader has no need for a MacBook Pro, especially when this twenty-two year old only has a regular old MacBook. No Pro. Another moment that I remember clearly was when two girls told me they liked my shirt and asked me where I got it. When I told them that I had bought it at a thrift store, they did not understand what that was. They did not seem to understand the concept of used clothing. This is sad to me when there are children and parents in their own communities that are struggling to make ends meet. I know this is the case in most cities and towns in America, but either way, it still makes me sad. This is what makes me wonder whether I want to work at a school where there are a majority of struggling students, whether this struggle occurs because of a lack of money, English-speaking skills, or another of the many possible reasons, or at a school where children have no worry about where their next meal or clothing item is coming from. Of course, there are also many schools that sit somewhere in between these two extremes. I suppose in the end, when the time comes, I might not have a huge say in where I end up working. I'm sure I will apply to many jobs and just take whichever one wants me. This is scary but also exciting to think about. Who knows where I could end up in a few years!
Coming Up Next: Summer Camp Adventures!
Expect more details of my actual experiences since I am still in the midst of camp, about to begin the final week!
And after that: Student Teaching Adventures!
Thursday, March 22, 2012
Things you hear while walking
Today while on a walk with two of my other 21-22 year old female friends, we had some interesting interactions with some youngsters we encountered. First while we were walking we saw two boys coming towards us on the path who were probably in 5th grade I would say. We heard one boy say to the other "Yeah, it's probably going to go right into your bloodstream." Although that was a little off putting, we continued walking hoping that these boy's parents or home was nearby. This is when one of the boys stopped and said, "Can one of you guys help me??" seeming very distressed and worried. This is when we realized that he had a splinter in his finger, and was quite worried about it. My friends and I tried to calm him down a bit, and reassured him that it would not go into his bloodstream right away. We basically told him to go home and deal with it, and that it wouldn't be a problem any time soon. We were not planning on touching some random kid's finger for a splinter, although now I am hoping he lived somewhere close by. My friends and I were wondering why this kid thought it was okay to stop three strangers on a bike path to ask about a splinter. For all he knew, we could have been attempting to abduct him. Don't most kids still live by the rule to not talk to strangers? It was then that we realized we were all wearing sneakers and athletic-type clothing. Did he think we were moms, and that it was then okay to talk to us?? Needless to say, I am not sure how I feel about being mistaken for a mom. On this same walk we also encountered a young girl that got our attention by saying, "Hey, y'all!!" We weren't sure what to think about this either, but decided that we need to stop dressing quite so much like moms, or find cooler and hipper places to go for our walks.
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Fashion From a Four Year Old
This all started on Monday when a four year old boy said, "Emily, I like your sweater." This would seem completely normal from an older child perhaps, but from a four year old it is pretty funny. Then today I said to this same boy, "Okay, put on your sweater..." In response he exclaimed, "This isn't a sweater! It's a toggle coat!" Apparently I have some things to learn about fashion if a four year old seems to know more than me. To be fair though, I think it may have been more like a sweatshirt than a sweater or toggle coat. It did have the toggle buttons though. Unfortunately I do not work with this boy as much because I am usually with the older kids, but I hope to gain more knowledge from him in the future.
In the meantime, I need to learn how to change the colors on my blog because at the moment it is quite difficult to read.
In the meantime, I need to learn how to change the colors on my blog because at the moment it is quite difficult to read.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)