Ah....KINDERGARTEN....

When people ask "how are you?"...my response is usually "I'm here". If I get up in the morning, that's a good thing. If I go to work, that's a good thing. Just kind of going through the motions most of the time.
But days like today remind WHY I love my job....KINDERGARTEN.
Whenever I had stories like these - I would email Melissa...and that night the stories would be on the blog...so here's to you, Melissa!

Each school year, kindergarten's first couple visits to the library include storytime and HOW TO TAKE CARE OF A LIBRARY BOOK. Very important information when you are 5 or 6 years old. Ok. So it's been a couple of weeks, and they are ready to check out their first book.
Instead of sending 22 five and six year olds to the shelves to find books - I pull about 30-35 books - do a blurb on each book and display them. Then I call them one at a time to pick a book. They bring them up to my desk to check out.
Two things here:
1 - I need to remember that they are FIVE and SIX years old.
2 - I don't know ANY of their names yet...FIRST or LAST.
But I DO have a sheet with all their names WITH barcodes in ABC order by last name.
So the first student comes up.
"What's your last name?"
I get this puzzled look.
"Ok. What's your first name?"
Then I get FIRST MIDDLE and LAST name (from most of them)
or
"What's your last name?"
puzzled look.
"Ok. What's your FIRST name?"
"I don't have a first name."
"What does your teacher call you?"
"Susie"
"Ok."
...and
"What's your last name?"
"Junior"
oh my.....
I don't know their names and THEY don't know their names...I need more than 40 minutes for library I think....

THEN I get home. I'm taking care of good friends' first grade son. He says "What does yellow and purple make?"
OK. I JUST did this with the kindergarteners a couple of weeks ago. Read a story about rainbows, then showed them a clip about primary and secondary colors.
"Well - yellow and blue makes green. Yellow and red makes orange..."
He looks at me kind of funny and says -
"LSU".
Boy am I stupid....

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Read Angie's post on FB tonight - she was talking about going camping...thought of this-
One of my favorite family photos...Mere's first Fortener family photo...and it's in the FALL. Don't remember where this was - but the kids were staying in cabins somewhere and invited us to visit. I was on crutches -broke my leg and was in a cast at the time. What a happy family....


Patty Williams-former rugby teammate and friend of Melissa's posted on her FB page - she did the race for the cure in Fort's honor...THANKS Patty!