On Tattoos...

The breakfast conversation this morning proved to be interesting if nothing else! One little girl, who lives with her father but often sees her mother on weekends, spoke up about a dream she had the night before about her mother (who she happened NOT to see this weekend). The dream was somewhat strange as she went to retell it - something about her (a four year old) driving Mommy around in Mommy's car!

Another little girl at the table spoke up and replied, "Yeah, me have a NIGHTMARE last night."

"You did?" I asked, "What was your nightmare about?"

"My nightmare was about getting a tattoo!"

I left that conversation go at that point, not wanting to learn any more!

Good Night, G!

Our Head Start program and NY state daycare regulations specify a period of "quiet time" as part of our day.

On our lucky days we find 14 of our 17 children sleeping soundly on their mats. We take advantage of these rare occasions to catch up on paperwork and give the 3 non-resters some much needed one-on-one, playing games, cuddling or just sharing a story.

On the not-so-lucky days we have 17 children who wish to have NO part of "quiet time"! On those days, "quiet time" is not so quiet and the children end up with a partner, enjoying a variety of activities - playdoh, cooperative building toys, books, "camping," or our quiet activity boxes.

Other days, we have a 50-5o mix. On those days we help our "resters" fall asleep (quiet music and back rubbing, if requested) and then pass out books or Playdoh for individual play on their mats and pull the children one at a time to work on their individualization.

Today, one little guy, G, was having NO part of rest time. He did everything he could possibly think of to prevent anyone from resting. However, we managed to get our "resters" down and went to sit with G to try and settle him enough so that his friends could rest! His immediate reaction upon approaching his mat was, "NO! I will NEVER EVER sleep again." Now, mind you, G can be argumentative at times, but today, he was not giving up - and we weren't even asking him to sleep - we just wanted him to be "quiet!" So as opposed to becoming engaged in one of his arguments, we opted to "choose our battle" and instead simply said, "Good Night, G," hoping to change his mood and get him quietly joking. He laid down on his mat, covered up with his blanket and within 4 minutes was sound asleep and snoring! After waking him up for snack, I looked at him, smiled and simply said, "Hey buddy, I thought you were never gonna sleep again." G cocked his head sideways, squinted one eye and looked up at me and responded, "Haha. I trick you!"

Morning Meeting

The children are gathered in a circle on the carpet, sitting quietly as they wait for the friends to be ready to start "morning meeting" - our daily calendar, weather, letter-of-the-week and morning message time.

A, a four-year old girl, is on her knees on her "letter" doing a little "jig." The jig continues for some time, but we (as teachers) ignore the movement and decide to proceed with the meeting. As we ask for volunteer to share a word that starts with letter Ll, our letter of the week, the "jig" intensifies and she quickly blurts out, "Look, I'm holding my nuts! My nuts! My nuts! I'm holding my nuts!"

Yes, the jig did consist of her holding her "nuts" region.

My assistant spoke up, trying to politely stop her from proceeding and said, "Where did you hear that?" Innocently, A responds, "My daddy. He taught me to say it." While one might be concerned with such a statement coming from the mouth of a four-year old girl, knowing the family puts things into perspective - a family of rough housing boys would likely have this impact on a little girl!

My Inspiration

The words that come from the mouths of children, especially those in my Head Start classroom (ages 3, 4, and 5) are absolutely amazing... They stop you dead in your tracks as you try to take in what you've just heard and can somehow turn around a miserable day in the blink of an eye!

As teachers, we often share the words of our "children" amongst each other, and yet I still find myself wanting to share their words even more, as they tend to be so humorous, you just want to keep people laughing. That is my hope in starting "Kids Say the Darndest Things!" blog... hopefully you'll find these little snippets of my daily life as enjoyable as I do and pass them along to others who you feel will enjoy them!

For those of you not familiar with "Kids Say the Darndest Things!," you can find a bit of information about the popular show and feature below...

Kids Say the Darndest Things is an American comedy series hosted by Bill Cosby that aired on CBS as a special on February 6, 1995 then as a full season from January 9, 1998 to June 23, 2000. It was based on a popular feature of Art Linkletter's radio show House Party and television series, Art Linkletter's House Party, which together aired mostly five days a week from 1945 to 1969.
-Wikipedia-