What Else Would You Call It?

I work the car duty in the morning and the afternoon at my school.  Each family with students that are  going to be car riders in the afternoon is assigned a number...which is put on a tag which is hanging on their rear view mirror.... and that number is what's called out in the afternoon to let the children know their car is here. Car numbers are called with a color....the kid goes to the color pad....when all 8 colored pads are filled with waiting kids, they are released to the next station/colored cone where their car is.  It takes about 19 of us to load up over 100 children safely in to their cars. Comp. LUH.  Kaded.  But the end result is safely loaded kids into cars. 

I'm just a little over heated and exhausted after this grand finale to my day each day.

But the days are going great.  The new kindergartners seem so little....they always do, but by May we forget how little they were...until August rolls around.  They are young....some just turning 5 this last week of August.   They've only been on the earth 5 years.  The first week of school they have to learn where their classroom is, what their teacher's name is, what Large Group Letter they are, what squad they sit in in P.E., what table they sit at in Art, what row they sit in in Music, how to go through the line in the cafeteria after they've chosen white, strawberry or chocolate milk, then what table in the cafeteria is theirs.  They have to learn their bus number or car number....unless they're a Hiker/Biker, in which case they get a pink ticket.

A lot of time is spent on helping them learn all this information in the first week.  So it's no wonder that we hear some crazy stuff this first week when we're trying to help them figure it all out.

For Large Group (P.E., Art and Music) they are assigned a Letter A, B, C or D.  The Large Group teachers refer to their groups as Alligators, Bears, Caterpillars or Dinosaurs to help the kids remember.

Her:  What letter are you?

Him:  I don't know.

Her:  Are you a Caterpillar?

Him:  No, I'm a Hiker/Biker.

And all of us on car duty do all we can to help the kindergartners learn their car number quickly. The other morning, the teacher standing by me while I helped a boy out of his white SUV, asked.....

Her:  What's your car number?

Him: 357

Her:  That's right!  Good job!

...as he's walking off, he turns around and yells out....

Him:  Why?  What else would you call that white car?

Love the way that kid thinks.

And before I sign off..........

Public Service Announcement: for  parents of kids who have not learned how to write their name yet

  Teach them to use an Uppercase letter for the first letter and then switch to Lowercase for the rest of the letters.  I'm so sure I didn't do that with my own, but now it's an assessment on the kindergarten report card. 
   

This:  Jane              NOT this: JANE