Sometimes I miss preschool...

Having a new job this year is such a huge blessing! Don't get me wrong, I loved my two years at DR-M and it will always hold a special place in my heart. I still have friends teaching there, who I miss seeing and chatting with on a daily basis. But I am so thankful to be working here in town, and in the same district as my husband. Teaching Kindergarten is surprisingly a lot different than teaching preschool! The kids are so much more independent at the wise old age of 5 and 1/2. They can write their names, wipe their noses (kinda), and walk in a line. Phew!
But, I think the biggest thing I miss about teaching preschool (besides my top-notch associate) is all the funny stories I would come home with each day. For some reason kindergartners are just that much more grown-up and logical...or something. So I've decided I'm going to make a countdown of my all-time favorite teaching stories/moments for your reading pleasure. I'm hoping you find them humorous and not just had-to-be-there. While I don't have the time to type them all right now, I still want to share them. So I think I'll do one each day.

So it was my first year of teaching, and it was the beginning of the year. This meant I had to wade through a lot of assessment with the kids to get a baseline for where they were at and where we were headed. On this particular day, I needed to assess each individual child on letter identification. Basically I would hold up a card with a letter on it to see if he/she knew what the letter was. The kids were doing okay with it, and I was generally pleased with the number of letters they already knew. These were 3-year-olds, so it's not like I had huge expectations. As I'm assessing this one little guy, I notice his tone of voice and expression are quite annoyed and "over it". Almost like he thinks this is the most pointless thing he's ever done in his three years of living and he can't believe I'm wasting his time with such petty tasks. Now, this MIGHT make sense if he was whipping through the letters with ease, having already mastered all 26. But this wasn't the case. For every letter I presented, his response was the same: "18". And every time he said "18", he was more annoyed than the time before. It was basically getting to the point where he was hardly taking the time to even look at the letter before rolling his little eyes and saying, "18." To me, this was both hilarious and concerning. So we continue to work our way through the alphabet and it goes like this:
(I show S)
"18"
(I show M)
"18"
(I show E)
"18"
You get the point. The next letter I present is letter 'O'. I'm not expecting the child to even hesitate, and he doesn't. But instead of spitting out his usual "18", he instead says, "head."
It took me a second to realize what he meant, and then I got it. I had to look away so I could giggle a little. Isn't that SO cute?!? Classic.