They call this babysitting?

I call it pure fun :)

Big G

a few quotes from one of my little boys...

Yesterday Garrett told his mom he didn't like school. She said, "Yes you do! You love school, you always come home talking about what you did. What do you not like about school?"

Garrett said, "Miss Betsy always makes me do these 20 hour long art projects and I'm just tired of it!"

:) apparently our art lesson was a little intense this week.


In music class today Garrett climbed up on my lap, wrapped his lil 4 year old arms around my neck and whispered in my ear, "It's going to be a very long time until I let you go, Miss Shannon."

makes. my. day.

a bilingual lunch with team awesome

Team Awesome

Every Tuesday and Thursday I work with an organization called Jumpstart. It's an Americorps partner organization whose goal is to work towards the day when every child enters Kindergarten ready to succeed.

Our team works with a local elementary school's two pre-k classes two days a week one one one with some fabulous children! I can't show any pictures of the kids... but trust me they are ah-dorable.

We end our time with the classes by having lunch with a select few children. The teachers are always on the lookout for "good citizens" and children who are "listening with their whole body" to come have lunch with us in the common area.

Well today's lunch was extra special. We had two boys eat with us (and some cute girls too)... I'll call them Evan and Jose. (none of the names on this blog are the actual names of the children)...

Well Jose is a Spanish-only student... he's learning a lot of English, but is pretty silent most of the time. Evan, however, speaks entirely in English at school and in Spanish at home. We were trying to talk to Jose during lunch, asking him questions, trying to say "apple sauce" in Spanish. How many adults does it take to make a complete sentence in Spanish? In this case, four :)

There we were piecing together sentences to talk to Jose... and when we finally got one correct, he bursts into this "alaksdhfklasjdhfklasjhdfklajhsdfkasjhdf" of Spanish to us! We all looked at each other and said, "uhoh. What in the world did he say!?"

Then we realized Evan could translate!! Jose repeated what he said to Evan, who threw his hands in the hair and exclaimed, "AI!"

When we asked Evan what Jose had said he grinned and said, "I don't know."

Riiiiiight. That's when we knew we were in trouble :) Before we knew it the two of them were chattering away, pointing at various members of our team and laughing. Trouble :) The most we could catch was them calling Lanita a Water Head (we think because her hair is wavy) and the rest of us Apple Heads.

When Lanita tried to ask Evan a question, he sighed and said, "You always say everything wrong."

Well... at least we tried. This girl needs to keep taking Spanish.

interesting thanksgiving...

Teacher: Does anyone remember who the pilgrims were?
Child: ALIENS!

:)

Mondays

I start off my Monday mornings with practicum at one of the county schools. I work in a pre-K class that serves at risk children and children with identified disabilities... and it's really a FANTASTIC way to start the week.

Today I left my house at 8:10am, and normally it takes me about 10 minutes to get to school, but there was a rather large accident on the way so I didn't arrive until 8:50am (whoops). My kids were already in music class so I just jumped right in singing "Five Fat Turkeys" with them and was greeted with many hugs.

Our morning message always says "Good morning! Today is..... and then a sentence or two about our days. Today's was already up on the whiteboard in the class and it said:
Good morning!
Today is Monday.
Today we have music.

One of the little boys asked to add a sentence that said: Miss Bremer is here today!
:)

And then at recess one of the boys from the other Pre-K class ran up to me and said, "You look beautiful today!"

Now THATS the way to start off the week.

being a grown up...

Qui'Nazhia: I'm a grown up, Miss Shannon.

Me: Oh really? What makes you a grown up?

Q: I tell people what to do.


:)

New Favorite Pick-up Line:

"Miss Shannon, your nose sparkles."

-- Max, age 2