Home Preschool Hilarity

This is my second year doing home preschool with three of my friends who each have a kid the same age as Bennett. It's nothing fancy, just getting them together every Thursday morning for a few hours to practice letters and numbers and all that preschool stuff. We don't do it because we plan to homeschool our kids or anything crazy like that; we just do it to save money and give the kids a little experience before they hit kindergarten next year.

Anyway, I first taught them back in September--we each take two weeks and then rotate to the next house--and just had them again today for my next rotation. Let me tell you that these kids crack me up. Their emerging personalities and four year-old opinions make for some very entertaining conversation.

Today we were tracing letters and gluing little pom-pom inchworms (letter i) at the table when one of the girls dramatically called all of our attention. "Everybody needs to stop what they're doing and listen to me. I have something very important to tell you!" So the three other kids, Eli and I all came to a halt and looked at her wide eyes to hear what urgent thing she had to say. Long pause... "I have wax in my ear." Oh, man. It was all I could do to not bust up completely, but she was so dead serious that I stifled my giggles long enough to ask if she was okay. "I got it from my Hello Kitty crown," she says with a somber sigh, "but Daddy got it out for me so I'm all right!!" Great stuff.

I tend to forget how much fun I have with them during the six weeks that I'm "off" teaching duty, viewing my upcoming rotation as one more thing on my to do list, but once they get here and start talking and interacting, I remember why this is so rewarding. Not just because they say funny things, either. Watching them learn and grow over the past few years has been pretty great too: I still can't believe how long they'll sit and pay attention to a lesson now compared to last year. And their focus and patience with themselves in terms of writing and cutting and gluing, etc. has also shot up. And, okay, the hilarious comments help make it memorable and fun too.