Back in the classroom again

I love five year olds!

Every Monday I volunteer with several classes in an elementary school IMC.  That stands for Instructional Media Center, or Library in old fashioned words.

The bi-lingual kindergarten is one of my favorites.  Five year old children are so cute.  They say exactly what they think or feel and they are still very eager to please, so it is the best of all worlds.

Now through Christmas I also have the chance to work with some other kindergarteners doing "math" every afternoon.  Five year old math is very complicated.  Yesterday we had to cut out gingerbread men and glue them to another sheet of paper in numerical order.  Then we had to write the number beside each square of these little cookie people and the problems were unbelievable.

Some children tried to actually cut out each little man, a physical impossibility, but one they undertook with intense concentration.  Others had trouble finding a crayon or pencil that would either write on glue soaked paper, or show up on the black construction paper.  A few simply had trouble holding the scissors!  My job was to just float around and try to head off problems before actually getting down to how to write an "8!"

Today was much simpler.  We played Christmas tree bingo.  The first two rounds I held up a number and they tried to find it on their tree.  The first one to fill up their tree won, but we continued to play until everyone's tree was covered in ornaments.  Then it got harder.  I did not show them the number so they had to know what it looked like.  Those teens are tricky!

Later this week we are baking real gingerbread cookies and eating them while we drink hot chocolate.  I work hard!

Honestly, though, the teacher really does work hard.  She has 28 students who are expected to add and subtract sums up to ten, read a hundred words, spell their names and know their colors, as well as all the other social skills necessary to fit into a classroom that comes with all day kindergarten.  Some of it is simple for children who have been to two years of preschool or have families who spend time with them doing these things at home, but many of these children do not fall into this category.

I don't know how they can expect one person to do all of this without aides and volunteers, but it makes my day to be the volunteer.