Beat by a 2nd Grader

I have recess duty twice a week, once on Tuesday mornings, and once on Wednesday afternoons. I made the mistake one recess of choosing to race one of my kindergartners across the playground to the fence, just to see who was faster. Well, now it becomes something I am expected to do every time I go out to recess. Only now it's not just one child. That ended about 2.2 seconds after I started my very first race. Most of our races include crowds of children, and we have to try and set definite rules about getting in a very straight line first... or else some of the smaller children are trampled. As a whole, the races do great things for my self-esteem. Just think... I race against half of the children on the playground, and I always win!! I sometimes even have time to wait at the fence before the children arrive. That all ended today. I was beat by a 2nd grader. Not once, mind you, but twice. And I wasn't letting him win either. I was running my guts out, (by the way, that's not a very good idea when the finish line is a very unforgiving chain link fence... ouch) and yet, I couldn't manage to pull ahead. I might have to give up racing as a way to boost my self-image, and just leave it as a way to make friends... little friends.

Computer problems solved!

Hallelujah! My computer is finally working again! Last week, after trying to turn my computer on, it decided to refuse to do so, and told me I had to fix my computer. I am pretty proud to say that I did that myself! That's right... I'm more computer savvy than I ever had thought.

This weekend was a good weekend. I got a lot of school stuff done on Friday, which was a teacher comp day, and then I spent the weekend with my family and my cousin Juliana... who had me for a sleepover on Saturday night. I love spending time with her since she always has such a positive outlook on life.

Anyway, well, it's late and I had better skeedaddle to bed. I have a lot to do tomorrow! Hello kindergarten, here I come!

I'm an Aunt!

That's right. There's a new little Parrish in this world... and once again, he is nameless. Not really all that surprising. He's also quite a big little guy already! 9 pounds, 5 oz. 21 inches long.

I love Letter People

I have found that when I talk about my job with other people, it tends to bring out a lot of memories... memories of kindergarten days past. And from those memories, I sometimes get some of my best ideas. This is because I figure that anyone that has hung onto a memory for twenty-five years just to tell me how much they loved the letter of the day must certainly have a pretty good idea of what works. So, as a result of this, I have begun doing a visiting letter of the day. Each day, at a random time during the day, there will be a knock on the door. And from that knock, I will go to see who it is... finding nothing but a construction paper letter. I then take the letter and ham it up for all its worth. I pretend that the letter talks to me (I hold the letter close to my ear for that part) and then share what the letter has said with the class. Each letter comes with a particular characteristic or problem, such as letter A that always says "AAAH Choo," (she needed a tissue when she came in) or letter B that loves buttons so much that he kisses all of the buttons he sees.
Well, this little idea that I got from a friend has been a hit.

Each day, the children come in talking about what letter will be visiting that day, wondering who it will be and when they will be coming. "Miss Parrish, is letter D coming to visit today?"
" I don't know, but I hope so."
"I think it's letter D."

They also feel like these letters are like real people. After the letter has come, they wave hello to the letter when they walk past, and ask it questions. They also ask me questions about the letters and how they're feeling, "Miss Parrish, is Miss A feeling better? Does she still have a cold?"
"I'm sorry to say that she's not feeling that well still. She is still sneezing."
"Tell her I hope she gets better."

Or when we went to an activity outside, a child asked, "But Miss Parrish, isn't Mr. B going to be coming with us?"

It's really quite charming, and hilarious in the same breath.

I can WALK!

So, good news!!! I can walk! For the first time in two weeks, I can stand up straight. No more hunched shoulders. And I can walk, without a limp. My principal referred me to his brother-in-law, who is a chiropractor. I wasn't planning on acting on it since I was getting better, until the other day when I woke up feeling like I was back on square one. Then, screaming "uncle" I finally asked for the number. And now, after seeing this chiropractor, I can walk!! I just keeping walking around my house, just to make sure that I really can. The chiropractor pretty much just popped my pelvis back where it was supposed to be... and wa lah- miracles happened!

Bu Xing!

I just had a lot of fun things happen today... so I feel a need to keep posting over and over. But let's be honest... the Boy is living for these things.

Today, while teaching children to sort, I was trying to come up with a way to teach them about "sorting rules." I came up with the idea to tell them that they were the boss and they got to make the rules for their shapes to follow. I then taught them about what the Chinese people say to children when they don't follow the rules, which is, "bu xing!" That means, literally, "not allowed!" We then sorted the shapes, and every time I sorted a shape wrong, they would all yell, "Bu Xing!" They loved it, and I did too.

The best part though, is to see how excited they all get about this. I gave each child a bag of shapes to sort. The rule was this: they had to sort the bag of shapes, then show me. If they sorted it correctly, I would have them clean up their shapes, and I traded them bags. I loved watching them sort their shapes incorrectly on purpose so they could yell, "bu xing!" at the offending shape. And then, they would get so excited about doing it all over again. One little boy, Yair, was so excited when I gave him a new bag of shapes, he whispered, "Yes!" and hugged the new shapes to his chest.

Now just pretend for a minute that you're an adult: if you sort this bag of shapes, all you get is another one. The more work you do, the more work you get. YES!!

Fat Teacher

My children are getting really good at getting into a circle for different classroom activities. Only, sometimes they don't leave any room for the teacher. Either that, or I have about half the class that just stand there, refusing to sit until I do so that they can all sit next to me... or on top of me. Well, today, they just forgot to leave me more than the amount of room they might leave for any one of their small friends. So, I told the children they needed to scoot over, commenting, "I'm a big, fat teacher; I'm going to need some more space than that." To which one little girl replied, "My mom's fat too." And another two offered, "My mom is too." "So's my mom."

I think I may keep those comments to myself when parent teacher conferences come around.

It's a Low Rider

So the Boy has this fantastic ability to imitate a Hispanic accent... and more than that, he's hilarious when using it, so we've had fun with that. While looking for a car for me, we often laughed at his stereotypical comments about wanting a "low rider" with "the rims" and "LED lights" that cause it to glow.
So, what does that have to do with anything? Well, today while in kindergarten (yes, everything I write about is about school), I had the children drawing in their journals about what they would like to bring to "Show and Tell" if given the chance. I then helped them write about it. Well, one Hispanic little boy told me he was drawing his trailer truck. I helped him write that, and then afterwards he told his friend, "It's a low rider."

Large Families

The children in my class all come from very large families. That's pretty much what I concluded after today's workshop activity. The children were each asked to use their thumbprints to make thumbprint people. Each thumbprint would make the head of a person, and the children had to draw the rest of the body. I asked the children to make a "Thumbprint Family," meaning that they had to draw their family, using the thumbprint people. Kindergartners love this activity! However, I seem to think that many of them may have been exaggerating the size of their families. I did mention that they could include pets, but some of the children must have been counting every ant that had ever walked across their sidewalk. In fact, some children had such large families, they had to go so far as to not only dip their thumb in the ink... but most of their hand. Needless to say, some did not get around to drawing a body for every family member... so tragic. :)

Missionaries from Taiwan

Yesterday, some of the missionaries from my mission had a little get together. It was so much fun to see everybody and to share mission experiences. I love Taiwan. I love the people of Taiwan. Even the crazy ones (and missionaries attract those like flies). I miss Taiwan... and I feel guilty about all of the people I have not written lately... guess I should get on that...

Erin's Coming Home

So, my sister Erin went in for back surgery this past Monday. She has severe scoliosis. The doctor said her back is off by about 104 degrees. So, they have put several rods in her back and a bunch of pins, and now she is standing taller than ever!
Erin is coming home today and hopefully will be feeling better as soon as possible. She's such an optimist. Every time a nurse asks her her pain level, she tells her it's a 10. That's even right after receiving morphine. Always a constant 10.

Welcome home Erin!!

My Song and Dance Routine

Good news! My back is feeling much much better! It's been a week now since it happened and I have earned the nickname of "gimp." But today, I think I'm actually starting to walk normal!

So, have I mentioned how much I love five year olds? Today, I had one little boy howling in the corner of my classroom for 40 minutes straight, telling me he wanted to go home to his mom. (that part I do NOT love) When he finally calmed down (thank goodness he did!!) he asked me for a pillow and a blankie and asked if he could take his shoes off. After taking a little rest on the floor, he was able to join the rest of the class, and we went on with the day like normal. Not a single child in the classroom made fun of him for it... I guess they are all so close to needing a blankie themselves that they don't see any reason to bring it up.

As a kindergarten teacher, I don't think I realize sometimes exactly how much of a song and dance routine I really do, until today I was calling children to stand up and walk to their seats, and a little boy raises his hand and asks, "But Miss Parrish, aren't you going to sing our names today?" Kindergartners! So, of course, I sang their names for them.

A Pain in the Back

So, Thursday I went to school with a little bit of a twinge in my back. I figured that I must have slept on it wrong, and didn't think too much of it. I went on with my life, including teaching very short people that we call kindergartners. By lunchtime, however, my back was killing me, and I tried to take a bit of a break during lunch to do some back exercises. However, that didn't work out since several parents decided to bring their children into school before the bell rang, and by the time I explained that they were early and why they had to go outside, my lunch break was over. By the end of the day, I could hardly move.
Friday, I went to school, but this time I called in a substitute to do all of my bending and stretching, and lifting and such. I was mostly a reassuring smile in the back corner that all was well. Many teachers told me I was an idiot... glad I have their support. And Friday afternoon, I went to the doctor.

I don't like doctors. They seem nice enough, but they always do things to you that are not nice. When they suggested giving me a shot, I told them "no, thanks." However, apparently my age (being 24 at the moment) does not actually give me authority over my own body. Instead, my Aunt Allison told me I was getting the shot and not to look since they were coming in with it right then. I got a nasty shot, as well as some intensive medication. All three bottles they gave me have nice little warnings on the side that read, "May cause drowsiness." To my body that is translated to, "May cause you to be knocked out like a light for the next 48 hours." So, in the last 48 hours, I have slept for 30 of those. That's a lot of sleeping!

Thanks to a wonderful cousin, Juliana that helped me type my lesson plans, and a fantastic family (including my cousin, McCall and my Aunt Allison...despite the fact that she was an advocate of the shot!) I'm doing much better and hope to be able to teach school in the morning. I'm just hoping that this medication doesn't knock me out like a light!

Did I ever tell you how much I love five year olds?

Today was the first day of kindergarten. Well, I should really say kindergarten orientation. Some things went really well! One of those had to do with an adorable girl named Calley. She came up to me after school and held her arms out as wide as she possibly could and told me, "I love you thissss much." To which I replied by holding out my much longer arms and told her, "Well, I love you thisss much!" She is a doll! I have some really cute kindergartners and I think this year will go well!