Can there ever be too many stories about Kindergarten?  Today they show up at my door with a motivational promise from their classroom teacher.  If they can do well in music behaviorally today, they earn a reindeer!!  They’re so excited!  As the come into my room, per the usual, they begin sharing things with me like how many reindeer they’ve already earned and how they get to do extra “stations” if they earn one more.  Or how they JUST lost a tooth in math class.  Then there’s the one child who comes in with the stream of consciousness…

“Mrs. Bush!  We’re going to go my my aunt and uncle’s house – I mean my grandmas – no my aunt and uncles house for opening presents but we also got presents for THEM to open and after that we will eat and then we will play a Santa bingo game.  No, not my aunt and uncles, my grandmas is where we will open presents and play Santa bingo….”  This of course takes much longer than it reads because it’s interrupted with lots of “ands” and “ums” along the way.  Meanwhile, I have 17 other little people kind-of following my direction of finding a dot to sit on so I find a place to stop the sweet little girl and focus on the bigger picture.

I explain that it’s Tuesday and tomorrow is…Wednesday! and the next day is…Thursday! and Thursday is when we do our sing-along with the whole school!! So I begin the music  on iTunes and here we go.  As soon as it starts, a little boy asks if I can tie his shoe, so I say of course and he continues to explain that it has a knot, pulling it even harder to prove it to me.  I have him hand me his shoe, all the while still attempting to sing with the kids, move the power point ahead and untie the knot.  The knot comes out, I hand him the shoe, to which he responds, “this one has a knot too!”  So I untie that one, as I walk around and move a kid who can’t seem to keep his hands to himself while sending a another kid to the bathroom because it’s an “emergency” which begins an entire epidemic of “emergency” bathroom visits.  One little girl comes back and has caught her finger in the stall door so we’re at the sink washing it out and applying a bandaid.

The holiday music is still going as I remember oh yes, I’m supposed to be teaching  something here.  The first little girl, the one with the stream of consciousness, stands up and tries to begin another story, which I stop quickly while attempting to do movement to whatever song is up next and then I have a little guy who gets way too enthusiastic with his movement – again.  So while we’re still trying to sing, I ask him to go to the “buddy” room to to calm down a bit and the temper tantrum begins.  Still keeping an eye on the rest of my cherubs, I proceed to give my little tantrum maker two choices but of course it takes a while, some stern-ness on my part and a friend to walk him to the gym.  Did I mention that this was a short 35 minute class?

We got to the end of the class where lining them up to go resembled the rest of the class and one of the little guys actually asked “did we earn our reindeer?”.  Um, not so much, but I’m pretty sure I did.