good night, hot dog

Things I really love about my kids:

When they're mad, the way they'll say "I don't like that!" to the kid who hurt their feelings, regardless of if they're paying attention

At nap time, I'll make them into hot dogs. Aka, have them lie on half the blanket and use the other half to fold them up (like a hot dog bun). Then I ask what they want on it and they'll say "mustard!" or "ketchup!" or something else. Some of the kids with big imaginations have been asking to be made into cars, police cars, castles, and popcorn. After I've covered them up, I'll say, "Good night, hot dog." It's suuuuper cute.

Sooooo many of the 3 year olds can identify letters - not just first letter of their name, but of their friend's names and my name and in general. It's really, really cool.

When a kid really enjoys a game, I try to make it a little bit harder each time. For some reason, they really like when I hide letters under little paper cups and they have to find them. You know, like in gambling or board walk games? With one boy, it moved from me writing the letters on a white board and him matching them, me saying the letters and him finding them, to him writing the letters and me finding them. I was very impressed and excited about his rapid movement in making the game more difficult for him.

One of the rooms I work in just got a new girl. I've only played literacy games with her a little bit, but I think she's ahead of the game in terms of letter knowledge. Very exciting!

The Boy Who Chooses Not To Talk said something yesterday! Not just said something, but responded to a question. His little brother came into the room for awhile and at one point was toddling off away from the adults. I wanted to call him back over so I asked The Boy what his brother's name was. Surprisingly, he answered. One of the teachers was talking about feelings and he nodded yes when asked if he was a little scared about talking again. I'm wondering if it might be useful to make something (jar, box, etc) that he can talk into to practice. I'll probably ask my co-worker (who has more experience in early childhood education) if she thinks it's a good idea or not. I just like the idea of practicing when no one can hear.

Things I don't like about my kids:

One of them gave me a cold. Jerk.

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In other news, I was passed over by Teaching Program and am now looking into other ways to get my teaching license. My undergrad has a MA in Teaching program that might work, especially since I have all the content credits in English done already. I'm disappointed that I won't be in my own classroom in the fall, but we'll get there somehow. After sitting in on Sarah's classes last Friday, I'm fairly certain I want to teach high school. I suppose none of them will need to be tucked in and called hot dogs, though.