2nd and 3rd days of school

The second day of school found Addie wearing one of her new dresses, which when seeing it on the hanger she said, "There's no way that will fit me. It's way too big." I suggested she try it on and low and behold she came into my room BEAMING and said, "I can't believe I can fit this!" 

The report from the second day of school was positive. Ben made friends with Ibn, a boy in his class.  When I asked him what Ibn was like, he gestured "this tall" and showed his hand about 6 inches over Ben's head! So now I'm really curious if Ibn is really that tall and if he is, that's amazing considering that Ben is at 90% for boys his age. Although technically Ibn could be almost 7 years old, but still.

Addie reported that she had fun playing on the swings with a girl from Ben's class.  

 Today was the third day of school.  Let me tell you, Miss Adelaide tried on these shorts last night and immediately I could see that she felt mature.  like teenager mature.  Something about the real belt just made them awesome to her.  She assured me she would certainly be wearing this outfit the next day. This morning my eyes weren't even open before she came bounding in my room fully dressed, and fully sassy.  See how Ben's chin now has the scab off? That's my handsome boy's face.

This is when I told them to look sassy. Apparently sassy=hand on hip.

Today's report after school was that Ben made many friends. Ibn, Zane, Isabella (Issy) and Paris were his new four best friends.  Addie said her new best friend is Lee, the boy who sits next to her.  During some activity he drew a picture of a girl iceskating and said it was Addie.  Addie was happy to be included, but explained that Sanyiah, the other girl at her table, looked sad. So Addie drew a picture of herself skating with the three other kids at her table, Lee, Sanyiah and Kevin.  She actually said, "I know how sad it makes you feel to not be included, so I wanted to make Sanyiah feel better." Pretty empathetic right? Stories like that make me a proud mom.  Similarly in Ben's class they read a story "about a bucket."  Essentially it's about how each person has an emotional bank account (this concept is from the man who wrote the Seven Traits of Highly Successful People-- or something like that name) that needs to be filled up by others so that when someone makes a withdraw that account still has enough to be on the positive side.  The kid version, which Ben did a superb job of explaining, is that each kid has a bucket over their head and to feel good about themselves they need that bucket full.  As Ben was listening to Addie's story about Sanyiah he said, "see? you helped her fill her bucket up." So the concept clearly worked for him. I think I'm going to use that analogy now for anytime they are having some not so nice behaviors (which I know is shocking, but happen on a regular basis). A cool thing that Ms. Melgarejo did after reading the bucket story was she brought out a bucket and "warm fuzzies" and explained that when she overhears/catches someone doing a warm and fuzzy for someone in the class, she'll put that warm and fuzzy creature in the bucket.  When the bucket is full of warm and fuzzies, the class gets a pizza party. There are little warm and fuzzies and there are big warm and fuzzies.  Someone gets a big warm and fuzzy when they stand up for someone else or something similar.  Clearly, big warm and fuzzies fill the bucket up faster than little ones.  I think it's a great way to have the class learn empathy and compassion.

It's going to be a great year.  

One quick funny story to share. Tonight at dinner Addie told me she made a bad choice at recess. I asked what it was and she explained they were having a tickle fight (the concept makes me cringe, but whatever) and that Ryan apparently didn't like the tickling so he was going to go tell on her. (Not funny yet, I know). So Addie was freaking out that she would move from green to yellow and she watched Ryan go tell one of the kindergarten teachers, all the while Addie was begging "please don't move my color, please don't move my color."  Addie explained that Ryan went to tell "Ms. Um...ummm.... Ms. Ummmm..." Ben tries to chime in with the teachers name too, but he can't come up with her name.  Addie says, "Ms. Happiness?" and Ben says, "Yes, Ms. Happiness."  I stop and say, "do you guys mean Ms. Goodman?" Both exclaim, "Yes!! Ms. Goodman, that's who it is." So I thought it was hysterical that they could attribute the characteristics of her name to be Ms. Happiness.  Cute.