The Letter P

Preschool Teacher: Who can tell me what sound the letter P makes?

Preschool Student: It's the sound you make when you really have to pee!

And so concluded my year at FranDelja.

After the hour and a half commutes (each way) and the walks in some less than friendly streets, today marked my final day of the semester in the Bayview. It's been a trying year over at this location as many of the personalities of the children are reflections of their harsher home lives. But a time of a lot of laughter and enjoyment as well. While their favorite activity will always be pretending to be different animals with the sole goal of covering me in "mud" (because they love when I pretend to be upset about it), we've also shared some wonderful educational moments as well. Today before my theatre class I had the privilege of overhearing the conversation above. After my own personal laugh, I chimed in, "and another word that starts with 'P' is play!"

Strawberry Ambitions

After the excitement of Saint Patrick's Day, my preschoolers and I started off our days in a similar pattern. Sleepy. Them because of vivid dreams of gold, leprechauns, and green gleams; me because of late nights and Irish inspired beverages. Anyway, as always, we were a charming match.

Along with learning today that leprechauns are purple in real life and disappear if you blink, the children shared their hopes for the future. The best came from one of my favorite kids. A tiny tomboy of a little girl who delights me with her unexpected comments. Today, she gave me this treasure: "when I grow up I want to be a strawberry gummy bear." She later told me that there was a snake in the room that wanted to bite me, take me back to his house, and read him a story. (And I was like, "ugh, really snake? Are you going to buy me dinner first or what?" Nah, just kidding. I don't date snakes.)

Well, to me, this gal is as sweet as candy and small so she's practically achieved the big goal. But it's a lovely aspiration to strive to, isn't it? And just like a leprechaun, the idea may be gone in a blink... So on the day after the day we praised Patrick for ridding Ireland of snakes (though they clearly probably left in search of a nice gal who could read to them...) I've learned once again to hold on tight to your hopes for yourself. Let them be delicious and plentiful and don't stop until they've at least given you a sugar high.

First Impressions

It was off to SoMa for my first preschool today to meet two new classes of students. We officially began our spring semester this morning which meant starting a friendship with the youngest students at this particular site.

It began the way all new relationships should. Over pizza. Meaning, I was amazed to find how all of our first conversations somehow related back to that delicious food and how 2.5 - 3.5 year olds can't say enough about it. In both classes I was only able to complete half of my intended lesson plan because I hadn't properly allotted ample time to discuss cheese pizza. Other than that though, the new young ones proved to be more hilarious and adorable than I could have hoped. To tell you the truth, they were so cute I just wanted to eat them!

When I walked into my second school today, I was met by familiar faces. My class in the Tenderloin is made up of children who speak very little English and some of my ideals for the group involve teaching them new words through dramatic art. On my first day at their school, back in September, I found myself unable to verbally communicate much with the students or their teachers. After several attempts at conversation, I finally gave up and began to mime "making a cake".

It was a weird choice, sure, but at least it's confirmed that when I don't know what else to do, I'll always rely on baked goods. And the kids ate it up. (See what I did there?) They loved adding in their own ingredients and working together on a creative treat. And luckily for me, we were able to create a bridge of communication over a cake. Thanks to our beautifully decorated pretend dessert, the kids started to open up; they soon trusted me to lead them in a series of imaginative games and we've been working well since then. So today, we began our class with an old greeting... "Hi, hi! Cake lady! Let's make a cake!"