Clever ways

Something funny happened today in our class. Actually, funny things just come and go when you are working with kids.

We were talking about family this morning and I was asking each one of the kids the members of their family. I also asked them about what their mommy and daddy usually do. Some said that "Daddy works in the office" and "Mommy stays at home." I also asked them to draw their family's faces and we made family finger puppets. They also had a chance to draw their family and their house using colored markers and pencils.

There's this youngest kid in my class who's still in scribbling stage when it comes to drawing. He was drawing a lot of circles and I encouraged him to draw his family's faces, still he went on doodling and scribbling. When all of them were done, I asked each of them to tell me what they have created. One of them drew a lot of houses for each of his friends, he said 'Muchos house!' and one of them drew a door and windows on her house. The youngest kid told me that he drew a house while I was making sense of the doodles and circles, and then I asked him where are his family and he answered proudly "My mommy is inside (the house)"

I kind of laughed a little with his answer, it was actually clever. Who knows who else is inside the house that he has drawn, maybe his whole family is there! It reminded of a particular scene in Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's The Little Prince, when the prince asked for a sheep and the pilot drew a box, pointing out that the sheep is inside.

There's a small sheep inside this box.

I am writing down these things here because soon I will forget and I want to be always reminded that kids are clever. It just takes some understanding from parents and teachers to help them realize it. For sure, there were a lot of situations like this that I have dealt with in my class and I may have forgotten them - some were even funnier. I hope that when I become a parent someday, I'll have the time to write anecdotes about my child to keep the memories alive, because in this fast-paced life, we tend to forget the little things that matter. This will be all for now - have a great first month of the year! :)