My Ears Heard You....

At our little preschool we have two raised gardens - one is for planting and one is for digging. The Planting Garden is where classes transplant their bean sprouts, plant seeds, and observe how cool it is to see what you plant actually grow. The Digging Garden, is for, well, digging. We put earth worms in the Digging Garden, as well as lady bugs. This year we have had a ton of pill bugs, and our miniature entomologists have been having a field day. The Digging Garden is also where Patton lives.

Well, we are almost to May, and all the students know the rules of the gardens. You dig in the Digging Garden and you simply observe in the Planting Garden - no digging and NO PULLING UP THE PLANTS. And since about January, everyone has pretty much accepted this rule, and abides by it as well. It has been easier to enforce because everyone is excited about the plants they have planted, and they don't want to pull them out.

Everyone except Lilly. For some reason, Lilly got it in her head this week that she was going to pull out all of the brand new sprouts in our Planting Garden. She was stopped twice by Mrs. D.. who reminded her of the rules. This, however did nothing to deter Lilly from her mission. As soon as Mrs. D. walked away, she resumed her task. I watched her get back to pulling and immediately reminded her (again) of the rules....

"Lilly, you may not pull the plants out of the garden. We planted these so we could watch them grow. You need to leave them alone. This is is the third time we have reminded you to stop pulling out the plants." For some reason, I always tell students how many times I have told them something. Like they are really interested that I keep score. This method doesn't work with my own kids, and the preschool kids really don't care either how many times I say something. They probably think I am just patting myself on the back. (Look how many times I can repeat the same thing. I rock.)

Lilly's response to my reprimand was to simply continue with what she was doing without even skipping a beat. She barely made eye contact.

Taken aback (I usually at least get eye contact), I changed my tone to be more "mom" in nature and I grabbed her hand as it was just about to yank out another innocent seedling. I got right down on her level, and then, I middle named her...

"Lilly Jane Davis, you MAY NOT pull out the plants!! These plants are NOT YOURS. Your friends planted these plants and you MAY NOT PULL THEM OUT!! You need to STOP RIGHT NOW! If you want to pull out plants, let's go pull weeds out of the other garden."

This time, Lilly looked at me, but went for another seedling anyway, with the hand that I was holding.

Exasperated, I just said, "Lilly!"

To which she responded, very matter-of-factly, "Mrs. Velarde, my ears heard you, but my hands haven't heard you yet."

What do you say to that???

Me? I just laughed, and carried her to another area of the playground. And then went and replanted what she had pulled out.

And, there is yet another instance where I have been outsmarted by a three year old.




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Don't Worry, I Put it On Vibrate

Last summer, I ran over my cell phone. A rather silly story you can read about here. My husband pieced it back together for me, and even though it never worked again, it looked like it should. It had been sitting on my desk, useless, for months (I am not one to really ever put things away...) when it hit me that I could put the useless cell phone in my dramatic play center. The kids would probably like it. I wrote "Pretend phone" on the back of it and tossed it in to the center.

It didn't take them long to discover it. At first, they tried to return it. ("Mrs. V., some grown up lost a cell phone"), but when I told them it was for them to play with, the imaginations took off. Next thing I know they are calling me, calling each other, making appointments and texting. It was interesting how they were able to hold the phone in the proper texting position, and their thumbs would fly.

One morning, we were walking to music class (which is in a different room), and I saw one of my students pull the play cell phone out of his pocket and push a few buttons. When he saw me looking at him, he said, "Don't worry, I put it on vibrate." Well, good, I thought, at least it won't ring during class.

During class, as we were dancing around the room, the keeper of the phone suddenly stopped what he was doing, pulled the phone out of his pocket, and started pressing some buttons. He looked up and said to me, "That was just my dad, he texted me."

I said, "Did you tell him we were in music class?"

"Yes, I am going to call him back later."

And sure enough, later on the playground, I found him underneath the slide, "talking" to his dad on the broken cell phone.



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