I have so many hilarious anecdotes from this past year I don't even know where to start. My class this year has just been the best and I'm quite sad to see them move on to "big school" next year. In addition to having a phenomenal group of kids I also had a wonderful group of parents, many of which I developed a great relationship with throughout the year. We just had our graduation (or as my class refers to it "gradulation") last week and I had to say a few words to the parents. I was joking to the head teacher that I hoped I wouldn't get emotional. I joke because I'm one of the most unemotional people ever. Felipe likes to joke that my heart is made of ice:) My kids had the most adorable caps and gowns on and we had the music teacher set up in our class with her piano and all the parents sitting in chairs. I walked in with the kids, put them in place for their performance and then the head teacher said a few words. She then handed it off to me and I knew what I wanted to say so I wasn't nervous. However, I literally opened my mouth and got choked up within the first few words! I couldn't believe it. I then apologized for "getting emotional" and proceeded to pull it together and finish my speech and introduce our performance of "It's a Small World". I figured at least my kids didn't notice but later that day when we were in library we were reading a book where a character starts crying and one of my kids looks at me and says, "like you in graduation" hahaha.
As for the endless anecdotes from this year, I will try a bullet point format to highlight my favorites. You will get a glimpse of why I love this class so much:)
- I was playing with one of my kids in the castle in indoor play. He said, "go to sleep and I will tell you a story". He started to tell me the story of Snow White. He said there were 7 "warfs" and I said "7 warfs?" and he said "yes, 7 warfs" holding up 7 fingers, as if that were the part that must be confusing me...When he got to the part of the apple he said "Snow White ate the apple and then she be died".
- We also do puppet shows and I like to give the kids a chance to do their own puppet shows with a partner for the rest of the class. As much as I encourage imagination and changing up the puppets and the stories, all of the puppet shows end up exactly the same way. The big bad wolf puppet eats all of the other puppets and yells "I will bite you for dinner!" No matter how the story starts, that is without fail the ending. Another teacher was with me today when my kids started their puppet shows. I told her, just wait, I guarantee they will all end with the wolf eating someone for dinner...which is ironic because when I do the Little Red Riding Hood puppet show for them I always make the wolf feel bad for wanting to eat them and they talk it out and decide to share the food and be friends. Glad to see my message is getting across to the kids!
- When preparing the kids for graduation I told them about the caps and gowns. A couple of them initially said they didn't want to wear them and I said, "ok fine, no problem, that's your decision but just so you know the cap and gown mean you're graduating and you're going to big school next year. So if you don't want to wear it, that's fine with me but people will think your friends are going to big school and you're not." The looks on their faces were priceless. Immediately their eyes got wide and they all started saying, "oh I want to wear it! I'm going to wear it!" Later that day we were in the library and I was reading them the twelve dancing princesses. In the book in references the princesses wearing gowns. One of my kids raised his hand and said "are they going to big school?"
- One of our objectives this year was to learn to count to 20. Obviously some of the kids want to count higher than that. One of my favs, H, was counting and said 27, 28, 29, 20-10! His mom later asked me, "have you heard 20-10 yet?"
- H also has binoculars that he loves, brings to school all the time and refers to as his "noculars". He always says, "Miss Jennifer, can I get my noculars?"
- My kids think it's hilarious to call boys girls and girls boys. They wanted to call me a boy, which would be Mr Jennifer but apparently they think my full name is Miss Jennifer so they went through a phase of finding it hilarious to call me "Mr Miss Jennifer"
- I also work with another group of kids after school. In this group there's a girl who thinks my name is "Miss Jellyfer" and a boy from the French department who refers to me as "ifer"(pronounced eefair)
- A conversation completely out of the blue with one of my kids:
K: "Where's your dad?"
Me: "My dad? Well, he's in America"
K: "America. Is that your house? Is that where you live?"
Me: "No, it's another country. You have to take an airplane to get there."
K (who is Iranian): "Oh. Is it in Iran?"
- One of the moms from my class was pregnant this year. So of course her daughter and a number of others in the class put toys under their shirts and walked around saying they had "babies in their tummies" Here's a convo I overheard between two girls:
E: "I have a baby in my tummy, the doctor needs to remove it! I got it at the Dubai Mall"
G: "Dubai Mall doesn't sell babies! Only toys!"
Glad we're all clear on what we can and can't buy at Dubai Mall:)
- I talked about a "Knight in shining armour" to describe one of the costumes we have in indoor play. B from then on described it as "knight in shiny armour!" B also describes how he likes to go see movies at the "cilema" with his family. If you remember from a previous post he's also the one who, when pretending to be a pirate, says "hoy hoy ladies!" for ahoy mateys:) B also loves to sing Rihanna's "Diamonds". He holds up a cylinder shaped block as his microphone and belts it out, obviously getting many of the words wrong but still knowing enough to impress me! I told his mom one day how much I enjoy how he sings around class and she said, "Oh I know, he told me at home 'Miss Jennifer LOVES when I sing'" hahaha.
- We had school pictures about a month ago. For the other classes, this was apparently a disaster. The kids were crying, wanted no part of it, etc. My kids were the complete opposite. They are such hams and love any chance to get in front of the camera. We went in a few at a time and they watched their friends take their pictures. Many of my girls, after their turn, while watching their friends take pictures said, "after this is it my turn again?", I kept having to say "No, you're finished, everyone only gets one picture!" The girls were also really excited about the 'mermaid pose'. When it was A's turn, the photographer started to talk to her and A cut her off and said, "yeah, but show me how to do the mermaid pose"
- I love to read books to my kids and they all have their favorites. One of the girls in my class, G, loves Hansel and Gretel. Although, she refers to it as "Handsome and Gretel". I've corrected her numerous times to no avail:) Another time I was reading a book that had tiger cubs so I quizzed my kids, "What is a baby tiger called?" G yelled out "Lion!" haha. G is such a character. She loves to tell me everything she's done over the weekend and after school. When she's proud of something and shy she asks her mom to tell me. One morning she asked her mom to show me a video from the mom's iPhone. It was G swimming in the big pool. The best part was in the video she literally yells out to her mom, "Tell Miss Jennifer I'm swimming in the big pool!"
- We had a new boy join our class towards the end of the year, Cameron. His mom is Slovakian, raised in Utah and his dad is French, raised in Argentina. The other kids in my class had a very difficult time with his name. For me this was one of the easiest in my class to pronounce, being a common American name. To give you an idea, some of the other boys names in my class are Abdullah, Akbar, Aryan, Hamza...One of the girls in my class came to me to tell me that Cameron was not being nice. She said "The new boy, American, is not nice" I said, "No, no, not American, CAM-ER-ON". I overheard a number of other kids calling him "Camera", I can't count the number of times I've said "CAM-ER-ON". The mother of a girl named Elena complained one day that the kids were pronouncing her name "Elaina", I said, "Yeah well they're calling Cameron, Camera so..."
I wish I could remember all the things they've said and done bc they make me laugh and smile everyday:)
After their performance, I handed our their certificates:)
My circus, my monkeys:)
As for the endless anecdotes from this year, I will try a bullet point format to highlight my favorites. You will get a glimpse of why I love this class so much:)
- I was playing with one of my kids in the castle in indoor play. He said, "go to sleep and I will tell you a story". He started to tell me the story of Snow White. He said there were 7 "warfs" and I said "7 warfs?" and he said "yes, 7 warfs" holding up 7 fingers, as if that were the part that must be confusing me...When he got to the part of the apple he said "Snow White ate the apple and then she be died".
- We also do puppet shows and I like to give the kids a chance to do their own puppet shows with a partner for the rest of the class. As much as I encourage imagination and changing up the puppets and the stories, all of the puppet shows end up exactly the same way. The big bad wolf puppet eats all of the other puppets and yells "I will bite you for dinner!" No matter how the story starts, that is without fail the ending. Another teacher was with me today when my kids started their puppet shows. I told her, just wait, I guarantee they will all end with the wolf eating someone for dinner...which is ironic because when I do the Little Red Riding Hood puppet show for them I always make the wolf feel bad for wanting to eat them and they talk it out and decide to share the food and be friends. Glad to see my message is getting across to the kids!
- When preparing the kids for graduation I told them about the caps and gowns. A couple of them initially said they didn't want to wear them and I said, "ok fine, no problem, that's your decision but just so you know the cap and gown mean you're graduating and you're going to big school next year. So if you don't want to wear it, that's fine with me but people will think your friends are going to big school and you're not." The looks on their faces were priceless. Immediately their eyes got wide and they all started saying, "oh I want to wear it! I'm going to wear it!" Later that day we were in the library and I was reading them the twelve dancing princesses. In the book in references the princesses wearing gowns. One of my kids raised his hand and said "are they going to big school?"
- One of our objectives this year was to learn to count to 20. Obviously some of the kids want to count higher than that. One of my favs, H, was counting and said 27, 28, 29, 20-10! His mom later asked me, "have you heard 20-10 yet?"
- H also has binoculars that he loves, brings to school all the time and refers to as his "noculars". He always says, "Miss Jennifer, can I get my noculars?"
- My kids think it's hilarious to call boys girls and girls boys. They wanted to call me a boy, which would be Mr Jennifer but apparently they think my full name is Miss Jennifer so they went through a phase of finding it hilarious to call me "Mr Miss Jennifer"
- I also work with another group of kids after school. In this group there's a girl who thinks my name is "Miss Jellyfer" and a boy from the French department who refers to me as "ifer"(pronounced eefair)
- A conversation completely out of the blue with one of my kids:
K: "Where's your dad?"
Me: "My dad? Well, he's in America"
K: "America. Is that your house? Is that where you live?"
Me: "No, it's another country. You have to take an airplane to get there."
K (who is Iranian): "Oh. Is it in Iran?"
- One of the moms from my class was pregnant this year. So of course her daughter and a number of others in the class put toys under their shirts and walked around saying they had "babies in their tummies" Here's a convo I overheard between two girls:
E: "I have a baby in my tummy, the doctor needs to remove it! I got it at the Dubai Mall"
G: "Dubai Mall doesn't sell babies! Only toys!"
Glad we're all clear on what we can and can't buy at Dubai Mall:)
- I talked about a "Knight in shining armour" to describe one of the costumes we have in indoor play. B from then on described it as "knight in shiny armour!" B also describes how he likes to go see movies at the "cilema" with his family. If you remember from a previous post he's also the one who, when pretending to be a pirate, says "hoy hoy ladies!" for ahoy mateys:) B also loves to sing Rihanna's "Diamonds". He holds up a cylinder shaped block as his microphone and belts it out, obviously getting many of the words wrong but still knowing enough to impress me! I told his mom one day how much I enjoy how he sings around class and she said, "Oh I know, he told me at home 'Miss Jennifer LOVES when I sing'" hahaha.
- We had school pictures about a month ago. For the other classes, this was apparently a disaster. The kids were crying, wanted no part of it, etc. My kids were the complete opposite. They are such hams and love any chance to get in front of the camera. We went in a few at a time and they watched their friends take their pictures. Many of my girls, after their turn, while watching their friends take pictures said, "after this is it my turn again?", I kept having to say "No, you're finished, everyone only gets one picture!" The girls were also really excited about the 'mermaid pose'. When it was A's turn, the photographer started to talk to her and A cut her off and said, "yeah, but show me how to do the mermaid pose"
- I love to read books to my kids and they all have their favorites. One of the girls in my class, G, loves Hansel and Gretel. Although, she refers to it as "Handsome and Gretel". I've corrected her numerous times to no avail:) Another time I was reading a book that had tiger cubs so I quizzed my kids, "What is a baby tiger called?" G yelled out "Lion!" haha. G is such a character. She loves to tell me everything she's done over the weekend and after school. When she's proud of something and shy she asks her mom to tell me. One morning she asked her mom to show me a video from the mom's iPhone. It was G swimming in the big pool. The best part was in the video she literally yells out to her mom, "Tell Miss Jennifer I'm swimming in the big pool!"
- We had a new boy join our class towards the end of the year, Cameron. His mom is Slovakian, raised in Utah and his dad is French, raised in Argentina. The other kids in my class had a very difficult time with his name. For me this was one of the easiest in my class to pronounce, being a common American name. To give you an idea, some of the other boys names in my class are Abdullah, Akbar, Aryan, Hamza...One of the girls in my class came to me to tell me that Cameron was not being nice. She said "The new boy, American, is not nice" I said, "No, no, not American, CAM-ER-ON". I overheard a number of other kids calling him "Camera", I can't count the number of times I've said "CAM-ER-ON". The mother of a girl named Elena complained one day that the kids were pronouncing her name "Elaina", I said, "Yeah well they're calling Cameron, Camera so..."
I wish I could remember all the things they've said and done bc they make me laugh and smile everyday:)
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