computers and snakes and showers

So on Friday we had a PD day. In their planners on Thursday, I had the kids write "PD day tomorrow. Yay!" I went around to check their planners and one boy said to me, very pointedly, "I didn't write 'yay'". "Oh," I said, concerned, "Aren't you excited about the PD day tomorrow?" "No," he replied. "Why?" I asked. "Because we have to miss computers." I just laughed. Oh computers. He would rather not have a PD day than miss computers. Amazing.

A while ago, I heard this story in the staff room, coming from the kindergarten teacher.

Andrew came in from recess and had some very exciting news to tell me. "I caught a flow snake!" He said. Admittedly, he looked a little confused and tried it again, when I asked him to repeat himself. "A flow snake! I caught a flow snake". I still wasn't sure what he was talking about. "What kind of snake?" "A flow snake". Obviously asking him this was getting me nowhere. I tried a different angle. "How did you catch it?" I asked. "On my tongue" he said. At first I was a little unnerved, but suddenly realized what he meant. "Oooooh, you caught a SNOW FLAKE!" He lit up. "Yes, yes! A snow flake! I caught a snow flake!!" Have I mentioned that I love the kindies?

As you might imagine, Halloween is an exciting time in grade two. Of course all the candy makes everyone unnaturally crazy, but the costumes are fun too. I did learn something this year, that I hadn't really thought about. As you might know, I LOVE dressing up. Always have, always will. I can remember spending hours at Value Village searching for the right shirt, or the right skirt...painting my face, sewing this that and the other thing. I would (and still do) spend hours getting ready for Halloween. Even if it's just to hand out candy.

Anyways, this is not the case for everyone. Even in grade two. We had some spare time between nutrition break and the costume parade. I thought it might be fun for everyone to go around and talk about what they were dressed up as, and why they chose to be that. The overwhelming response to the second question was, "because my mom bought this for me". Shockin'! Admittedly, there were a few other answers. There was "I'm Hannah Montana. I dressed as her because I love Hannah Montana. She's the best pop star in the world!" (grade two!!) And then there was, "I really wanted to be a skull but I couldn't, so now I'm wearing my cousin's old costume from last year." And one of my favourites "I'm dressed up as a skull. I wanted to be a skull because he said he was going to be a skull, but...". Hilarious. But most of them were something to the tune of "I'm this because my mom wanted me to be it." Turns out Halloween exists for the adults who love to live vicariously through their kids, not for the kids themselves.

This became undeniably obvious during the costume parade. The best costume in the school (although we didn't have a contest), was a kindie. He was a little adorable boy, and he was dressed up as a shower. Yes, a shower. He had a little harness to wear, with three dowels coming out of it, which held up a curtain rod, with a shower curtain (trimmed so he wouldn't trip on it) and a shower head with strings of little blue beads hanging from it. Amazing. It was a wonderful and creative and funny costume. But the truth is, no kindergarten child would think to themselves, "I want to be a shower for Halloween". Spiderman yes, Superman yes, the latest greatest "pop star" (unfortunately) yes. But a shower? No. Some people's parents...