It Happened

I had one kindergarten class today for 35 minutes. The way I planned for it, you would've thought that we had 2 hours.

I read a book about pumpkins and talked about some of the pictures and words, then we sang "Ten Little Pumpkins" (sung to the tune of ten little indians) with hand motions and body movements, and then we colored pictures of pumpkins. At that point I looked up at the clock and expected it to be time to line everyone up. We still had 10 minutes to spare. Remember what I said about extra time, and kindergarteners, and the library?

I panicked.

"Okay," I said confidently, "Everyone on the rug." As all the little cherubs bounced over to the rug, I thought to myself, okay Kelly, what the heck are you going to do with them now?

Out of my mouth came the following words: "Okay, are we pumpkins today?" When the kids replied no, I said, "Well, today we can pretend. And we're going to have a jumpy bumpy ride just like the pumpkins in the story. Spread out so you don't knock into your neighbor."

This is when I laughed to myself. I laughed because they did exactly what I asked them to do. I had to remind myself that I wasn't in my fifth-grade class anymore, where I would've heard, "We're not going to do that. We're not babies." No, these kids looked up at me waiting for the next instruction. I had them. "Okay, get ready pumpkins!" I said. So we went through the whole story, where all of the kids were rolling down the hill like the pumpkins in the story, wiggling and waggling around. They loved it. I looked up at the clock and we had two minutes to spare. Just enough time to compose ourselves, turn back into kids, and line up to leave.

I did it. Now the question is: what are we going to do tomorrow?!