The Littles (part 3) Fun

 Granted, the majority of my professional and personal "work" has been with children. I may be kinda partial.

What I love about children- in general- is their endless curiosity, endless sense of wonder & endless energy. Oh to be able to bottle that up & take a drink or two! 

Uninhibited children will dare to imagine and come up with the darndest things. They will blow you out of the water as the thoughts they are thinking turn into words. You will wonder where they heard a certain phrase or word and how their minds are like little sponges that grab up all they hear & see.

The word for an 🍊 in Spanish is naranja and the word for 🕷️ in Spanish is aranja .. in my preschool class, our color for the day was orange. Naturally, at meal times we had oranges, carrots, orange colored peppers. I told the kids how much I loved oranges, how they were so good for you and had so many vitamins. I'd talk about oranges throughout the day. Little did I know that I was actually using the spider 🕷️ word. At days end one of my 4 year olds came & pulled my shirt. " Teacher, naranja is an orange. Aranja is a spider. He had let me say it wrong the WHOLE day 

One of my sweet girls had funny names for foods. Franch for ranch with trees (broccoli) she called roasted peanuts fried nuts and asked for a shaved carrot (peeled). She would just crack us up. She was also the girl who knew all the colors before age 2 but not just the basics... Turquoise was her favorite, mauve, she was intense and I had a lot of time with her. She would hold on with all her might to new words, to big words like exquisite and disaster. One time around age 5 she told me she had a hypothesis so I asked her what it was. She told me she wasn't sure so I let her know that she didn't have one then. We had a fun time making hypothesis and seeing later if we'd been right. 

In Spanish the word for monkey is chongo. Our center had a fire safety day. The fire truck came & let the kids climb around it, take rides around the property, hold the hoses as a group as they were turned on, it was really cool. To our great surprise one of the men donned a Smokey the Bear suit and came in to make a presentation and give the kids baggies of toys and stickers to help them remember his speech. 2 boys were sitting close to me, little brother on my lap and big brother at my side. These 2 spoke a different dialect of Spanish than all the others and didn't really want to spend time with anyone other than me. When Smokey would get close to us the little one would cry & crawl up as close to my face as he could. He was scared to death. His brother began to growl when Smokey was near and I was worried he might try to bite or harm him. I did my best to keep them calm but laughed so hard when Smokey left. Big brother told me he was SO GLAD THAT STUPID CHONGO FINALLY LEFT. Smokey the Bear was now a monkey. Talk about a cultural difference, all the other kids knew and loved Smokey.

A friend's little guy came to our house one time & wanted to play. He was 4 or 5. My mom gave him some smurfs to play with and he responded, "wow, I haven't seen one of these in ages!"

I think this should be a place to share funny stories about the littles in your life if you want..  thanks for reading


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