One of the best parts about teaching kindergarten is that the kids are very funny, and the best part of that is they don't even know they are funny! My kids make me laugh everyday. Some days or even some weeks are funnier than others...this was one of those weeks. This week we celebrated our 100th day of school. I asked the kids to bring in a collection of 100 things, my only rule was that the collection had to fit in a backpack. They shared their collections, we spread them out on the rug and counted. I gave them directions. Me: Sally you count by 2's. Sally: Okay Mrs. Collins Me: Freddy you count by 5's Freddy: Got it Mrs. Collins Me: Maggie you count your collection by 10's. Maggie: Okay. Jenny: Mrs. Collins? Me: Yes Jenny? Jenny: Can I count by Mississippi's? This was also the week I had to complete our mid-year math assessments. One of the tasks was to sort attribute blocks by color. It was very interesting to see how they approached this task. Some sorted into piles, some sorted into lines, and one little guy sorted by color, but also patterned at the same time. Blue circle, blue square, blue triangle, blue circle, blue square, blue triangle. This little guy is a pretty bright little boy. He is naturally curious and loves to learn. So I said, "That is very interesting how you sorted those blocks, you sorted by color like I asked, but you made patterns too! That was very mathematical of you!" "Thanks Mrs. Collins!" "Maybe you'll be an engineer when you grow up." "Well I really like trains!" "I mean the kind of engineer that designs things like bridges." "Nah, I just want to be a firefighter!" One of my favorite parts of the day is listening to the kids talk while they have free choice. I sat near a table today where the kids were coloring. Kelly announced to the table, "When I grow up I'm going to get married. Do you all want to come to the wedding." I said, "Wow, you're planning your guest list very early, you have plenty of time to think about that!" Bobby who was listening to this conversation and clearly has his life all planned out, suddenly piped in."When I grow up, I am NOT getting married. I'm just getting a house...and a dog." Now there's a boy with a plan. Perhaps he'll be a firefighter and live in Mississippi!