primary practice

Apparently I have not gotten married yet because I still need practice with handling children.  Specifically, other people's children.  I have already mentioned that I am the Bear Den leader in our building (it covers 2 wards).  But I am also a primary teacher.

I should probably count myself lucky that I am a primary teacher in the senior primary.  How do you begin to control a class room of 3 year olds?  Last year, I taught the 9-10 year olds.  This year, I am teaching the 8 year olds.  I'm finding out that one year makes a big difference.  But even with all the behavioral and reading differences, There are kids in each class that know more about the scriptures than I do.  I spend much of my time pretending to know what they are talking about just so I don't lose my credibility as a teacher.

Here are some of my favorite moments from last year:

• I asked the 2 kids in attendance if they could have anyone in the world over to their house who would they pick?  The first boy said David Archeletta.  The second boy named a girl that is in our class and then said... "yeah, I have a major crush on her"
• At a class party we played Telestrations.  One boy tried to draw "King Mosiah" and the 9 year old girl after him wrote as her guess: "Elijah and the priests of baal".  Another 9 year old girl after her then showed it to me and said: "I don't know what that is"; to which I said: "Neither do I".
• I use these alphabet cookies from Winco to create a word puzzle for my class every week.  After a few weeks of that, one boy saw me pull them out again and said "that's SO cool that you make those letter cookies for us every week".
• Towards the end of last year, my class gave me a run down of all their past teachers and where I rank among them. I'm proud to say that I was second best! 

I've only had 2 classes so far this year but I can tell this is going to be a good group for stories.  I already have some good ones.  I went from having 4 kids in a huge classroom to having 8 kids in a 4'x4' square.  All of the good stories so far have to do with one girl who is home schooled, very smart, and she knows it.

• The very first 5 minutes of our very first class, I hear Jenny (that is what I will call her because she reminds me a bit of my sister) say rather impatiently to the boy next to her "Santa Claus isn't real, he's just something that people pretend."  I have to admit, I don't think I've ever been present when someone else's faith in santa has been shaken.  That boy looked as scared as I probably did.  "He is TOO!" he yelled.  But Jenny responded "how does he get down the chimney? Do you really believe that?"  to which he responded "He comes in the door!".  It was definitely time to redirect....
• Two days ago, I asked another girl in the class to read a verse that had some hard words in it. I had to help her with about 40% of the words as she read.  All the 7 other kids were staring off into space, poking their neighbor or had dropped their scriptures on the floor by the time she finished.  Jenny then said rather loudly "Can I please read it so that everyone can actually understand it?".
• The next verse came along so I let Jenny read that one.  She lamented that it was so short and proceeded to rattle it off before any of the others had even begun turning there.  I then asked her if she would read it again so we could all listen this time.  She responded with "I have my slow, medium and fast voice.  That was my fast voice.  Which would you like?"  "Uh...medium, please..."