I think this must have been “funny kid” week at school…Here is just a sampling.

I am getting ready for my spring programs at school and our theme this year is Follow The Shepherd. I have a BIG stuffed sheep that stands about 2 feet high, and is a very good replica. Not cutesy at all…very true to life. When the classes come in, they sit on the floor in a circle, and I had already put the sheep next to my chair. A sweet little boy, aged 3, who happened to sit right in front of the sheep…didn’t even wait for me to sit down before he exclaimed…loudly, “This sheep is freaking me out!” Needless to say, I moved Daisy, the sheep, quickly!

In another class, 4 year olds, I was explaining what the word ‘twitch’ meant. As in, …”the nose on the sheep goes twitch, twitch, twitch..”. How would YOU explain that word? Well, I asked them if they had ever looked at their dog and noticed how his nose would wiggle ever so slightly as he smelled of something. No, none of them had ever seen such a thing. Then a precious little boy, who has the ‘southern drawl’ down to perfection, said, “Well, Miz. Owens, I ain’t never see’d a dog do that, but I heard about it one time!” I think he was just trying to make me feel better. Then a cute little darling tried to explain to me that a ‘twitch’ is a ‘twin witch’. (Her mom said yes, she did have a movie about twin witches…and they were called ‘twitches’ so they wouldn’t be ‘witches’.) Oh the information you gather in a preschool!

Another 3 year old told me she knew a better song than the one I was singing. “Really?”, I said, “sing it for me.” And she started belting out a song about…”you look real good in your furry top boots and your apple-bottomed jeans.” Well…I didn’t let that one go any farther. Someone explained later, that it is a rap song…with not very child friendly words….she has a teen-aged sister…’nuff said!

And the last one didn’t happen to me, but a fellow teacher. Somehow the topic of baptism came up, and trying to not offend any one’s religious preferences as to immersion or sprinkling…she kindly explained that there were several different thoughts on ways to baptize. One child who obviously was well-educated on the subject said that someone he knew had gotten ‘dunked in the water’. “Why would you do that?” asked a little girl. “Cause it washes away your sins,” he said. Then another child popped up with the rest of the explanation. “Then you get all new sins!,” she said, as if that was the whole idea. The teacher quickly moved to another activity!

*****************************************************************************