Wednesday, January 2, 2008

Prized Possession

Last week was my very last week teaching my primary class and I will sorely miss them. Our lesson was on possessions and the Golden Rule. The goal is to get these kids (age 5) to think about other people's stuff in comparison with their own toys, etc.
It was very amusing. Some got it. June in particular has Foot, her most prized possession, so she somewhat understands, but then there is Talon who is just too laid-back. It is hard to teach a lesson when the kids are so mellow. The conversation went much like this:

Me: So, Talon, how would you feel is someone knocked over your tower. (We built clay models to represent possessions we treasure and Talon's was a tower.)

Talon: I would build it again.

Me: But what if someone broke it and you couldn't rebuild it.

Talon: That's okay.

Joseph: You can't break Legos

Come one kids, give me a break!! I heard other classes suffered from the same problems. Kari told me that she had answers such as:

"Well, it is too big to get lost."

or

"It doesn't matter, my mom can fix anything."

I guess I can just take heart that most of these kids don't have anything so precious that they will not be able to get over the loss of it in a few days. June, possibly, would never recover if we lost Foot. If anything, she gets more attached each day.
When she knocked the Christmas tree over and broke it (literally, the stand snapped and the tree would stand no longer. It really motivated me to put it away), I tried to use the lesson as an example. I think what she got out of the lecture was that I was thinking about breaking Foot because she broke the tree. She clutched him to her chest and started to cry. I obviously need some training on how to deliver a life lesson.
I actually panic sometimes when we can't find Foot at bedtime. I try to think of how our family would function without him. June even woke me at three in the morning a few nights ago because Foot was no longer in her bed. He had fallen into the crack by the wall, which takes a lot longer to find than you want it to at 3 a.m. He truly is a prized possession.

4 comments:

  1. You are hilarious, but I am with you about the stress of having your kids attached to things. Izzy is attached to lots of things, and she has an incredible memory, so on occasion life is very difficult!

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  2. Those kids are so dang cute. I really enjoyed being their teacher and was sad to be released. I love you idea for a lesson, that was probably a lot of fun

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  3. WOW!!! I have met Foot and I am so glad you were able to find him at 3am.

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  4. I will miss you being in Primary, too (boo hoo). I love the things kids say. Priceless.

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