First, a few updates:

1) Shadow's eyes are, in fact, green. And he was great when I gave him his shot this evening! I terrified myself, though, by going over there after ten and promptly getting lost. By the way, thank you night-time jogger for scaring the hell out of me. That's exactly what I needed while wandering around aimlessly in a strange place after dark. Beautiful timing!

2) I am not quite over my cold - my throat is still scratchy. I'm getting better, though, a little bit at a time.

3) On with the Alphabytes entry!

.......

Kids are funny. I am basing this on the class I subbed for at the wildlife center last week. At first, I was scared to teach them. I was nervous that it wouldn't be fun for them, or worse, that one of them might puke or wet themselves and I'd be left all alone to try to figure out what to do. Sure, I've been a teacher for the past two years, but I've rarely taught by myself! At the marsh, there was a team of us teachers. And inside the classroom, I always taught the tiny kids, the ones young enough to require their parents to stay with them. Yep, the 2-4 year olds.

This time I was going to have a group of 4-6 year olds all to myself, no parents, which I'd only done once before (that entry is from forever ago - the teaching stories are about halfway down the page. also, my views on zoos and zoowork have changed quite a bit since I wrote that entry! now, I want nothing more than to work in a zoo, and 12 hour days? bring it on! ...now back to your regularly scheduled Alphabytes entry!...).

I was freaked. I couldn't even sleep the night before. I think I got about two hours of sleep before heading out to prepare for the day's class. Of course, once they arrived and I started talking to all of them, I couldn't even remember what I was so worried about. They were so much fun! One mom made me laugh a lot. She came in, showed her daughter where to sit, then faced me and said, "Okay, mommies have to leave, right?"

"Well," I started, about to tell her that if she really wanted to, she was welcome to stay, but she interrupted me.

"Mommies have to leave. Right?" she asked again, staring me in the eyes and nodding slightly.

Taking her cue, I said to her little girl, "Oh! Yes. Yep, mommies have to leave. That's true. But we'll have lots of fun in class, okay?" The little girl nodded, and her mom left.

One boy came in late, and when he did, he came over, tapped me on the shoulder and whispered, "I have to show you something." He then pointed to his knee, which had a couple scabs on it.

"Wow. Are you okay?" I asked.

"Yeah," he said, sitting down. "I didn't do it here. I did it at home."

"Okay, let's get back to talking about turtles now then, okay??"

We were learning about pond animals that day, so I took out a mount of a bullfrog. I asked the kids, "How many legs does a frog have?"

"Four!" most of them shouted together.

"Great! You guys are really on top of this stuff!"

"I'm four!" one of the kids blurted out. And, since it's the 4-6 year old class, they all jumped in!

"I'm four, too!"

"I'm four and a half!"

"I'm four and three quarters!!!"

I busted up laughing. Four and three quarters? Who told her that?

I talked about how sometimes animals might live in their backyards. One girl said, "Yeah, I have a cat. And my cat goes in my backyard. And she has food there. And a raccoon comes and eats her food sometimes!"

Another boy jumped in to say, "And a BIRD flew INTO MY HOUSE!" He gestured so emphatically I couldn't help laughing. The kids didn't seem to mind my laughter, thank goodness. I think kids that age are still too young to be self conscious, which is awesome, because they say lots of funny stuff!

We then did a craft where they were to use stamps and ink pads to stamp pond animals on a big piece of paper, and either color them or draw a pond or something. It was easy and a total success. Except for the part where I didn't see that one girl had decided to stamp butterfly and frog stamps up and down her arms and legs! She was covered in inky animal pictures!!

By that time, the parents were starting to gather outside the door, so I wrapped things up with the kids, and ended class. When inky girl's mom showed up, I apologized and she didn't seem bothered. "Oh no problem!" she said, "She's always doing stuff like that. She loves those stamps."

Another mom walked in and said, "So how was she? Was she okay? Did she behave and enjoy herself?" I could NOT, for the life of me, remember whose kid was hers, but I knew I hadn't had a problem with any of the children, so I said, "Oh yeah, she was great! They all had a great time! She was fabulous." Because she was. Whoever "she" was. Then her kid ran up to her and I remembered she was the mom cueing me to tell her daughter that she couldn't stay with her during class. Yeah, that kid was fine!

The only kid who was a little wacky was a boy who was a little loud. At one point during craft time, after he'd finished, and other kids were washing ink off their hands, he danced around the center of the room and yelled loudly.

"Hey... Alex? Hi! You're inside, so please use your inside voice," I told him.

He looked at me with a very serious and understanding expression and nodded, instantly much quieter.

Just then, two thoughts popped into my head simultaneously:

"It worked!"

and

"WHO SAID THAT??" When on earth did such adult and/or teacher-sounding phrases start coming out of my mouth so naturally? WEIRD!

Anyway, I had an awesome time with that class. All fun and no puking or pants-wetting either. Success!

Since it was my last teaching day, I went ahead and took pictures of "my" classroom (the one I usually taught in), as well as my favorite classroom snake, a Pacific Gopher Snake, as I held him and said good-bye. I cleaned up the counters, wiped down the table, and picked up a few scraps of paper off the floor. After everything was in its place, I snapped off the light, took one last wistful look at my classroom, and left, locking the door behind me.

I came to an important conclusion that day -- I have to teach. I love it. I love kids (especially 4-6 yr olds!). I love seeing their little eyes light up as they get to pet a pond turtle, or a snake, or a tarantula. They are so gentle, sweet, and inquisitive, not to mention enthusiastic. They tell the funniest stories and really seem to enjoy learning. I have the best time with them, and well, I just know that somehow, some way, I'm going to be a teacher again someday. Zoo education is definitely in the cards for me for the future! It's just too fun to pass up!

Click here for pictures!