First Thanksgiving

Last year I decided to try something new in one of my classes and see if there was some movement lessons that could be learned. I found little contour line drawings of the characters in the first thanksgiving story and I colored them and told the simple story of the Native Americans and the Pilgrims helping each other and have a dinner of gratitude. The story we learned every year in Elementary School. I started the class with the question, “Who knows the story of the first thanksgiving and can share it with us?” I wanted to know the foundation these children had of happened. Well in one of my four year old classes I received an answer that has both changed my outlook on the first thanksgiving story as well as how much we can learn from children. This little girls answer went something like this…

“There was a group of people that lived far away on the other side of the world, on an island. Their king would not let them worship God the way they wanted to so they got on boats.  They traveled a long time to a new world where they hoped they would be able to worship God the way they wanted to. They were having a hard time in the new world because it was different, so the nice people that lived their already, the Indians, taught them how to live, by how and what to plant and when. They were able to share with the Indians as well. So during their the fall they decided to have a dinner to say thank you to each other and God for giving them a place they could worship Him.”

I had always heard the story in a secular school and so having God as a major roll I had not really considered. Thinking about it I should have put two and two together. However it took a child’s simple telling me of a story I thought I already understood for me to really grasp the message of this story. I am ever so grateful to this child telling and they parent or teacher that taught her the story this way. After the her telling I took out my paper characters and told the story with them. The children then did a beautiful dance about the story and gratitude.

To The Givers

This past week I had a very different Mommy Moment. I attended my friends Relief Society Meeting, a woman’s organization for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  This moment is different because it does not center on the children themselves but on the wonderful Mother’s of these children. I agreed to come to this activity we ate pumpkin treats and wrote thank you notes. This group of women just happens to be a good number of women that I have taught their children or babysat them. I was able to talk to these women, these mothers. As and equal and feel their love for me because I had interaction with their children, at some point. One at a time each one of these mothers came and talked with  me wanted to get to know me and I truly felt their love. Most of them I had brief conversations with in the past but a few I met for the first time that night.  Too many conversations that night to have allowed me to write any thank you notes as was intended.

I write a thank you note now, as we turn our hearts and thoughts to gratitude this month, to those loving women. Women and mothers that not only share their children with me that I might be able to love and teach them, yet also want to get to know me love me for being me. Here’s to those women I spent time with and all the mothers that have share their children with me.

THANK YOU!

with my whole heart!

Story Time

A few weeks ago I was watching my nephews and they were getting tired. Fighting with each other a bit so I asked if they would want to read a story and had the two older boys pick out a few books. I layed on the couch with the baby and one laid beside me the other above my head and they all listened to the stories quietly. A great peace came upon me and I am pretty sure the boys felt it too. We read book after book and they were all happy. How long this lasted I am not sure but that moment was a perfectly complete moment that I will treasure.

I have always loved to read and will always love to do so. I have on other occasions read to these boys but this night was a heaven on earth moment. Where my love of reading was successfully shared with these boys I love so much. There is truly power and peace in being able to pass something on that has changed your life and could change that of others.

"No book is really worth reading at the age of ten

which is not equally - and often far more 

worth reading at the age of fifty and beyond. 

Someday you will be old enough to
start reading fairy tales again."

-C.S. Lewis

Skipping Angel

As I was writing my latest post I remember an incident about a year ago that supported the topic of allowing children to lead and blessings that can come from that. It was the start of a new year, last year and one little girl was having a hard time finding the courage to participate fully in class. I remember trying many different things to help this child but she mainly just stood there week after week. My assistant and I would have her halfheartedly doing things by the end of each class so we knew it could be done. Then one week the idea came to me to not have me or my assistant go skipping with her but a child. I picked a girl to go with her but it didn’t work very well the shy child just kept walking thereby slowing down my little helper, after a short time she would just let go and the shy girl would again just stand there. I don’t remember if it was this started the same day. If I asked her or if another little girl in class saw the need I was trying to fill, but this little girl came up and took the shy girls hand and started skipping. One skipping and one walking, but my little leader did not give up. For the next couple weeks this little leader would see her standing the shy girl not dancing and go and take her hand and dance with her. More and more this shy child opened up and after fewer weeks than my assistant and I tryed, this girl was brave and dancing on her own and now had a good friend.

Let them Lead

This past week was my Halloween week worth of lesson plans. Doing things for Halloween with children is a tricky balance. They want to do something for it not just ignore it, however if the wrong piece of music, even a classical piece can scare them. Something with minor chords or even too much bass.  So, I have the happiest Halloween music I could find out there, and still it can be a problem with some of the children at which point we go back to my normal music. I let the children direct me on this one.

I was teaching one of my youngest classes this past week and sure enough a little boy got scared so I quickly changed the music I want them to have a positive experience. He seemed fine after that so we moved forward. Then a little girl came late to class crying and not wanting to leave mommy.  As a rule I carry the crying child into the room and see if we can not find some distraction or another to get them to once again have a positive experience in dance class. I was trying to do just that when the little boy stopped dancing and started to cry again pointing to what I thought was the music box. This was very happy music so I was confused but I changed it. He went back to dancing and I went back to finding the thing that would distract this little girl from crying, she was starting to worry the other children and the last thing I wanted to do was hand her back to her mom. The little boy again started to cry I change this music that he had been dancing to in at other times with no problem and realized that there was something else going on because I really could not let him have the power to change the music on any whim.  Almost too slow I made the connection between his outbursts and this other little girl that was crying. My time was running out I pulled her  and him to their feet and tried to get them excited about moving it was not working.

It was then I had an idea for all intents and purposes this little girls crying was the problem and distraction method was not working so I decided to attack the situation head on, which normally does not work. I left the whimpering little boy, knelt by the girl looked her in the eyes and explain the situation the best I could in words that she would understand. “Do you see that [this little boy] is crying and not dancing? Its because you are crying. Could you be brave and a leader for me and show him that it is okay to go dancing.” I stood up took her hand once more and soon she was skipping with us happily and the little boy joined in too! the rest of the class went beautifully.

There have been a handful of other times asking the child to be a leader for other children and it works. It is easy to forget that these small children can be leaders and good things can come of it if we as adults are brave enough to let them try.