Lindsay L. O'Connor

One thing I love about being around kids is that no matter how lame something seems, there’s a pretty good chance that it’s something new to a person who has only been alive for 7 or 8 years. This applies to jokes, stories, songs, jump rope chants, hand clap chants, and many other things…

…which means that I can share the same books that I LOVE, over and over, year after year, and every year, it’s still new to my captivated audience. My absolute favorite part of the day is when I get to read to my kids, especially when I get to share stories that I have loved for many years, like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Sarah Plain and Tall, and The Polar Express.

Basically, I can re-teach, re-tell, or re-read anything I want and it’s still new and interesting to my students. While the adult world has long tired of many of these things, my students can actually learn something new from these old experiences, stories, and bits of knowledge. And sometimes it’s just plain fun. If I want to tell them a lame joke with a dorky play-on-words, they think it’s funny. If I want to read a book that the rest of the world is sick of, they find it interesting. If I get a little thrill out of teaching about fractions or butterflies, they don’t roll their eyes. If I want to sing a dorky song about the water cycle, they want to learn it. It’s fun to see so many things that I have enjoyed or known about for so long as being something new and exciting to little people who are being exposed to them for the first time.

Last year, my favorite teaching moment was when we witnessed the little miracle of our first butterfly emerging from its cocoon. Today, the shipment of tiny caterpillars and caterpillar food arrived and I spent my planning period arranging new little homes for them so that each kid can have a caterpillar. I am so excited to do this unit again because watching the metamorphosis will be fresh and new to my current students. I hope I never tire of watching children experience the newness of things because it is a lovely sight, indeed.