5 Kindergarten Thanksgiving Truths

1. When asked what they are thankful for, most kindergartners will answer the obligatory God, family, friends, and pets. Then you get the handful who tell you how it really is (because let's face it, 5-year-olds are still largely egocentric).  These kids say they are thankful for themself, their Nintendo DS, their toys, and my all time favorite, their cheeks (the kid does have a great set of cheeks).

2. Kindergarten students have no concept of whether they are traveling down the street, to a different state, or to a different country for their Thanksgiving dinner.  You have to put it in terms of walking, cars, and airplanes.

3. 21 out of 27 kindergartners admit to eating turkey for Thanksgiving.  3 don't celebrate Thanksgiving (because they are from another country),  2 eat chicken (which is probably really turkey), and 1 eats turkey pizza (which is probably a lie).

4. During our Thanksgiving celebration, all students who get selected to wear the pilgrim hats are secretly (or openly) disappointed.  The Native American hats are just cooler, even you and I know that.

5.  Pilgrim and Native American hats aside, a kindergarten Thanksgiving celebration is a happy memory for all, and the kids actually emit a disappointed "awwwww" when told it's time to pack-up to go home because of the half-day of school.  Moments like these make me thankful that I'm a teacher.

Pet Regret

In the years that I have been teaching Kindergarten, I have learned that the topic of pets normally creates quite a commotion and I always regret bringing it up.  Unfortunately, our religion curriculum includes a piece on "thanking God for our pets," so it is unavoidable.  This year, as expected, the minute I breached the topic, I had just about the whole class raising their hands (and those who weren't raising their hands were just shouting out).  You have those kids who don't have a pet and have the saddest look on their face, those kids who have too many pets and need to share every bit of information about them, and those kids whose pets have died in all ways imaginable.  It's amazing, really, how many 5-year-olds have already experienced the death of a pet (or have just concocted a story about it). One story this year really caught me off-guard.  I have a set of twins in my class, and one of them shared with the class that their dog had died when it was only 3 years old.  His brother then told us that this wasn't true, he just had to be sent off to doggy school.  Hmmm.... Is this a case where the dog died, and the parents sheltered the kids by telling them that the dog had just gone to live somewhere else?  Or, is it just the opposite: the family couldn't handle the dog, so they just told the kids that the dog had died so that there was no chance of them ever asking to get it back?  Not sure how to respond, I paused, and was luckily saved by the second twin who stated "We love him no matter where he lives!"