Reflecting on Kids...

I attended a meeting tonight and a small child that can't be more that two decided I had an inviting lap. I know her grandparents, but I'd never seen her before. She decided to perch herself in my lap and laugh and giggle for a while. It's been a long time since I held a child that young. Usually small children are a little skeptical of people they don't know. But this child comes from a very loving family and I guess her sense of security was pretty strong. She made me her new friend and spent a good ten minutes with me. It made me think of my own daughters at that age...

I have the good fortune this year to spend a little time each day with every grade at my school. I spend 45 minutes each day with kindergarten through fifth grade. And I see the preK kids at lunch and at bus duty. In just a few short weeks it's given me a real sense of how kids develop.

I told my wife yesterday that I'd decided that second grade was a turning point. Most kids at that point emerge from some sort of fog or haze that seems to me to have a lot to do with their ability to articulate ideas and the depth of their perception of the world. I enjoy my time in second grade reading block a lot.

At the moment kindergarten and first grade are both working on writing. But for kindergarten that's a motor skills and memory activity. But the first graders are having to think of words to put in blanks in their sentences: He see a _______. In some cases they're being required to create whole sentences on their own. And you can see the wheels turn as they think...

By fifth grade they're almost like little adults - with some depth of knowledge, the ability to really reason with you, a much firmer grip on behavioral issues, etc. The irony is that a week or to after finishing fifth grade, hormones (and the emotions that come with them) will make them almost unhuman.