Life lessons learned in preschool

July 31st, 2005
Well it is that time of the year again… a day filled with the joyful laughter of children playing!! Oh and I can’t forget to add the tears of saying goodbye to mommy and the numerous times this week I have heard “Aunty, I just made shi-shi in my pants”. The joys of being back in school!!
I told several of you that I would try to write more frequently, so here we go. I survived my first week back to school. Life gets very interesting when you have seven children between the ages of 2 years 10 months and 4 years 6 months. Each year the children and the class dynamics are so different. This group seems to be pretty relaxed. I have two boys from last year that are good leaders and role models for the other two boys. I have one girl that has to change activities every two minutes. Most of them have been trained very well at home to clean up after themselves, so clean up time in the classroom is a breeze. I am still praying that God will bring in several more children in the upcoming weeks.
I bought the book “All I really need to know I learned in kindergarten” by Robert Fulghum this summer. The first section is all about those precious life lessons that we learn as a child that we hopefully take with us for the rest of our lives. I thought I would take the time to share an excerpt from this book.
“All I really need to know about how to live and what to do and how to be I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in the sand pile at Sunday School. These are the things I learned:
- Share everything

- Play fair

- Don’t hit people

- Put things back where you found them

- Clean up your own mess

- Don’t take things that aren’t yours

- Say you’re sorry when you hurt somebody

- Wash your hands before you eat

- Flush

- Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you
- Live a balanced life- learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some
- Take a nap every afternoon

- Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the Styrofoam cup: The roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.
- Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup- they all die. So do we.
- And then remember the Dick and Jane books and the first word you learned- the biggest word of all- LOOK!!! (pages 4 & 5 of “All I really need to know I learned in kindergarten” by Robert Fulghum)

Wouldn’t life be wonderful if we all followed these rules and understood them. Oh, the wonderful things you learn in preschool and kindergarten. I encourage you take heed of the “live a balanced life” and make sure that you take time to play. Open up a box of Crayola crayons and have fun!!

I truly have the best job in the world working with the generation of the future. Please continue to pray for the school and for the people of Molokai.

Thank you for your prayers, support, and love. Feel free to email me with any prayer requests you may have so that I can lift your need before the great Physician!!!
Much love and God’s blessings,
Angela