Recently, at camp...

After singing the song "Hi My Name is Joe" to the campers (you know the song, 'Hi my name is Joe, and I work in a button factory...'.  You end up flailing around pretending to push buttons with nearly any conceivable body part) one of the girls came up to me and in all seriousness asked me a question:  "Is your name really Joe?!"

During lunch a boy picked up his banana and held it like a phone.
Him: Hello?  Hello?!  Is anybody there?!  If anyone else has a phone, pick up!!
Me:  (Picking up my banana as a phone.)  Hello!  How is your lunch?
(After a short conversation, he said he had to go, and ate the banana.)

Do you know what's funnier to the five- and six-year-olds than the word "underwear"?  Absolutely nothing.  Today's most sung song is called "I Wish" and contains the following oft repeated verse:
Oh I wish a was a little acrobat (ACROBAT!)
Oh I wish a was a little acrobat (ACROBAT!)
I would fly through the air,
And loose my underwear
Oh I wish a was a little acrobat (ACROBAT!)

We went on a field trip.  To a bowling alley.  With five- and six-year-olds.  My favorite part was having to call an employee over multiple times because the bowling ball just stopped moving in the middle of the lane.  Sometimes it actually ended up reversing its trajectory and coming back toward us.  The kids had a blast, as did I.

Camp rules.

We make the standard rules each summer at camp:
1.  Do not share lunches.
2.  Listen when other people are talking.
3.  Only leave the room with a counselor.
4.  Keep your hands to yourself.
5.  Etc.

I have added a few more rules to this list.

Special rule #1:  No breaking your arm on the first day of camp.

Explanation: Last year, on the first day of camp, one of the 5-year-old girls fell off the monkey bars.  She hurt her arm and was crying a lot, so her mom was called and she went home.  The next day she showed up with a huge cast going half way up her upper arm.  She had broken her arm on the first day of camp, but came to every day after that and was always a happy and enthusiastic camper.  (Despite having to put her arm in a plastic bag any time we played with water.)  She finally got the cast off the last week of camp.

This year I am a floater counselor, and on the first day of camp I moved up a grade and was working with many of the same kids I worked with last year.  This girl was in the group.  I made up the rule for her.  No breaking your arm on the first day of camp.  She happily and successfully followed this rule.

Special rule #2:  You must button your pants at camp.

Explanation:  We were playing outside on the playground after lunch.  A 5-year-old boy was running around on the equipment.  The following exchange took place;

Him: My pants keep falling down.
Me:  Then pull them up!
Him: (Pulls them up, I see that his jean shorts are unbuttoned.)
Me:  Are your shorts unbuttoned?
Him: Yes.
Me:  Please button your shorts.
Him: I don't want to.
Me:  Why?
Him: Because this way, it's easier to go to the bathroom.
Me :  Well, at camp we have to keep our pants buttoned.
Him: Why?
Me:  Because it's a rule.  At camp you must button your pants.
Him: (Buttons the pants, doesn't pull up the zipper.  I don't bother dealing with the second part.  At least the pants aren't falling down anymore.)

Who's the fairest of them all?

Today at camp, a 5-year-old girl talking to me...

Her:  I'm the prettiest one at camp.
Me: Are you?
Her: Yes.
Me:  Are you even prettier than me?!
Her: No...
Her:  Well, I just don't want to make you feel bad.

Hi. My name is Joe.

There really is nothing like singing (actually, performing) "Hi My Name Is Joe" to a bunch of six-year-olds instead of with them.  Because it's the song of the day so it has to be sung, (or else parents will complain that we didn't follow the calendar) but the kids are too lazy and prissy to sing and act out the song themselves.

(This is a generalization.  Some of the kids do sing and act out the songs with the counselors.  Others just look at us as if we are crazy.)

Regardless, my absolute favorite part about camp is singing songs with the kids.  I don't know why - I have a terrible, terrible singing voice.  My quiet voice does not project well at all, especially in song.  And yet, it's just so much fun to sing these silly songs with a bunch of five or six year olds.


Still related to camp, but not related to song:
There is a child at the camp who has a cochlear implant.  I know that there is a lot of controversy surrounding those within the Deaf Community, but I think it is just the coolest thing ever.  This little boy was born completely deaf.  When he was about three, he received the cochlear implant.  Now at six, he can "hear" and communicate with people so well.  When the room is very loud and sounds are coming from everywhere, or when he is sitting close to a fan, he isn't able to pick out the important sounds.  And during swimming he has to take the microphone off and is not able to hear anything.  But for the most part, he is just another camper.  For preschool and kindergarten he went to a school for children with hearing impairments, but next fall he will be going to the regular public school for 1st grade, and from what I have seen of him at camp so far, he will do just fine.

Hi. My name is Joe.

There really is nothing like singing (actually, performing) "Hi My Name Is Joe" to a bunch of six-year-olds instead of with them.  Because it's the song of the day so it has to be sung, (or else parents will complain that we didn't follow the calendar) but the kids are too lazy and prissy to sing and act out the song themselves.

(This is a generalization.  Some of the kids do sing and act out the songs with the counselors.  Others just look at us as if we are crazy.)

Regardless, my absolute favorite part about camp is singing songs with the kids.  I don't know why - I have a terrible, terrible singing voice.  My quiet voice does not project well at all, especially in song.  And yet, it's just so much fun to sing these silly songs with a bunch of five or six year olds.


Still related to camp, but not related to song:
There is a child at the camp who has a cochlear implant.  I know that there is a lot of controversy surrounding those within the Deaf Community, but I think it is just the coolest thing ever.  This little boy was born completely deaf.  When he was about three, he received the cochlear implant.  Now at six, he can "hear" and communicate with people so well.  When the room is very loud and sounds are coming from everywhere, or when he is sitting close to a fan, he isn't able to pick out the important sounds.  And during swimming he has to take the microphone off and is not able to hear anything.  But for the most part, he is just another camper.  For preschool and kindergarten he went to a school for children with hearing impairments, but next fall he will be going to the regular public school for 1st grade, and from what I have seen of him at camp so far, he will do just fine.

Computer status: Healthier

My computer has finally been fixed and returned to me.  It doesn't have a new hard drive like I was hoping, but it is functional again, so that's certainly a plus.

For the past week I have been working at a one-week class in which the other teachers and I teach entering-kindergartners about safety.  I don't particularly like teaching this mini-class.  Perhaps because, aside from field trips to the fire station and police station, it feels like something that doesn't really need to have a whole class or needs substantially more than 10 hours of class time.  Most of the things the kids learn (their address, phone number, the meaning of common street signs) they already know before taking the class.  And if they don't know it before coming into the class, they usually still don't know it upon leaving.  In a different setting or a different area this class could be more helpful/useful.  In this area though, nearly none of the children's mother's work, so it feels like they are having their children take this class as a way to get rid of them for 2 hours a day between the end of preschool and the start of summer camp.

On a not-quite-related note, the difference between the parents in Hometown and the parents in School-town are so pronounced.  I have noticed it before, but it seems to be more extreme each year.  The parents in School-town look like...parents.  The parents in Hometown aren't "parents" but instead only mothers (there are fathers, but we don't see them) - it's only mothers who pick up and drop off their children.  The fathers work, the mothers seem to mostly all stay at home.  And nearly all of them look like models (or something).  The other counselors that I work with during the summers at camp have discussions about who's mom is the prettiest, because somehow so many of the mothers really do look like the Desperate Housewives.  And that's just not normal.  People are not supposed to look like that.  I'm not saying that parents should all look disheveled and messy, but the amount of time and money that the majority of these mothers spend on their appearance is time and money that can be afforded only by the upper-middle-class, and is time and money that would be much better spent on so many other things.

Basically, Hometown makes me feel...uncomfortable, and I feel that I have finally developed enough to understand that I could never happily/comfortably live here even if I were financially able to afford to do so.  In the past, in high school, I always thought it would be awesome to teach in the same elementary school that I went to as a child.  I now know that I couldn't do that.  I think that I would end up...resenting the children for all that they have.  Which is ironic because all that they have is all that I have too - I mean, I grew up here (though admittedly Hometown has become noticeably wealthier in the last five to ten years or so.  When my family moved here a little more than 20 years ago, it was an affluent white suburb, but now it's...even more so). 

I'm trying to write something on the guilt I feel about having grown up in this town.  It's not coming out quite right, but I'm working on it.