The funny circus from his head

First day of school with the kids! Um... yay?

They seem like a good group. The day went pretty much exactly like last year's.

The cast:

• A1, boy, 5. Clever, good reader, knows a few French words, has a sly mischievous look about him. Is half-Asian.
• A2, boy, 6. Son of the ultra-involved Sikh parents. Bookish and smart. Seems affable and sweet, not at all the competitive, self-absorbed kid his parents described at the conference.
• A3, girl, 5. Seems sharp. Loves art.
• A4, boy, 6. The second-loudest kid in the room, but not aggressive, just playful. Mother is from South America. She says he can add fractions and subtract two-digit numbers already. So far I'm impressed with his volume.
  
• B, girl, 5. Daughter of first-generation immigrants. Her mother spoke English fairly well at our meeting, but not quite fluently enough for total communication. B herself spoke perhaps three words in total today, all of them monosyllabic answers drawn very reluctantly from her by me insisting on a reply.
• C, boy, 5. A smart fellow, perhaps has Asperger's. Talks as if someone's constantly adjusting his pitch and playback speed.
  
• G, girl, 5. Youngest in the class, turned five just a few days ago. Very sweet. Excellent artist.
  
• H, boy, 5. Second-youngest in the class. Absolutely goes nuts for superheroes (so we have something to talk about). Very poor motor skills, almost no letter-sound correspondence, not strong enough to close the hole punch. I may have to earn my pay with this little guy.
• K1, girl, 5. One of two black girls in the room. Almost zero literacy skills. Has a reputation for being sassy and defiant, but this hasn't emerged yet. It may never, Ganesh willing.
• K2, girl, 5. Big cheeks. Loves animals. Good reader.
• M1, girl, 5. Super cute! Loves art.
  
• M2, girl, 5. Don't know her ethnic heritage but she's a sort of mocha color. Also has a reputation for being sassy. Poor writing.
  
• R, boy, 5. Just the sweetest, most helpful little ball of energy you ever saw. His mother has possibly terminal cancer. Is terrific at invented spelling.
  
• T, girl, 5. The second black girl in the class. A terrific reader. Fell asleep in her chair at the end of the day.
• W1, boy, 5. Nice kid, kinda loud, loves Legos. All I really know about him so far is his mother is really, really hot. Don't judge me!
  
• W2, boy, 6. Kept to himself, loves to cut and glue paper creations. Very well spoken and seems to read fairly fluently.
• Z, boy, 5. The loudest kid in the class. Ebullient and chipper and loud, but showed streaks of whiny defeatism already. Very poor writing skills.
  

They're a fun, happy, creative bunch, and --- here's hoping --- I don't sense any aggression in the group as I did with a couple of last year's boys. I feel like the big difference between this and my former class --- and I know it's only been one day, so I may be wrong --- are that this class has fewer kids with advanced reading and writing skills, and some with almost no phonetic awareness. Well, down the road we go, then.

***

After school, Ms. N, Ms. Counselor, and I put on a little skit we'd prepared at the behest of the Administration about the importance of faculty and staff donating to the school fund. We opened with me giving a few amusingly inappropriate ideas on how to stir up involvement (mostly I favored punching), then we narrated a PowerPoint with some very humorous photos, taken by the development office, that illustrated our ideas. Ms. N and I had been picked for this project because of last year's presentation on our conference, which we mistakenly made creative and engaging, so now we're the go-to people for in-house talks.

And then we all got ice cream floats! It was a cibarious celebration.