Older Than She Looks

I'm teaching the pre-K class at church again this year. We have several teachers, so I'm only on tap for one or two Sundays a month. That's probably a good thing, because to be honest, I'm really not that good with kids. And I have to think that the kids know it. Kinda like how they say dogs can sense fear (not that I am comparing children to dogs, mind you).

The formal religious education schedule got underway yesterday, and it was my turn to teach. During the summer, the kids hang out in one large group and take on various craft projects and whatnot. But during the school year, they are divided by grade and follow their curriculum accordingly.

I had four students in the Pre-K class yesterday. I gathered the kids into a circle and lit the chalice. I thought it would be fun to have each child say their name, their age, and talk a little about what they did this summer. The first girl said she was four. The next boy said he was four as well. Then it was A's turn.

"How old are you?" I asked her.

"I'm sixty-six," she responded matter-of-factly.

"No, how OLD are you?" I asked again. I thought maybe she believed I was asking for some other statistic about herself, for which the answer would be "sixty-six," though I can't imagine what that would be either.

"I'm SIXTY-SIX!" Now she was kinda mad.

I mean, I could see if she fibbed a bit and said she was four, but sixty-six? At that age she'd be older than her Meemaw.

After that, I asked the kids if they'd been swimming that summer. For all but one of the kids, I know their parents so I basically had an idea of what they did over the summer and could prompt them accordingly. "Did you swim in a pool, in a lake, or in the ocean?" I asked them.

Well, according to this group of three and four-year-olds (and one sixty-six-year-old), they were lucky to make it through the summer without perishing. One kid said that there had been some vicious sharks and fish where she had been swimming. Then another kid chimed in and said there had been alligators AND crocodiles after him during his family vacation. Another was threatened by "octopuses." Every story got a bit more dramatic than the last. I have to admit it's a fun age to work with. You can't keep their attention for more than three minutes at a time, but they are entertaining.