The Joy of Animal Crackers

On a cold snowy day in a small Ohio classroom, sixteen Kindergarten students and their teacher passed an enjoyable and productive afternoon.

I am happy to report that I am that Kindergarten teacher and the happy children were my own dear charges.

Our inspiration and cause for joy? Strangely enough.... iced animal crackers. Let me tell you all about it.

We began our afternoon by playing "Popcorn" math to practice adding zero to numbers. My students "popped" up and called out the answer to the given flashcard and hustled to a spot on the floor designated the "popcorn box". They were careful to not step on friends and we even timed the exercise. The first time it took us two minutes, the second only one.

Coming up with clever ideas to make learning fun sometimes is a real challenge. At the same time, it is immensely satisfying when I had find a way to make a normal but somewhat "boring" activity exciting to my kiddos.

After the flashcards, we continued math by counting by one's, two's, five's and ten's. Then we switched subjects and since we are studying our senses this week, we had a "Smelling test".

All my students got into a line and had to come up with their eyes closed to smell what I had hidden in my hand. Then they had to follow the line back around like a train until everyone had a turn to sniff. At that point we discussed what we thought the smell was and everyone who wanted some could have a taste when they filed past a second time.

The highlight of the test was sharing itty bitty pieces of Hershey's chocolate and iced animal cookies. Everyone received one cookie. I am not lying, you would have thought I had given them a million dollars. When the experience was over they asked for more. I assured them that when they came to me for small group work they would have an opportunity to earn another cookie or two.

I actually had kids begging to be "first" to come do their math and reading work.

All in all the kids had probably a total of four or five silly animal crackers in the course of the afternoon and they were in absolute ecstasy over them.

I'm not one to use food as rewards very often, but I may stash a bag of these amazing cookies somewhere for the next time the kids are having a tough day.

It is really too bad that our problems as adults can not be so easily corrected.

Imagine the world we could live in if a bag of animal crackers could, at least momentarily, stop all fighting and promote a feeling of peace and well being.

Although I just may be a tad biased, I think Robert Fulghum may have been right when he said wrote a lovely poem called, "All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten." Check out his words of humorous wisdom at http://www.peace.ca/kindergarten.htm.