One-on-Two

Angela and Samuel (in my fully biased and completely unobjective opinion) are the single funniest pair of children here.  Angie adores her big brother and Samuel well in his own quirky way feels the same way about his little sister.  Angie will do quite literally anything her big brother does, to the point of walking over to the Tom the Dog (of whom she is terrified of on most occasions) and attempt to pet him simply because Samuel is playing with Tom too.  All this to say, every morning from 8:45 (ish) to 9:30 (ish) one can come to the yellow room and watch the two of them learning together because instead of one-on-one class time, we have one-on-two time. 

We sing songs together, play dress up, color, dance, stack blocks, read and simply enjoy each other’s company.  Their differing types of adoration for each other is incredibly helpful in getting them to participate and keeping them entertained for the hour or so of class time.  Angie will play any game Samuel suggests, and Samuel follows Angie’s lead when her enthusiasm for learning permeates the room.  I spend the vast majority of my time smiling and laughing at their combined antics as they learn and develop and explore.

There is only one rule for our class time: “if we leave the room, Angie and Samuel MUST hold hands.”  The reason for this rule is twofold 1) one two-year-old leaving a room while under one’s supervision is difficult enough to control and/or contain; two is downright impossible, the handholding forces them to walk slower and head in the same direction and 2) it is probably one of the cutest things I have seen in my year here.

There is actually a story that lead to the hand holding.  One day we were coloring, the kids LOVE to color, however, I could not find the crayons so we resorted to markers, which of course got EVERYWHERE.  Angie’s hands were almost entirely blue and Samuel had green all over himself.  I was going to ignore the marks until Samuel started crying and stuffed his green hand into his mouth and then proceeded to smear the green marker all over his face.  At this point I decided it was time to Xi Shou (wash hands).  I had them hold hands and walk down to the bathroom.  We washed our hands, went back to class, cleaned up the toys and then went to snack time.  The next day, we colored again and again I could not find the crayons and AGAIN the markers got all over the kids hands, so again we washed our hands.  Somehow this has become the routine, after clean up, before snacktime, we walk down the hall and wash our hands.  They have learned to say “scrub, scrub, scrub” and the two of them actually ask to wash their hands.  They practically fly past the snack room in their haste to wash hands, and will inform their nannies of their intentions when the nannies try to herd them into the snack room.  It is adorable and truly enjoyable.

Scrub, Scrub, Scrub! from New Day Foster Home on Vimeo.

---This post was written by our beloved intern, Jazz