The students that are currently in my sixth grade class are the same students that were in kindergarten the year I was Mrs. Jackson's (kindergarten) assistant. It was a difficult year for me. Mostly because I have a difficult time teaching foundational knowledge that needs to be learned by rote. Playing and interacting with them was great but teaching them "short vowel sounds" and "counting to one hundred"...not my thing.
On St. Patrick's Day I decided to pull their leg a little...ok...a lot. While Mrs. Jackson took them upstairs to visit the bake sale, I stayed behind to set the stage. First, I locked the door, opened the emergency exit window and knocked over a few chairs. Then I took $5.00 in pennies and scattered them all over the room and put a blue marble in each student's pencil box. Finally, I stood at the door, listening for their return. When I heard them outside the door, I started yelling, "Stop! No! What do you think you are doing? I'm not letting you go! You're mine now! etc." Mrs. Jackson tries to come in and finds the door locked and starts pounding on the door yelling, "Ms. Janet? What's going on? Are you ok?" (She's was always ready to play along with my schemes...plus she had plenty of her own!)
I finally come and open the door and I stand there, disheveled and gasping for air. I had never seen that class so quiet or their eyes so huge. They didn't say anything. Mrs. Jackson asks me what happened and I gasp out, "There...(gasp)...was a...(gasp)...Leprechaun...(gasp)"
The kids came into the room...sort of (they pretty much stayed by the door at first) and I told them what happened. "I was going with you to the bake sale but I heard a noise in the classroom so I went back and there he was...just standing there...a Leprechaun. I knew that if I could catch him he would have to give me his gold so I locked the door and chased him around the room. He kept tripping over the chairs so I was able to grab him as he was trying to go out the emergency window. But then he got loose. He got away but I tore a hole in his money bag and his gold spilled all over the room!"
The kids still haven't said a word.
"You can keep whatever you can find..." They still don't say anything but they do start scrambing around collecting pennies.
Finally, one boy asks, "What was he doing here?"
"I don't know," I said, "but I saw him messing with some pencil boxes."
They all make a run for their pencil boxes and discover little blue balls of glass. "He left us this."
I gasp loudly and then, in my best "hushed-whisper-of-awe" voice I say, "Do....you....know...what...that...is?? That is an Imagination Ball! The legends say that as long as you have an Imagination Ball you will have an ammmmmaaaaazzzzzing imagination!"
Soft "oohs" and "aahs" from the kids.
Now, I probably should have stopped here. But no. One of the kids says, "How do you know about the Imagination Ball?"
"I'm part Leprechaun. Because my great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather was a Leprechaun."
"No, he wasn't."
"Yes, he was. His name was Littleberry Roach...and if that's not a Leprechaun name, I don't know what is."
"You mean your great-grandpa was green?!"
"Real Leprechauns aren't green...that's just in the movies. Real Leprechauns look just like everybody else...they just have special skills."
"Do you have special skills?"
"Yes. I can tell good stories and I can make people laugh."
Love this! I can just see their faces!
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