Amelia's Manners

Amelia and Griffin aren’t the most athletic children in the world, so, after her first week of school, when Amelia responded that her favorite part of Kindergarten was sports, we were all surprised.

Currently, though she still likes sports, Amelia’s favorite part of Kindergarten is Letterland. Evidently, every letter of the alphabet has a name and story, and the names and stories are so interesting that they’re going to have an entire Letterland program.

Last night, after we properly greeted one another, Amelia and I decided to make cookies. She put on her apron that said, “Curious Chef,” and got to work immediately. With adult supervision, she sounded out a few words, picked out a couple of site words, told me when to stop when setting the oven temperature, measured the borrowed oil, cracked the eggs, mixed the dough, got out the baking sheets, rolled the balls of cookie dough, put the triangular marks on the cookies, shaped the giant triangular cookie, and told me when to stop when setting the timer.

Though she didn’t put the cookies into the oven, she did something that I thought notable. She said, “Excuse me, please, Nana. Dee and I need to put the cookies in the oven.” At another point during our visit last night, she said, “Yes ‘mam,” and called me, “Miss Aunt Dee.”

Amelia has never been a rude child. Her parents raise her and her brother well. In fact, they are both creative, imaginative, inventive, and caring children.

A couple of weeks ago, after my sister rescued a crate, a few tennis balls, and some records for me—yes, records—the big black things that most of my students have never seen—the crate cracked. Without a moment’s hesitation, Amelia said, “I’ll fix it!” She ran out of the room, got her mending supplies, ran back into the room, and mended the crate with blue painters tape. She then told she couldn’t handle the smell of my feet anymore and moved to the other side of the room. After Griffin sillily and voluntarily smelled my feet and made a really ugly face, they both went upstairs to get their shoe deodorant and spray my shoes. (The shoes I was wearing really did stink, as did my feet ).

So yes. Amelia has never been a rude child. But I can tell she’s learning manners in Kindergarten.

I am proud.