Little kids just don’t seem that impressed with learning the Hebrew origins of their names. Today there was a little girl named Sarah sitting on the swings.  I asked her, “Did you know that the name ‘Sarah’ means ‘princess’?” She looked at me blankly for a second and replied, “I’m wearing gloves!” Needless to say,… Continue reading

I knew I was forgetting something from that lunch with second-graders yesterday: When I asked the kids what they’d been doing in class that morning, they said they were learning about compound words.  So I asked what compound words they’d learned. One little guy said: “Doghouse…  newspaper… mailbox… people.” I thought, Huh?  “People”?  But if… Continue reading

Today I had lunch with some second-graders.  A couple conversational highlights: “On the first day of first grade I didn’t say anything for a month.” “I can spell ‘minute’ without even thinking about it.” “Okay, go for it.” “M-i-n-u-t-e.” “Did you think about it?” “Only the ‘t-e’ part.” Continue reading