today has been a tricky day - the weather is icky, and the children are touchy, restless, and lethargic. they also struggled to lay down for naps (as i am typing this, i have one such student perched on my lap!) however, the problem that i have been noticing for the past couple of days is a strange thing to complain about: compliments. my children love me and each other so much they feel the need to let everyone know about it. it is the sweetest thing to see a child walk into a classroom and have his/her peers say "hey, i love your shirt! i love your pants!" and i can't deny it totally brightens my day when a kid says they think my hair is beautiful or that my shoes are pretty. one little girl today saw i had a different water bottle than the day before and loudly cheered "you got a different water bottle, miss teacher! yay! it's new! yay!" totally great. so i absolutely do not want to discourage them from telling their teachers and friends that they appreciate them. the problem is when to do this.
for instance, today during morning circle (when i am talking and they should be listening) one of the children popped up and said "that is a really nice "4," miss teacher" (regarding what i had just written on the board). this spurred a string of 6-7 compliments from the other students, telling me they liked the other numbers and letters i had written, that they liked the shirt i was wearing, that they liked the braids the girl next to them had in their hair, etc. they compliment anything they can think of (yes, even "i like your ear"). i had to remind them that, lovely as it is to tell people you like things about them, circle time is not the right time to do this. we discussed other times that it would be nice to compliment their friends. they all nodded and smiled.
not a full minute later, one of them just had to tell me that they liked my headband. oh well, better that than being mean to each other?
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