I awoke too early this morning—a full two hours before I really needed to be up. As I lay there thinking, I decided my kindergarten year was a pretty spectacular time of life. (Well what do you think about in the wee hours?)
The kindergartener’s job is to learn through play. She paints pictures, stacks blocks, counts sticks, sings the alphabet, climbs playground equipment, eats apples and fishy crackers, practices shoe tying, watches bugs, licks the beaters, picks clovers. All the while, her mind is active. Maybe she is thinking about the task at hand. Maybe not. She is free to consider whatever crosses her mind.
She is filled with kindergarten wonder.
Yet she is not without responsibility. She may be door holder or line leader or library book returner at school. She might fold washcloths or set the table or put away the silverware at home. She rather likes to taking charge of these things. She is big enough, after all.
So this morning when my husband began to stir and seemed ready for my morning chatter, I announced: “I want to be in kindergarten again.”
I explained my rationale. He listened. I think. God bless him if he did.
Anyway, I was listening. And as I heard my own words, I realized the need for a few caveats. I will take kindergarten plus a few grown-up perks. Cabernet and pinot noir, for instance. Driving (speeding, actually). Voting. Making love. Dropping the F-bomb now and then.
All this came back this evening, as I considered today’s “make something” instruction: to create a unique mask with whatever materials you like. My mask is an image of Kindergarten Me. I believe I’ll keep this handy, for those moments when I need to be refilled with kindergarten wonder.
Beth Nyland 
I loved my teacher and the classroom playground- we had a slide in our classroom with a traffic light at the bottom. One student was the traffic officer each day. They would change the light from red to green to let you know that the bottom of the slide was clear for you to slide down. It was a great game to teach us all some basic playground traffic rules and awareness without having to actually police it constantly! Loved that “game”!
What a fun idea … smart teacher! I remember the long trek from the kindergarten classrooms to the gym. We got to pass so many big kids at work, and I was in awe of the thicker books I could see on their desks. The school also had a fountain in its center courtyard. Oh how I wanted to put my hands in that water. But I did NOT want to have to stand with my nose against the cinder-block wall, as I had seen others do when caught for that offense. Fear of that shame kept me in line!