While that is probably an okay name for the baby-in-progress, this post is actually about my first graders. One of the best things about switching grade levels and having a full day to teach is the extra time I get to read aloud. It is the calmest part of the day and it is pure joy to expose students to hearing and responding to good literature. Right now we are in the middle of Junie B., First Grader: Toothless Wonder by Barbara Park. (Maybe I was a little loose with the term "good literature", but we just love Junie B.!)
In this story, an older student tells first grader, Junie B. Jones that there is no such thing as the tooth fairy and that it is actually a tooth witch who leaves money for the teeth so she can eat them. Well, this makes sense to Junie B. because why would the tooth fairy leave money if she wasn't going to use the teeth for anything? This leads to a "stumper" in which she and her friend Herb try to figure out why the tooth fairy would leave money for teeth.
After reading this section of the book, I asked my first graders if they knew why the tooth fairy leaves money for teeth and I could not resist sharing their priceless responses:
- "Maybe she takes them and remakes them for new babies."
- "She probably collects them."
- "Well, the tooth fairy has a boss who tells her to go get the teeth."
- "I think she turns them into grown-up teeth that grow in later."
- "Maybe she uses them to make her castle home."
- "Her boss actually doesn't have any teeth so she collects them to fill his mouth."
I think first grade might be even better than kindergarten with the creative little thinkers I have in my class this year!
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