Tonight, M and I worked on her valentines for school. It was excruciating.
Helping a (barely) four year old try to remember the names of the 27 preschoolers and kindergardeners was not fun. Watching her scratch out the names in wobbly four-year old script was even less fun. It took a really, really long time. By the end, M was laying on the table saying “Mama, I can’t do this any more. It is disturving to me.”
There were a few funny moments that redeemed the experience though. Because there are a lot of kids whose parents immigrated from other countries, it was difficult for me to guess how some of the kids might spell their names. As M listed the kids, I did my best:
M: Antony
ME: A N T O N Y
M: Chethana
ME: C H E T H A N A
M: Jeer
ME: J H E E R? J I R? J E E R?
M: Ben
ME: B E N
M: Mok
ME: M O K? M O C K?
Then I asked M: what about Jill? I know there is a Jill in your class.
M: We already did her! I gave her the pink Dora card.
M shuffled through the pile of cards until she found Jeer.
M: Here it is!
Me: Jeer? OOOOHH! You mean JILL!
M: Well, you can say it Jill *or* Jeer. It depends on who says it.
Hehe. M’s teachers are Korean. I had forgotten that earlier in the year we had some confusion about whether one kid’s name was Arjay or Ajay because of the teachers’ pronunciation. It appears the same thing has happened with Jill.
After closer scrutiny, it turns out that MOK is also Mark.
Heh.
oh my goodness, that is way too funny! Thank gooness my son’s teacher sent home a letter with all the names of Jaden’s classmates….unfortunatly that was two weeks ago…and I lost it!
Oh my goodness, that practically has me in tears. I love kids! Oh, I had to show my husband, too. (At first he was like, what are you going to show me” but he cracked up, too)
This is one of those stories that is so hysterical.
Did M come home with Valentine’s today? Tootie did and I freaked out because I thought we missed it. We’re doing ours tomorrow.
Too funny!!! I too can’t believe they didn’t send home a class list…I had to do Valentine’s and then also Chinese New Year packets for Friday….Annslee is only two so I did them myself this year LOL
thank god marcus only has to put his name! They don’t bother with the the to part.
Marcus was supposed to named elijah but we figured vinh’s family would butcher it. Instead they call him Market or mar-ka-say. They keep asking us why we gave him such an odd name :0) They always call corinne Rinny which to them sounds so much better in cantonese.
AP reported that Anna Nicole Smith might have frozen the sperm of her 90 year old former husband and used it to impregnate herself!
We got a list! Thank GOODNESS with names like Jueno and Johar!
“It depends on who says it.”
I love that! It does indeed depend on who says it.
Too funny, and excruciating! My daughter is in her first year at pre-school and I was all excited about Valentines. Never mind the fact that I try to avoid commercial holidays, have her to imaginative play, avoid Disney princess stuff like the plague.
Turns out the school will celebrate with strawberries and whipped cream (they’re doing a unit on cooking) and they’ll read stories about friendships and important people in their lives. It’s a no-candy day (they get too hyped up on it). For all my posturing about anti-Valentines, I was a bit disappointed that I couldn’t buy cards and candy for the kids this year.
That is really,really hilarious! I spent a few days calling a guy Kyle and his name was Carl. hahaha.
They’re supposed to send home a list of the classmates! Until kids are further along in school, the addressing of valentines is an ordeal — every letter takes so much effort! Of course it was disturving. I can’t imagine trying to do it without having a list in front of you.
That’s very cute!! My niece and nephew went home with a list of kids in their class.
Our school just has the children (or parent) write their own names on the cards they’re handing out.
It works for me. I still remember the torture of trying to remember all the names of the kids in my class in fifth grade. There were tears the night of 2/13.
29 homemade-by-3yo valentines, here. Fortunately, they’re only supposed to have the giver’s name, to speed distribution.
On the downside, we got no fewer than 3 reminders from the head of school that homemade valentines were the school tradition. The teachers, being more realistic, sent home suggestions to computer-print and sticker-decorate.
That’s great!
This is almost as funny as the miracle turkey.
I hate to be a total curmudgeon, but I hate this business of having to send 29 valentines to every single person in the class. So much better to have each kid pick ONE name and make a really super special, beautiful valentine for that one person. (this is what our 7th grader’s class did, much to my relief, and she made and came home with AWESEOME valentines)
[...] Three of M’s preschool teachers are Korean and English is their second language. This isn’t a problem for us, obviously, but it has led to a few funny incidents. First there was the valentine thing, there is also the cute way M corrects us every time we try to say “division” with de-veeee-sion. She also calls the Tin Board “ten bo” and will not believe me when I correct her. [...]