On Sluts and DooDoo

I get the pleasure of helping out in Claire's first grade classroom every week.  Some weeks I'm busy and wish I could edit it out of my day's to do list, but afterward I'm always glad that I went.  Today was particularly rewarding. 

The kids were just working on silent reading, so I helped a couple of them individually.  The first little guy whipped through his Venus book in no time, so I went to help another little boy.  He chose a book on bats.  He clearly needed the extra help and attention as he struggled with simple words, sometimes flip flopping the sounds.  There were several "igh" words that were tricky for him as well.  After reading a page or two, he came across a word he'd worked through before and to his utter delight he remembered it!  I loved seeing him get excited when he figured something out and it was correct.  Those are the moments teachers live for, and I'm happy to have been given a small taste. 

After working out the word "do", he exclaimed, "Hey!  Now I know how to spell doodoo!" 

"That's super!" I told him.  "Now when you get home you can tell your mom when she asks you what you learned at school today that you learned how to spell doodoo!"

"My mom lives far away," he told me matter-of-factly. 

"Oh, ok.  Well you can tell your dad then."

"Um, my dad sleeps a lot...[insert sound of my heart breaking]...but I'll tell my grandma."

Sweet boy - can't I just take him home with me??  Why do there have to be so many darned laws?

A page or so later he was working out the word "sleep".

"sl...sl....slut?" he guessed.

"Uh....no....see there's no uh sound or t sound.  See, say it with me, sl...eeee....p."

"Oh!  Sleep!"

"Yes!  And just so you know, 'slut' isn't actually a very nice word.  It's a mean thing to call another person." and you'll probably never come across it in first grade unless in the form of graffiti. 

He read for about 5 more minutes until the time was up.  Then he looked at me very open and honestly. "I didn't know 'slut' was a bad word," he explained.

I think I made it to my car before I got a little teary.  Why, again, can't I just keep him?