The last public school I taught Kindergarten in had a wonderful patio area right outside each classroom door. Each Kindergarten classroom had two entrances, one inside the building, and one that led outside to the courtyard area. I had a sand table on one side of the door and a water table on the other side. I remember one bright sunny March morning, I filled the water table up midway and added a bubbles solution to make it more interesting. There was a curled water hose nearby on an outside wall that I used to fill it up. When not in use, it had a hook that it curled around and was connected to the outside faucet.
All you preschool and kindergarten teachers know how popular both the sand table AND the water table are. I use a clothespin system to assign centers and these two centers fill up quickly! On this particular March morning, three little girls picked the clothespins for the water table and headed out to play with the water toys in the bubbles. I was inside working with children at the math center when all of a sudden I heard a lot of screaming. I ran outside to see the curly water hose writhing around like a snake spewing water everywhere. When one teacher walked outside to see what all of the commotion was about, she got sprayed right in her face. She had put her hands up to shield her face, but she got pretty wet anyway. I ran around to the side to try to grab it and you would have thought that hose was alive. It was moving up, down and all around. I managed to grab it AFTER it soaked my shirt.
I finally got to the faucet and turned the thing off. Evidently one of my little charges decided that the water table needed more bubbles and took it upon herself to turn it on. When she tried to turn it off, she turned it the wrong way and ended up turning it on full force. When I asked who the culprit way, two girls pointed at the same child. She in turn pointed at one of them and then, after a minute, said "I did it." I reminded them that our rule was that only teachers turned on the water hose. The teacher with the wet face glared at them from her door as I was talking to them. When she looked at me, she burst out laughing. I in turn started laughing at her, wet hair and all. There we were, two wet kindergarten teachers, laughing at each other when the assistant principal walked up. "What happened to you two?" she asked. "We were in the mood for a shower" I replied! For some reason, she didn't find it as funny as we did. Oh well! My students sure did!
Tomorrow I am going to post some great teacher made games that require little effort and the kids love them!!!!
