hot topics (but not that hot)

I've been volunteering at Dylan's school in his language arts class for a couple of months now.  Language arts is a two hour block of time each day where the kids in his homeroom first grade class are divided into other classes with peers at a similar level/skill.  They focus solely on reading, spelling and writing since these are such enormous building blocks on which so many other academic skills will build.

I decided to volunteer in this particular part of Dylan's school day because he's had minor struggles in writing and reading... I thought it would be helpful to observe him myself, get to know the two teachers better and it would help me assist Dylan better with homework and reading at home if I knew how they teach him at school.  And its definitely done all of those things, and more.  They're at the halfway point of the year and he's made tremendous progress since early fall.

On Thursday mornings, his language arts class has their weekly library time.  And I happen to be there during that time shelving books because Logan is with his speech therapy teacher for 30 minutes and I have to wait for him.  When its time for Dylan's class to check out books, they are allowed to get two - one from the easy fiction section, and one from the non-fiction area.

So what do first graders want to read about?  I've learned its very, very predictable.  All the girls want books about Tinkerbell, fairies, princesses and horses.

The boys?

Take one guess.  Here are the subjects of interest to six year old boys:  monster trucks, the human body (specifically guts, instestines, brains and blood), volcanoes and tornadoes, motorcycles, Star Wars and did I mention monster trucks?

Well, today apparently the hot subject was ghosts.  Because this afternoon, Dylan's teacher, who is the kindest, sweetest most patient women in the world, emailed me.  Apparently, some of the kids in his class got a hold of a book about ghosts and took it back to class and starting to discuss ghosts and curses.  One little boy wrote down "A ghost is going to come to (our town) in five years and steal everyone's body".   I guess some of the kids freaked out and the assistant teacher felt Dylan was a little traumatized.  So she just wanted to give me a head's up in case he talked about this tonight when he came home.

He didn't know she emailed me, and it was indeed the first topic when he stepped off the bus today.  "Mom, there was this book about ghosts today and what are curses and spirits?"  And it just went on from there.

So we had a long talk about ghosts and spirits and I think I covered it all in a non-scary way.  I'm sure this won't be the first time he sees and hears things at school that raise serious questions.  I just hope next time its not that someone snuck an issue of Playboy to school and passed it around the lunch table.  I have a few more years before that happens, right?