“I can do that myself!  I’m three and a half now you know!” announced my grandson, Karl.  

If you want to put a smile on your face, have a conversation with a preschooler and find out what they really know, or think they know.  That’s one of the things I love about my job at Preschool and why I like hanging out with my young grandsons.  Just when I think I have a handle on historical events, current events or life in general I am humbled to learn there is a different understanding of these things from the eyes of the little ones.   Here are a few examples.

Recently we were having a discussion about the first Thanksgiving.  The Pilgrims came to the new land sailing across the ocean on a big boat called the Cauliflower.  And did you know, some of our students parents didn’t even get to ride on that boat!  I had to admit I didn’t even get to ride on it either and I am much older than their parents.  Can you imagine how long ago the Cauliflower set sail?!

Sometimes we don’t realize our children are listening to our conversation until they respond.  When paying for a ticket to enter a museum, the cashier said, “Can I have your zip code?” Thinking she was speaking to him,  Karl (see above) said, “Yep, I can zip my coat!”  It took a minute to catch on then we all laughed hysterically.

If you want some help in the kitchen ask a group of preschoolers how to cook a turkey.  First you chop it’s head off but when do you take the feathers off?  Before cooking it?  After cooking it?  How hot should the oven be?  That’s a hard one.  It could be 20 or it could be 1000 degrees.  Take your pick but don’t burn it!  So much indecision about the turkey prompted us to have pizzas for our Thanksgiving Feast.

Then your children grow up and they begin to accumulate more knowledge than we  adults have.  They are computer geeks.  They look up information about everything from drones to dresses and they have the current event news at their finger tips.  I’m not sure that’s all good but it is what it is.  At a younger age one of my grandsons asked, after hearing the news, “That’s not really true, right?”  I turned off the radio and put on some fun music.  In the end, I’m thankful for our teens.  They are the ones who help answer my computer questions when my adult children are too busy.  They know how to research  my ancestry so I can plan for a trip to the “old country” before I’m too old.  If it weren’t for them I wouldn’t know about Star Wars or Harry Potter.  At this stage of their lives they may be the ones thinking we p