A delicious little lesson plan

I've been having great fun with my grandkids this weekend, so my four-year-old granddaughter wanted to know why I had to leave. "I have to teach on Monday," I told her, and she said, "Can I help?" She offered to tell my students a story about pyramids and then hand out oranges and root beer for snack time, because "all the kids like oranges and root beer."

Sadly, I'm going to have to put her lesson plan on hold for the moment and focus on all that first-day-of class stuff we all know and love: syllabi, attendance policies, due dates, a little in-class writing so they can show me their skills. We might be able to squeeze oranges and root beer in the lesson plan one of these days but I don't see a spot for the pyramids.

But I'd finished all my prep work before leaving for the weekend anyway, so I was able to put teaching aside and focus on learning some non-academic things, like how to make my grandson laugh (drop a plastic pig down his shirt) and what's the best way to experience the massively loud horn of a big rig when you're a small person sitting in the cab (with hands over ears). We took the little ones to a Touch-A-Truck event, which allowed them to climb inside fire engines and school buses and all kinds of other trucks, and they even got to sit inside a helicopter and pretend to make it fly. Add great weather and a bouncy house and free hot dogs and pizza and popsicles that turn your whole mouth blue and you've got a perfect day.

I look at this photo of my granddaughter sliding down the bouncy slide and I think, that's how I want to approach this semester: fearlessly, joyfully, with utter abandon. 

And maybe, one day, with oranges and root beer too.