Memory Gap

Last night, I was finishing up the first Magic Treehouse book with Em. We read almost the entire book last night - it was so fun! I love to listen to her commentary after the stories we read because it reminds of my 6 year old mind. I have so many wonderful memories from kindergarten. In fact, I sometimes will be reminded by a smell, or a game or even a name. I'm completely amazed at the volume of memories I have from that one year of my life. I guess I'm amazed because I have only two recollections from first grade, that I read the book Sun Up and my teacher's name was Mrs. Bauchman. And from second grade? I have only one memory, my teacher was Mrs. Lawrence. But of kindergarten...

My teacher was Mrs. Handy and she was the best kindergarten teacher in the whole world! (Next to my mother, of course, who, hands down, is the original greatest teacher in the world!) My boyfriend was Scott Quimby, who had the coolest bedroom with his own trapeze in a "bonus room" of his house. He also had a playset in his backyard that had a fort and was right next to a group of pine trees that provided our "house" when we played together. Scott also had the biggest deck ever off the back of his house, and right next to it was a huge Oak tree with a rope that you could swing off the deck from like Tarzan. Scott was an avid dinosaur collector and he also introduced me to the man in the moon on our way home from seeing Bedknobs and Broomsticks at the Jewish Community Center.

Enough about boys... when I wasn't hanging around Scott at school, I was playing in the house area, which consisted of every wooden house toy they ever sold. Wardrobe, stove, sink, tables and chairs, and tons of dress-up clothes filled that corner, with plenty of windows to boot. Our classroom overlooked one of the huge playgrounds at my school. We also had a piano that Mrs. Handy would play while we sang. She was a great piano player, not such a wonderful singer, but we made up for that! We belted our kindergarten ABC's song out like there was no tomorrow!

I remember playing a game that I just walked in on Em's class playing. Mrs. Handy showed us a tray full of objects, then she put them all in a bag and passed it around. We had to reach in and feel an object and tell what it was, then pull it out to see if we were right. I can remember wanting so badly to pull out the blue block. I can't remember if I found it or not!! I also remember learning about colonial America in kindergarten, making a huge American flag out of tissue paper and that old paste we used to use. We also had parents come in and help us make cranberry jelly for our Thanksgiving Feast. It was super fun.

In spring, we had to take a kindergarten standardized test - can you believe it!! We had our own bathrooms in our room, but the little girl next to me didn't make it. I can remember looking next to me and seeing this huge puddle under her seat (NO, it wasn't me!). I wonder how I did on that test? I can also remember loving the sand table in our room, the front playground at school that we played on and having snack time, which was provided by the school. Every day, Mr. Noran, the janitor, would wheel in the crates of milk cartons. I can remember telling my mom that the milk was always sour. Turns out it was whole milk - we only drank 1% at home. Milk and graham crackers every day!

I do not remember one thing I didn't like about kindergarten. It was wonderful. I guess that is why I really wanted my girls to have the same kindergarten experience that I had. I wanted it to be fun, exciting, memorable. I don't know if it will be the same for them, but someday maybe I'll know. In fact, maybe they will have even more memories of first and second grade than I have - let's hope so! I don't know what was happening those years that I don't remember them. Were they boring? Difficult? Perhaps they were just ordinary. Since I don't remember them, I'll never know!