A Silly Happening

We've had a week of fiercely cold temperatures here in Saskatchewan, and most of us are taking it in our stride.

Today the temperature was -36 with the windchill, and the wind was gusting up to 45 kilometers. This meant for very low visibility on the highway. The ride to work had a surreal feeling, with whiteout all around us.

So, the day started with a sense of suspension of disbelief, I think.

Me and my co-workers seemed to have made the same decision to just relax, and have as much fun as possible with our young toddler aged children. I took my small group of five children to the storage room where we found handfuls of bubble wrap, and we made a stop at our digital frame in the hallway, to remove the memory card as usual. We generally try to take some pictures of our morning's activities to share with the parents through the wonderful technology of the digital frame.

We then joined the others and began having fun taping the bubble wrap to a table, as well as the floor. This involved the children having small lengths of tape, which is one of their favourite things, really. We taped for some time, and not just on the bubble wrap.

Some of the children took off their shoes and socks to walk on the bubble wrap; some drove cars on the bubble wrap; a few also found that popping the bubbles was fun.

Another teacher brought out flashlights, we turned off the lights, and closed a blind, to play with the flashlights.

I then decided it might be interesting to make rubbings on the bubble wrap with paper and chalk. I and two of my children went off again to get more paper from the storage room. By this time the lights were back on, and I decided to start taking pictures.

I couldn't find the memory card. I quietly began to look for it in the places I had been, the counter, the art shelf, on the floor where we had been taping bubble wrap; I opened the door and peeked out to a shelf outside the door. I felt a little foolish about having lost this, and part of the reason is that I do tend to be forgetful now and then...and my coworkers are quite abit younger.

It took me awhile but finally I told the others," hmm...I've lost the memory card."

Soon the three of us adults were looking under carpets, and checking on the toyshelves.The children began to help us in the search with their tiny little flashlights.

I had almost given up hope, although we have a philosophy that almost everything does turn up in our room.

However, Alice, who's birthday it is today, slowly began to sort through the trash can, and found it!!! She was very good natured about it.

It struck me that it was a little bit of silly fun to lose a "memory" card.

And just a little postscript:
 One of my children found popping the bubbles on the wrap so interesting that she enjoyed doing this quietly, for over 40 minutes later in the afternoon.

Moments like that are part of why I love working with young children.

The ride home felt almost as surreal - the snow blowing to about 2 feet off the highway, looking somewhat like mist.