ESL Cuteness

Today I taught a kindergarten class that has about six or seven ESL students.  One is Chinese, and the rest are Hispanic.  A few of the students had mini-candy bars, and I had them put them up on the desk so they wouldn't get all melty in their pockets.

I was asking the students where they got the candy bars, and a couple of them told me, "from Mrs. Cut."  OK.  I knew we had a new ESL teacher, but I couldn't remember her name.  So I repeated, "Mrs. Cut" and they all nodded and started making scissor motions with their fingers at me.

When the class was over, I asked the classroom teacher if they'd been with the new ESL teacher.  She said, "Yes, you mean Mrs. Sharp?"

Cut--Sharp--close enough!

Goodbye Simms.

I just read in yesterday's New York Times that Simms Taback has died.  He died on Christmas day, and I hadn't even heard about it.  How did I miss this?  And why didn't I read about it in any of the children's literature blogs I follow?
I love reading Joseph Had a Little Overcoat to the kindergartners as we study recycling/reusing--it's so perfect for that, and it leads to great discussions of all the details the kids notice as we read. I developed a great activity for the kids to sequence what happened to the overcoat as it became all sorts of different articles of clothing through the book. 

Simms had a very interesting life, which you can read about here.