The Small Things

I have mentioned before that the class next door to me is a TMH class.  TMH stands for Trainable Mentally Handicapped.  What that means is children with very low IQs.  Not just slow…but they will never read more than a few words or be able to do anything much more complicated than 1 plus 1 math wise.  Many of these children are Downs Syndrome and many have severe physical health conditions as well.  One boy cannot eat protein of any kind.  One of the girls is in constant danger of having a seizure.

I like these kids.  I enjoy them a lot.  In years past some of the more advanced ones have been incorporated into some of my classes.  As a rule the other kids accept them pretty well.  But this year the schedule hasn’t allowed for that.  I find that I miss these kids.  However, I do have one class which is temporarily small which meets at a time which is convenient for the TMH class and so I have been able to bring some of them over a few times over the last couple of weeks and it’s been fun.

Today we did home made play-dough.  My ‘regular’ kids mixed up the batch and then we all played with it.  And I had such a lot of fun watching them!  Most of them had on dark clothes, which was quickly covered with flour.  (The play-dough was a little sticky and we put some flour down on the desks to make up for it.)  And then someone handed them the food coloring……OH MY GOD!  They had so much fun. 

"Look Miss Wolf!"  I’m making pancakes!"

But the best moment was clean-up time.  The TMH teachers were taking their students back and I was pleading with mine to help with the clean up.  One adorable little blonde Downes girl decided she was going to clean up, too.  So she took a paper towel, trottet over to the desk and SWOOSH!  Swept every bit of flour off the desks onto the floor.  Their teacher was mortified and I nearly peed my pants laughing.

Did I mention that I really enjoy these kids?