In the mornings I am one on one with a 4 year old, we will call him Sam. Now Sam is non-verbal, autistic, and adorable to say the least. He is incredibly sweet and absolutely loves school to the fullest. Cognitively he is about the same level of a 2 year old, and thrives in social activity. We are currently working on holding a marker. He likes to put everything in his mouth, literally everything. chair, desks, markers etc. Everything he touches he tries to place in his mouth. He wears a mouth piece around his neck as a self soothing device that we place in his mouth constantly though out the day. Now Sam mostly wanders the classroom and plays among his friends but with guidance. It’s like I am teaching him how to play with toys. He loves to play and run among his friends at recess but I can’t drift too far from him because he likes to look in the pavement for small rock to place in his mouth. I remember the other day I found a very sharp piece of glass from a bottle abut 3 ft from where Sam was playing. I picked it up and chucked it out side of the recess area. The school has a play ground but due to covid they can only have one class at a time. So only one day of the week, they get to play on the playground. Sam thrives during social activity and even though he may not be showing growth academically, he has come such a long way in his social emotional health. he is aware of himself and those around him, he is aware of his feelings and gets excited about the day!!

I also get to help out with all the other kids. They are all very unique personalities with different cultural norms than I would have envisioned but never the less they are 4 years old. One thing all 4 year olds have in common is they are messy, sticky, and love it that way. The messier the better. After they eat breakfast they are sticky, the desks are sticky, and it stays that way until the end of the day when I go over everything with a Clorox wipe! So on top of that, kids at this age have these little noses on there face that don’t stop running. I am constantly grabbing tissues and wiping faces. Than when they have to go to the bathroom, you never know because bathroom is like some secret code language. It like trying to solve a puzzle, trying to figure if they have to go to not. Some kids perform a patten behavior off dancing, jumping, or the classic, “I think I already went.” Either way it messy, in a way ironic. That something so second nature and simple to us, can be complicated and difficult for a tiny human. I am learning a lot about how smart these guys are, and how its demonstrated in different ways.