Bigger Than a Box of Crayons.

It is a known fact of life. Sharing is one of those life lessons that we all will continue to perfect for the rest of our lives. For a five year old, the tolerance for the practice is much more difficult to maintain. They are slowly beginning to understand the concept of sharing and face issues on a daily basis that allow them to discover the benefits of sharing on their own. They find out that it's easy to share when there's plenty to go around and become truly tested when there is a need for a specific sacrifice to be made. They must make a choice to share something bigger a box of crayons.

We were all happily playing a game in circle time today when I slowly watched a boy pull back from the class. He was enjoying himself one minute, and it seemed like within a few more moments he was doing his best to not let his sad countenance be seen.

"What's wrong Michael," I asked.

I could tell that he really wanted to be tough about it. "Nothing," he replied.

"We care about your feelings, and we wont make fun of you for feeling any certain way. If you want to tell us we will help you settle whatever is bothering you," I said trying to reason with him.

"It's nothing," he said again as he was at this point almost fully in tears.

"It's OK if it's something. You are our friend and we don't want you to be sad, " I encouraged.

In the saddest voice he could make and with the biggest heart-broken look he replied, "I'm not sad. I'm mad. I wanted to sit on the blue mat."

Ahhh, yes. The blue mat. One of the three circle carpets we have. The only blue one and clearly the most popular. Somehow I wasn't surprised this was the issue, but before I could say another word one of two boys who happened to already be sharing the blue mat said, "You can sit here Michael." The other friend gave in as well and said, "Yeah, I'll scoot over."

At this point, we had three boys cramming onto the tiny mat that was clearly not meant for three growing boys, but who was I to stop them from sharing? Apparently I wasn't the only one to recognize this choice of sharing. Before I could even attempt to make it public, a friend decided to share her opinion of the situation, "I think they both should be on purple for being nice and sharing."

Wow! We now have a first time nomination of a friend for purple. I didn't even know that was possible. "What a great idea!" I replied.

I'm glad we took those few moments to settle the situation. It turned out to be a big lesson for all of us, and put an extra smile on our faces.