?Class, today we are going to do something fun,? I said smilingly to my class of mostly 6 year olds. I asked: ?Would you want to do something fun?? ?Yeah! We do! We do,? they replied. ?How about you guess first what we are going to do?? ?We are going to recite Mary Had A Little Lamb!? replied one of my students. ?You are going to read us a new story!? another quipped. ?We are going to watch a new Barney video,? one enthusiastically guessed.



I laughed at their enthusiasm. I have been a kindergarten teacher for almost three years now and the children's energy and creativity never fails to amaze me. You asked them questions and their responses will almost always leave you surprised.

?No. No. Those are good guesses little sirs and little misses.? Fifteen adorable laughters filled the air. They loved to be called little sirs and little misses. ?But we are not going to do any of those. I, however, will try to remember your suggestions so that we could do them in our succeeding classes.? ?What are we going to do then?? they chorused. They began to get restless. It is always important to hold the children's attention or you can bet that pandemonium will result in just a few moments. ?Well, we are going to play dress up games!? ?Dress up games? But those are only for girls! We do not want to play games for girls,? one of my boy students complained.

It is an amusing sight. The boys in the class looked alarmed while the girls look very much excited. I anticipated these reactions even before for I have been doing dress up games every year with my different students. ?That is not true. Dress up games are for everybody. Remember when we pretended to be pirates and cowboys last time and you wore pirates and cowboys outfit? Well, these are also dress up games.?

I divided them into groups and said: ?Here are some costumes in my bag. You will choose among your group the person that you will dress up. The best costume design will win for their group ice cream.? That did it. I just said the magic word. At the mention of ice cream, Fifteen children suddenly began to focus and rushed to the bag to pick up clothing for their team member. You will never expect them to be 6 year olds with the way they do the task in a business-like manner. Sure, arguments and giggles would break out here and there but after 10 minutes, you will get to see the results.

?Ok. The time is up. Let me see what you have done.? The first group dressed their classmate as a ninja complete with rolled-up newspaper which I took to be the samurai sword. In the end, the group that made their group mate look like a giant robot won the contest. Games like these are good to help the children develop their creative skills and teach them the virtue of cooperation.