My little bundles of joy!

UKG is the Indian equivalent to Kindergarten in the US. So we are talking about the cutest little 5 year-olds I have EVER seen. I’ve come to love and adore these kids so much! I’ve spent so much time with them and have gotten to know their cute little personalities, like they are my own nieces and nephews. I call them all my tambis and tangachis (little brothers and little sisters) because they truly are! Between UKG singing time in the morning, the English program Reading Horizons, PE, and UKG Playtime, I probably see them the most out of all the kids in the school.

Here are some of my favorite pictures that have been taken:

Mithuna

Priya Dharshini

Kaviya

UKG singing time is the best way to start out my morning. We start by going around in the circle and asking what everyone’s name is. Some of them are still struggling with answering this question, but it’s adorable to see all their classmates yell from across the circle, answering the question for them, “My name is Abhirami!” which then Abhirami says quietly, “My name is Abhirami.” They totally stick up for each other, which I think is the cutest thing ever. Next we usually do the “A says Ah” song and go through the whole alphabet with the names and sounds of the letters. The kids are usually squirming all around by this point and are putting their hands up to do the Bananas song. “Bananas unite! Peel banana. Peel peel banana. Slice banana. Slice slice banana. Mash banana. Mash mash banana. Eat banana. Eat eat banana. Go Bananas! Go go bananas!” It’s the cutest thing ever! We continue on with “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes”, “The Itsy Bitsy Spider”, and end with “Five Little Monkeys” but we tailor it to however many UKG kids are in the class that day. So if there are 12 UKG kids, we do 12 Little Monkeys and they all jump up and down until the end of the song. It’s the greatest thing to be working with these kids, I love it!

Here are some more pictures, because they're just SO cute! :

Diyasri

Charles (pronounced 'Char-less')

UKG Playtime is the best way to end my day. I go pick up the UKG kids around 3PM and walk over to the playground, while they are all surrounding me and saying my name and who knows what in Tamil. Keep in mind, these kids barely can say, “What is your name?” So I just assume that they are saying all good things, while they are giggling away. Once we get close enough to the playground I count down from 5 and have them run as fast as they can to the merry go round. Yes, they have a merry go round, which is extinct in all of America’s playgrounds. It seriously is the best physics experiment, because it goes so fast! The kids whirl around and come off of the merry go round about to fall to the ground, but they love it! The other day, David (the medical coordinator) was going down the slide with all the kids on top of him and by the time he got up there was a huge sweat mark on the slide. Jeevanithi, the oldest UKG kid, started saying that it was pee. At first they were all going back and forth on who peed, and then David said it was mine. And literally the whole playground was laughing and saying, “Yemily pee!! Yemily pee!” It was hilarious and they all had a kick out of it. But when Sangeetha, the ring leader of all the UKG kids that loves me, came over I whispered in her hear that it was David’s pee. So she ended up convincing half the playground that it was David who peed on the slide haha. “David pee (then words in Tamil I don’t know)” and “Yemily pee (then words in Tamil I don’t know)” was the buzz around the rest of the playground the day.