I love my kindergartners. They always come to me with so much to learn and get used to. Longer school days, sharing, waiting, and more expectations are just a few of the demands they are placed on them from the very beginning. Next to toileting, academic demands tend to be the least liked activity for a lot of them. After all, what five-year-old wants to engage in hand-over-hand coloring and writing activities, or learn numbers and colors! For the most part, my kinders settle in and develop those skills. But, you always have one… or two that really does not like to engage in academic activities, or sit on the potty chair, or do anything that is contrary to what they like to do! One that does everything in his/her power to avoid having to participate in those activities. One that, when you thought you had seen it all, shows you something new. I call them the fakers!

Max came to us as your typical kindergartner. He had a beautiful personality and loved music. As a typical kinder, Max was learning. He was learning to adjust to a full school day, follow a classroom schedule, sit on an adaptive potty chair, follow directions, wait his turn, share his toys, etc. The only hiccup in Max’s school day was academics and lunch time. He did not like academics and he did not like to eat. For some odd reason, when it was time to engage in both activities, Max would become sleepy. Very, very sleepy!!! And very, very hard to awaken!!!

It always started out the same. We would sit Max down to color, and there came the yawns, the heavy eyelids, and shortly thereafter, the sleep. When we would sit Max down to eat, there came the yawns, the heavy eyelids, and the sleep. The same held true for any activity Max did not like. But, turn on the radio, present Max with his favorite musical toys, and he was golden… wide awake golden! How long would Max sleep? It seemed long enough to avoid those activities he did not like.

After about two months of school, my paras and I began to suspect that Max was not asleep, but simply faking it. So, we decided to do an experiment to test our theory. We had just sat down with Max to engage in his academic activity, which was a coloring sheet. Sure enough, Max started yawning, and then the heavy eyelids. Within sixty seconds, Max was out. Shaking did not get a twitch out of him. Tickling did not cause a stir. By all appearances, Max was sound asleep out! Until…

I walked over to our radio/cd player and put in one of Max’s favorite music CDs. I turned the volume down low and hit the play button. As the first musical notes filled the classroom, Max’s head popped up. He turned towards the radio and began to rock to the music with a big smile on his face and sing! Yep, we knew he wasn’t asleep!!! Now, back to work!!!