Alex sat down beside Jillian and Jillian said “Hey let’s share. Let’s share our shoes”.
“Right” said the Alex. So Jillian put on his shoes and the Alex put on Jillian’s shoes and the Alex said “Hey, look. Pink shoes. I don’t get to wear pink shoes very often.
Wow!” “Yes” said Jillian, “Let’s share our shirts”.
So the boy put on Jillian’s shirt and Jillian put on the boy’s shirt and the boy said “Hey! Look! A shirt with ruffles. I don’t get to wear a shirt with ruffles very often at all.
Wow “Let’s share our pants”.
“Okay” said Jillian.
So Jillian put on the boy’s pants and the boy put on Jillian’s pants and the boy said “Hey look!. Pink pants. I never wear pink pants”.
The teacher came over and looked at the Alex and said “Why look …. Your dressed like … I mean …. Yikes Where did you get those clothes?
“Oh” said Jillian. We shared our clothes”.
“Noooool” said the teacher, “don’t share your clothes. Share anything else. Don’t share your clothes”.
“But teacher” said Jillian, “this is nursery school and in nursery school we share. We share everything”.
“No” said the teacher “you don’t share your clothes”.
So Jillian put back on her shoes and her pants and her shirt and the Alex put back on his pants and his shoes and his shirt and the teacher looked up at them and said “There, that’s better!” and the teacher walked away.
And you are thinking, “Wow! That is not a very good story.”; and you are right. But the kids liked it so I kept playing around with sharing stories.
In 1992 I was in Tyya’s grade 1 telling stories and that is where the teacher in the story first said, “This is Kindergarten! In Kindergarten we share!” The kids joined in and I found that I had a neat choral response phrase. I kept telling the story both in daycare and in schools, always with different kids, and it slowly turned into a really good story.
And finally, in 1998 it was going to be a book and I still had no kids for the story, so I started looking for kids, and I found them at a school in Pontiac, Michigan. I was there because the grade 2 had won me in a Scholastic USA Bookclub Contest. Amanda and Jeremiah just sort of fell into the book. They were in the right place at the right time and besides, Jeremiah liked to share his shoes because they were too big.
