Rock, paper, scissors, bing-bong fuera!

Thursday, my first gym class with the second-graders. I am amazed at how often children fall down. Running seems to be a generally new concept for these seven-year-olds. Tag becomes a violent sport, though the contact involved is between victim and asphalt below. Knees are scuffed, hands scraped, and yet the children get back up with smiles even larger than before they fell.

After tag is rock-paper-scissors, which the gym teacher tells me is good for working their arm muscles (in Spain you hide your hand behind your back, then punch it forward). I learn the Spanish words--Piedra-papel-tijera, bing-bong-fuera!--and teach the children the English words. First I teach a group of four children. Then four more add themselves on. Then a few more, and a few more, until I have a circle of twenty-five children around me, the rock-hands pounding the scissor-hands, the scissor-hands chopping at the paper-hands, the paper-hands grabbing the rock-hands, and the fire-hands incinerating them all. Fabulous chaos ensues. It is the happiest classroom moment I´ve yet had.