"I made a rectangle!"

We were having pears for snack the other morning.  One of our big instructional foci for math in the beginning of kindergarten has been shapes - naming and identifying their properties.  One of my students was nibbling away at a piece of pear skin, before looking up at me and exclaiming, "Mr. Graham!  Look!  I made a rectangle!"

I complimented him on his rectangle, and had half-turned away when he took a triumphant bite out of his rectangle and proclaimed, "Now I made a square!"

That time I just had to laugh with him.

"You know, the raccoons!"

After some caterpillars came to visit the classroom, I heard a kindergarten excitedly explaining to her grown up as she left:

"And then we saw the raccoons!"
"The raccoons?"
"You know, the raccoons, where the butterflies grow up!"
"Ohhhhh...."