Teaching About Adoption

I think I taught my favorite lesson EVER this week--I got to teach my kids about adoption. Even though I've been in the adoption process for this whole school year, I decided not to tell the kids about it until we were farther along. But once we got Molly's referral picture, I knew it wouldn't be long before they figured out something was up with all of the other teachers coming into my room to see her picture. So I decided to tell them about Molly and about adoption. I started off by explaining to them that there are children in the world that don't have Mommies and Daddies. Then I told them that one of the countries where there are children with no Mommies and Daddies is Vietnam and I showed them Vietnam on the globe. Then I showed them the book When You Were Born in Vietnam and we looked at the pictures of Vietnam and the pictures of children in the orphanages. Then I told them that Mr. Hines and I were very sad that there were children without Mommies and Daddies and we wanted to go and get one of these children and bring her to live with us so that she would have a home and a mom and a dad. I showed them Molly's picture and they were SO excited. I wasn't sure how much they would understand, but they were really interested and asked some really good questions. They were also really sweet about it--one of my little girls said "Mrs. Hines, when you tell me this it makes me feel like I want to cry." It's been amazing how they've been talking about and writing about adoption in their writing time. Everyday at least one child asks me when I'm going to go get Molly and of course I have to tell them we don't know yet. What an honor to get to plant this seed into the minds of these precious children. :-)