Out of the Mouth of a Preschool Teacher...

As preschool teachers, we often find ourselves saying hilarious things that you would never imagine a grown up would need to say at work...  It provides us with regular comic relief throughout our days for sure!  

Since these statements bring us so many big smiles and giggles, I thought it would be fun to share them with you.  Here is just a glimpse into some of the ridiculous things we find ourselves saying:

1. "We keep our spit to ourselves."  Yes, so very often preschoolers love to look at each other (or sometimes a teacher) and either full on spit or blow raspberries complete with air-born saliva.  If we as teachers are super lucky, we might even get some in our eyes.  Yuck.  Sometimes, it really is ok to NOT share in preschool.  Really.  Please keep your spit all to your very own self, no one will be upset.
2. "Finger out of your nose please."  Probably not a surprise to many of you, but quite often we find ourselves having to remind our cute little friends to politely remove their finger from out of their nostril.  For whatever reason, little kids think nothing of reaching way up in their nose right in front of everyone.  Occasionally, we are so very lucky when they come over right after and put their offending hand on us before we get a chance to invite them to visit the sink.  We will definitely have amazing immune systems when we are 80!
3. "Please come out from under the table."  I suppose there is the rare occasion when a child legitimately drops a bead or puzzle piece under the table and needs to fetch it.  However, there have been quite a few occasions where I must admit we are honestly not clear why a child would be going under the table.  It seems like it would be kinda hard to complete an activity or benefit from any teaching going on if one was hiding underneath a table.  Hmmm....maybe that's the point?
4. "Let's turn the sirens off."  By sirens, I do not mean a real or toy siren on a vehicle.  I am referring to the lovely woo-woo sound some children just love to make.  For some reason, young children seem to never tire of making a super realistic, and quite loud siren noise with their mouth - and it appears to be just the right kind of noise to echo and bounce off the walls so that it seems even louder than it really is.
5. "We're not going to put the lion (or the car, or whatever it may be) on our friend's head."  I know playing with toys in a creative way is great.  Unfortunately, plastic animal legs and metal cars are not very soft on top of a skull.  I would think this would be obvious to even a 3 year old, but it seems to be necessary for us to tell quite a number of children.
6. "When we raise a quiet hand, that means our noises (or voices) are off."  You might think being quiet would be implied with the term quiet hand....but little ones seem to feel that if they raise their hand, that means they get to talk or make a noise.  I mean, if they raise their hand doesn't that show enough manners so they can just go ahead and say what they want even if the teacher is talking?  Ummm...no please.
7. "We don't hang on the curtains in preschool."  I'm sure playing in the curtains is quite fun.  However, I really don't want the curtain rod coming down off the wall and falling on top of a little friend's head.  So, yes please, let's not try to hang on them like a swinging rope.
8. "Please come out of the garbage."  Now, I don't mean an entire child has climbed into the garbage.  But they do sometimes, for unknown reasons, occasionally want to explore whatever other friends have discarded into the trash.  Gross.  The next one is somewhat related, although thankfully less gross...
9. "Please come out/off of the shelf."  This is just down right silly.  I mean, normally a person cannot fit on a shelf, so it's not something we think about.  However, we have some rather large shelves for our big collection of toys and we have some rather small people seeing as we are teaching preschool.  So, yes, once in a while a preschooler tries to crawl onto and play on a shelf.  I always giggle when I have to say this.  (And yes, the shelves are bolted to the wall for safety, but it is still just not something we want to encourage.)
10. "We're not going to roll on top of our friends in class."  I know steam rolling might be a fun game at home, but in the middle of school with a bunch of friends close together, that is just an accident waiting to happen.  So, sorry, but we would like to avoid any situations that remotely resemble a preschooler mosh pit.
11. "Just pretend eating with the plastic fruit."  So, some of the pretend play food I have had over the years has indeed looked quite real.  I mean, I thought that would be so fun to have fruit to play with that looked like the real thing.  Sadly, those ones usually didn't make it longer than a week or so in our classroom without mysteriously ending up with real teeth marks, or perhaps an entire chunk missing.  However, even the plastic ones that were clearly not real often end up looking like someone didn't eat enough before preschool if we don't watch carefully enough.
12. "Please look where you are peeing."  (To a boy usually.)  Sometimes when you are little, you can get a little distracted by just about anything.  When you are going to the bathroom, it is not any different apparently.  But the teachers are oh so very happy when the pee goes into the toilet instead of all over the floor.  We already have enough to clean up and really prefer that we can just flush the pee down, if at all possible.
13. "Your shoes might feel better on the other feet."  For some reason, it seems that little ones often cannot feel the difference when their shoes are on the opposite foot.  As a teacher, it can drive you a little crazy to just ignore the silly way that they look - but we sometimes will look the other way after the child just worked so very hard to put his or her own shoes on.  We wouldn't want to crush their own private celebration of success - as long as it seems safe!
14. "You have two hands."  This may seem like a ridiculously obvious statement - and I agree that it is.  After all, that is why I feel so silly saying it.  However, it is completely necessary to say sometimes in preschool.  We find it a regular requirement when it is time to put shoes on.  Preschoolers seem to forget about their hands quite often as they sit there and wait for their shoe to somehow jump onto their foot.  Yes, you do often need to use both of your hands to get your shoe onto your foot.  PS - Parents can make teachers really happy if they teach their kids how to put their own shoes on at home.  (How parents can help out teachers is an entire other post I will do another day!)
15. "Please take your toes out of your mouth."  Okay, who can even do this?  Apparently it is very easy for many preschoolers.  Hopefully they just took a bath!
16. "We keep our shirts down at school."  Little ones' bellies are pretty stinkin' cute, but it really is easier to teach a child if you can see his/her face.  Adults clearly cannot get away with pulling up their shirts to hide or be silly if they don't like something, but for some reason preschool kids feel completely justified in doing so!
17. "We're not going to paint (on) our friends (or the table, or the wall....)."  This seems to be needed to be said more often on finger painting days than other days.  But I do still feel silly when I say it.  I am sure it is quite clear where they are supposed to paint for the day, but it might be so entertaining to make their friend blue instead!  And in all reality, the friend may not really mind, but said friend's mom probably won't be a big fan.
18. "When we are done with a tissue, we put it in the trash and not back in the tissue box."  I guess I could see how someone might think it's always a good idea to put something back from where you got it, but that is not the case with a used tissue.  Pretty please go ahead and put any used, snot-filled tissues into the trash.  Thanks so very much!

Now, I want to be 110% clear that I absolutely adore working with cute preschoolers.  It's just that so often I find myself saying these silly things and than thinking to myself, or saying to a co-worker, "Did I really just need to say that out loud?!?"

Working with 3's and 4's is definitely a unique kind of opportunity!  So many smiles, giggles, and good memories made each and every day.  I hope you enjoyed some of these!  Maybe you can relate, too, as a parent or a teacher.

Feel free to add other silly things in the comments below that you find yourself saying to little ones, and then thinking, "What did I just say?"  I will add more, too, as I find myself saying them.  These were just the ones that popped into my head as I was writing this!  xoxo

PS - Subscribe to our list for more fun posts.  I am definitely going to be adding a "Super silly things preschoolers say" post as well, soon!