Poopy...and other first grade words (???)

Ahhh...the transition from kinder to first grader takes a while. Not only physically, but mentally and socially as well. It takes MUCH longer than just the summer that separates the school year, as illustrated by the following story.

I have a very young first grader in my class...she is only 5.5 years old and while smart enough to be a first grader, she's not quite at the appropriate social/emotional age yet. On Friday I had two students leave the class to use the restroom, because "it's an emergency." Normally, I only allow one boy and one girl at a time to be in the restroom, but because of the longer school day, the hot weather making students drink more water, and because I generally don't want any accidents to happen, I allowed two girls to go at the same time. After about 15 minutes, I became concerned...they've been gone waaaay too long, so I notified the front office to send someone off to look for them. The office person comes back within a few minutes with news on both girls. They had gone to separate restrooms (no one knows why) and one had indeed had an accident and was embarassed to return to class. The other one was found in the bathroom furthest away from my room with her head against the wall, facing the hand dryer and her hands underneath the dryer. When approached and asked if she was ok, this is what she said. (Insert the tiniest, highest little princess voice you can imagine while you're reading this.) "Yes, I'm ok...it's just so harrrrrd and I get soooooo tired! I just had to go poopy, that's all...just poopy, but it's so hard and it's always so long and I just get so tired. Going poopy makes me tired."

So far, each year I've taught first grade, I've always had one "pooper"...one student who explains, in detail, his or her pooping. One year it was a student who was also in the bathroom for a very long time, when questioned, his reply, "I'm sorry Mrs. Eklund...it was long and it was hard and I just couldn't pinch it off!!" Last year it was a boy who had to go "poopy" ALL THE TIME. This year apparently it's just long, hard and very tiring to go "poopy". Wow.

I'm pretty sure "poopy" isn't a first grade word...We'll spend some time on making sure it's not a second grade word too. ;-)

Just to clear it up...what ARE first grade words? Umm...bathroom, restroom; I would even accept toilet or "loo"....no need to specify poop or pee =)...that's way too much info.