The Fair-Share Pair

• It’s Pajama Day! Hurray!
• A Muddy, Mucky Mess
• Squirt! Splash! Rub-a-dub!
• Dear Parents

It’s Pajama Day! Hurray!

Although it’s a rainy day, all the children inside Miss Sparks’ classroom are happy, wiggly, and giggly. Today is Pajama Day! Everybody is wearing pajamas the same, but not everybody’s pajamas are the same… they’re all different! Skylar has stars on her pajamas. Gwen has soccer balls. Nathan has a superhero. Connor has cars, and Logan has flowers. Miss Sparks nods her head. Maybe soon they’ll be able to go outside and look at the flowers, like the ones on Logan’s pajamas.

But by recess time, it is still raining, so all the children stay inside. Connor and Logan play in the toy corner. Connor has two cars with him. Logan is using blocks to make an arch. Logan explains the arch is a rainbow! But, Connor can pretend it’s a bridge. They can share it, and they’ll be the fair-share pair. Connor smiles. He offers Logan a chance to play with the red car. Together, the two children have fun sharing the cars and blocks.

Then, Miss Sparks announces it’s finally stopped raining. All the children rush up to put on their coats and boots. Connor grabs his toy cars from the toy corner, and all the children head outside. Logan runs to the edge of the blacktop by a beautiful mud puddle. She sees a beautiful rainbow in the puddle. Connor comes over, thinking the blacktop looks like a racetrack. He pretends to race his cars down the blacktop.

Logan points out there’s ladybugs in the puddle. Maybe they can make a Ladybug Land that’s the perfect size for ladybugs. She scoops up mud to make houses, and lines pebbles up in the puddle to make roads. She uses leaves to make boats. Logan says they’re playing different games, but they’re both happy.

A Muddy, Mucky Mess

Logan asks Connor if she can use the red car for Ladybug Land. It can become a Ladybug Bus. Connor looks at Logan’s messy hands. He doesn’t want his car to get muddy, but he knows Miss Sparks’ rule in class is that they all take turns. So even though he doesn’t want to, he hands his car over to Logan’s dirty fingers.

Connor tries to run his blue car along the blacktop, but he can’t race with only one car. Meanwhile, Logan is pretending the red car is flying. Then, she lands it straight in the puddle. She drives the red car through the mud. Connor thinks this is a terrible way to treat his car, so he politely asks for it back. Logan nods her head, and she digs the car out of the mud and hands it back. Lightly, Connor takes it back with his fingertips.

Now, the car is a muddy, mucky mess. It looks more brown than red. It’s so muddy that the wheels won’t turn, and the windshield is muddy. Connor frowns. Logan asks him what’s wrong, and he responds that the car got so dirty. Logan grabs it and swoops it through the puddle to clean it off.

Logan doesn’t think it’s much cleaner than before. He takes out a tissue to try to wipe it clean. Logan is exasperated. A little mud never hurt anything. Connor is too fussy. With a frown on his face, Connor responds that maybe Logan is too messy.

After recess, Connor brings his cars into Miss Sparks’ classroom and sets them side by side on his desk. Miss Sparks asks him to use the words same and different to describe the cars. He responds, “They were the same when I played with them. They were both clean. Then Logan got mud on the red car. Now the cars are different. One is clean and one is dirty.”

Miss Sparks clarifies that Logan likes mud, but Connor does not. Sometimes different people have different feelings about the same thing. Connor glances at Logan. She’s smiling. She doesn’t seem to care that she made the red car messy! Right then, Connor decides he will no longer share the red car with Logan.

The next day, Miss Sparks allows everybody to go outside for recess. Connor sees Logan go to the toy corner to look for the red car. Connor sneaks back to his desk and slips the cars into his coat pocket. Connor knows he isn’t being fair about sharing the red car. But Logan got the car so dirty, so he knows he does not want to share the red car with Logan ever again.

Squirt! Splash! Rub-a-dub!

Logan and Hallie kneel down to Ladybug Land together. But Connor goes to another part of the blacktop to race his cars. But Logan comes up to him, and says she looked all over for the red car because she wants to show Hallie how she was playing with it. Logan picks up the red car and holds it behind her back.

Connor is mad. He says he’s racing with the cars, so he needs two cars. Logan says it’s not very fair, and Connor retorts that he shared it with Logan yesterday, and Logan wasn’t careful with it. Logan reminds Connor that the cars don’t belong to him, so Logan can play with it any way she wants. They continue fighting back and forth as they walk back to Ladybug Land.

But then, as they’re both reaching for it, it flies out of Logan’s hands and into the mud puddle. Connor picks it up, and blames Logan for it getting all muddy again. Logan stomps her feet, right in the mud puddle. The mud splashes on both Logan and Connor, and the two cars in their hands.

Miss Sparks rushes over. Logan explains that Connor refuses to share the cars. Connor defends himself, saying they can’t share because Logan gets it too dirty. Logan says they can’t possibly share! Logan is fun, while Connor is fussy. He answers that he is clean, and Logan is messy. Miss Sparks orders the children inside to wash up and think about how to share the cars fairly.

As they walk inside, they can’t think of a way to make things better. They head to the sink, and both wash their hands. Connor squirts some soap on the cars and rubs them till they’re covered with bubbles. Logan smiles, and says they look like they’re at the car wash. Connor smiles back. They can pretend the sink is a car wash. Together, the two children squirt soap on the cars, and splash the cars through streams of water. Then, they rub the cars dry.

When Miss Sparks comes inside, her eyeglasses are glistening again. She knew the two of them would find a way to share. They’re different, but they’re actually the same in an important way: they both have a great imagination. Connor says how about some days, he can play with the red car, and some days, Logan can play with it. But every day, they’ll play car wash together.

Logan agrees. That way, they’ll really be the fair-share pair.

Dear Parents

Discusses how it isn’t always fun to share things with other kids. Knowing that they should share isn’t the same as knowing how to share. Topics include:

• Allowing children to have some special toys that they don’t need to share, but knowing they will share all the other toys
• It’s okay to have some realistic rules when it comes to sharing toys, such as needing to play with it inside, or not eating while playing with it. But otherwise, the sharing of the toy should be rule-free!
• Encouraging focusing on good feelings while sharing
• Practice taking turns at dinner so everyone can talk at the table
• Discuss how different people can have different feelings with things
• Encourage kids to find healthy ways to cope with the loss of a toy and how to apologize for breaking or losing them