Mingo Night

Joe's classroom at school is in the midst of the two-week theme, "occupations." This theme has proved to be somewhat difficult to the three-year-old set in that, the world might as well be divided into police officers, fire fighters, doctors, nurses, dentists--and everyone else. As Ted astutely pointed out, if the occupation doesn't require a uniform, to a three-year-old, it is not easily identified as an occupation. So it is that a polling of the kids in Joe's class about what their parents did yielded responses like, "My mommy picks apples," or "My mommy works and buys things at the store." The situation isn't helped by the fact that the occupation flash cards include one for "office worker," a rather large block.

In exploring this hazy concept, they have, apparently, been playing Occupations Bingo. One night, on the way home, Joe excitedly announced that he'd won "FLAMINGO!!!!!" What? "Yeah, we had mingo night!" Huh. Several exploratory questions did not elicit anything helpful in doping out what this could all mean, and Julie remembered just in the nick of time before Joe gave up in frustration, that the "What I Did Today" board had included a mention of Occupations Bingo. This, together with Joe's mention of "you got to get the star," allowed Julie to translate the above to Joe had won bingo and they had played bingo night.

Ms. Kristin reports that Joe did indeed win the first round. He had to be introduced to the idea of calling out "Bingo!" at that point, but he reportedly took to it with gusto. Ms. Kristin also reports that al the kids love Mingo Night.