Legos

I stopped into the Reading Room. Dawn was working on some notes at her table and Ashley was working with a kindergartener at her table. As I came into the room, the little guy Ashley had been working with got up and dropped to the rug, jumping right into working with a pile of Legos that lay there. “Are you Matt?” I asked, kneeling down to say hello as he nodded. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“Are there any more of these?” he asked holding up a wheel. “I’m making a car.”

“Why don’t you check that Lego bag back there,” Dawn instructed, pointing to a bookshelf across the room.

A few moments later, Matt was back, examining the contents of a second Lego bag. “Nope,” he reported, obviously disappointed.

“I can bring some in from home,” Dawn said. I knew where this was going. I moved to grab a post-it note as she suggested Matt write her a note to help her remember.

“No, that’s ok,” Matt dodged. “I don’t know how to write that.”

“Oh I bet you can,” Dawn assured him as I placed the post-it in front of him and sat down to watch.

Together they stretched and wrote Legos, Matt doing more of the work, carefully saying the word and trying to capture all the sounds he heard. Ashley watched and listened from across the room, happy to her work with Matt paying off with others.

When they were done writing, Dawn and Matt each drew a Lego on the note. “Let’s put this in my lunchbox,” Dawn said.

“Your lunchbox?” Matt asked.

Dawn went on to explain her routine at home and how the note on her lunch container would remind her to get the Legos.

After the note was secure, Matt got back to his building.

“I could just take him home,” Dawn mouthed to me.

This is the magic that happens in the Reading Room.