This week was supposed to be Vegetable Week, but after the Alien Roach Portal opened on Sunday afternoon, the theme of the week kept getting hijacked by imaginary alien bugs.
When Jennifer brought her kids to the garden patch in the school backyard to admire the lettuce and tomato plants (unfortunately, there were no tomatoes yet), the kids spent the entire hour poking around in the dirt looking for bugs that most resembled the ones from the portals.
Jennifer tried to be patient. Early childhood education books said children needed ways to process traumatic experiences.
An alien invasion in their neighborhood probably qualified.
One of them found a praying mantis and declared that it was the green version of what came out of the portal at his street.
Jennifer tried to guess which cockroach-inspired alien variant that was supposed to be.
After watching far more Ronan the Dragon videos than she would ever admit, she had to hand it to herself for writing one of the most versatile and apocalyptic invasion species ever.
They weren't anything as cute as the bright green mantis sitting peacefully on an equally bright green leaf.
No.
They were kill-on-sight, chitinous exoskeleton monsters filled with textured gunk and goo in varying shades of yellow, green, orange, and brown.
And the sound of their chittering, skittering, hissing…
Urgh.
Hair-raising.
She really should be given some kind of author's award.
Even if all she had written originally was: cockroach-level kill on sight.
Speaking of her webnovels, she hadn't had time to check on them during the weekend—last Sunday had been the invasion, followed by her trawling social media for Ronan the Dragon like some obsessive creep.
He said he would bring her more cake, but she didn't even have his phone number!
Anyway.
These were the other activities she did at kindergarten for Vegetable Week.
#1 – Practical Learning
For real-life application, she taught the kids how to identify vegetables: zucchini versus cucumber, cabbage versus lettuce.
Then she played a drawing game where they had to sketch a vegetable for their classmates to guess.
The wolf brothers added legs and feelers to every vegetable.
Quite successfully turning the game into Guess the Alien Species.
#2 – Creative Writing
Jennifer gave the kids four boxes with two lines under each one. They were supposed to draw the steps of growing vegetables and write one sentence about each step.
But one kid started drawing the praying mantis.
And the next thing she knew, all the papers were returned covered with ants, mantises, unidentified bugs, and a very hungry caterpillar because she had read that story to them last week.
#3 – Science
She gave them assorted dried beans to plant in wet cotton wool.
Someone decided the beans looked like bugs.
Then it was declared that they were alien roach eggs.
Jennifer blamed the red beans.
#4 – Art
They used paint and the cut bases of cabbage and bok choy to print flower shapes.
Then the boys added fingerprints.
And then—yes, you guessed it—penciled in legs and feelers.
Just like they learned from Activity #1.
Kids learn very quickly.
By Thursday, they were able to identify alien species by tiers and say words like humanoid, antennae, and mandible.
They were also able to read Pandora acronyms.
ART – Awakener Response Team
PIT – Pandora Investigation Team
POO – Pandora Online Official
Yes, Jennifer had long realized that she needed to give more thought to how she named things as an author.
By the way, did you know that Rolly's name was Ronan Ellis?
Now that was a name that proved Jennifer hadn't written him.
She might have authored werewolves, a royal family named after meats, and a boy idol group who had to introduce themselves as:
"Hello! We're ALIVE!"
So really, ART, PIT, and POO were not her worst acronyms.
But Ronan Ellis.
Even as initials, he sounded cool.
Anyway.
Back to kindergarten.
Jennifer tried her best.
At lunchtime, when most of her kids were plucking the sprouts out of their chicken dish, she told them those sprouts were grown from beans soaked in water.
And now the kids could also confidently tell you that bean sprouts were spawned from alien roach eggs from Activity #3.
Jennifer deeply feared what the children might tell their parents that evening.
"What did you learn in school today?"