The kids are back from special, and it’s our “chill out time.” Soft music plays, the lights are low and everyone does the quiet thing they need to do to get ready for the rest of the day. Some kids are coloring, some are reading, some are resting.

A 7 year old asks me if I want to learn how to make an origami Peter Pan hat he invented. He looks at me with wide expectant eyes.

“Yes. Yes of course I do.”

Yes is the only right answer.

He reaches for the closest paper from my table, a piece of purple from our poetry work. But, I ask him to use orange because every time copies come, there’s more orange paper stuck between the copy sets. We have a lot of orange paper.

He’s fine with orange, but I wonder if I should have offered green. It is Peter Pan, after all.

I have to concentrate to keep up with the directions, but I do it.

“Fold in half.
Fold in half again.
Fold three down in a triangle shape this way.
Fold the other piece down the other way.
Puff it out, and it’s a Peter Pan hat!”

We put our hats on our heads, and pose for a picture.

“What a cool hat you figured out!” I tell him.

He smiles, shakes his head. “The funny thing is, Ms. Gabriel, I just accidentally made this! I wasn’t even trying to make a Peter Pan origami hat!”

Across my table another student looks up and says, “That looks just like the origami boat I know how to make.”

The timer goes off, it’s been 5 minutes already, and now it’s time for math!