Cartooning Class With 6 and 7

I teach cartooning class to thirteen first and second graders. On Leadership Day. Once a month. It is a cinch, As last year I was teaching cartooning class to thirty-one Kindergarten students. This is amazingly simple. Before they congregate I draw something simple on the white board in steps. This week I started with an oval. Added a tiny elongated rectangular stem at the top with rounded edges. Step 3: Triangle eyes. Step 4: Round nose Step 5: Giant smile Step 6: Teeth in giant smile. Step 7: Blackened smile where teeth were not. Step 8: Wrote Jack-O-Lantern next to it. It may be cartooning class, but I throw in words too, because I think words are important. Then I drew a step by step witch, and a step by step cat, and a step by step broom on the whiteboard. One little guy came in quite a bit later than the others. He was forced to sit alone, so I sat with him. We drew and colored, and I sang a bit, Showing the rest of the 6’s and 7’s we could sing. Pretty soon we were all singing. The little guy next to me had drawn a giant jack-o’-lantern. He had also written Jack and I Love You on his paper. He suddenly got really serious and put his big black eyes next to my face. “Hear that?” he asked me. I stopped coloring, seeing his seriousness. “Jesus does not like Halloween,” he warned me. I am sure his parents will be utterly delighted with his cartoon.