"Come on, Sisi, tell everyone your name." Aunt Li stood on the podium and waved to Ye Si, signaling her to come over.
“My name is Mei Si,” Si Si (Note 1) said as she walked to the front and looked at everyone.
"Meisi's nickname is Sisi, and she is 5 years old. Let's give her a round of applause!" Aunt Li saw that Meisi only said her name and then stopped talking, so she assumed that Meisi was shy and said her nickname and age for her.
"Sisi, sit next to Zhou Hang! Zhou Hang, you're a year older than Sisi, so you have to take good care of your little sister Sisi, okay?" Aunt Li looked around and decided to let Meisi sit next to the quieter Zhou Hang. Meisi was new, and Aunt Li was afraid that Meisi would be bullied if her deskmate was too noisy.
"Okay." Zhou Hang replied somewhat reluctantly, looking at the fat man sitting next to him.
Zhou Hang wanted to sit with Lin Meili, who has braids, today. He specially reserved the seat next to her for her and didn't want anyone else to sit there. Unexpectedly, a fat girl came today, and the auntie let her sit in Lin Meili's seat. How annoying!
After arranging the seats, Aunt Li went to the front and asked everyone to introduce themselves, intending to let Mei Si get to know her new friends.
"My name is Xu Jian, and I am 6 years old."
"My name is Li Hongjun, and I am 7 years old."
"My name is Liu Jiajia, and I am 5 years old."
"My name is..."
After everyone introduced themselves, Mei Si nodded. She knew there were 30 people in the room, including Aunt Li.
After Mei Si found out how many people were in the room, she began to carefully observe Zhou Hang next to her. She wanted to remember this person and sit next to him every day from now on.
"What are you looking at?" Zhou Hang glared at Mei Si, finding the fat woman an eyesore and determined to get rid of her later.
“Remember you, put your hand out.” Mei Si observed carefully and found nothing special about Zhou Hang’s face. Mei Si frowned and decided to look at his hands.
"Why should I listen to you?" Zhou Hang rolled his eyes and turned away, ignoring Mei Si.
Mei Si's eyes lit up. She had finally found Zhou Hang's distinctive feature: his ears were huge! Of all the people here, his ears were the biggest.
"Alright! Now that everyone has met some new friends, let's start learning addition and subtraction. Say, 'I bought 2 candies today, and then I bought 3 more. How many candies did I buy in total? Does anyone know? Raise your hands to answer.'" Aunt Li saw that it was almost time and started asking everyone to do the math.
"Okay, Jiajia, you speak." Aunt Li directly asked Liu Jiajia, who raised her hand first, to answer.
"Auntie bought five candies in total," Liu Jiajia stood up and answered loudly.
"Okay, Jiajia, sit down first. Does anyone else know the answer? Does Sisi know it too? Sisi, please answer." Aunt Li was a little surprised to see Meisi raise her hand. She thought Meisi didn't know anything.
"Why not buy them together?" Mei Si looked at Aunt Li with some confusion, not understanding why she had to do it twice.
"..." Aunt Li opened her mouth, not knowing how to answer. She had just asked a question: why did Mei Si look at her as if she were an idiot?
“Yes! Why doesn’t Auntie buy them together?” Some of the children also thought that Mei Si’s question was correct.
"Auntie, why didn't you buy them together?"
"Auntie, why do we have to do it in two sessions?"
"Clap clap clap!" Aunt Li clapped her hands to quiet the children down when she saw they were making a mess.
"Alright, alright, everyone quiet down! You all answer me first, how many candies did I buy in total? Does anyone else know?" Aunt Li raised her voice and asked again.
"Didn't she just answer? 5 yuan. Don't you know 2 + 3 = 5?" Mei Si didn't expect that the aunt who taught the children didn't even know what 2 plus 3 equals. Gou Sheng is so smart. What a pity... sigh!
"..." Aunt Li suddenly felt that it might have been a mistake for her to take Mei Si into her class.
Aunt Li knew that it was difficult to explain to children, so she simply led the children to start counting.
"Shall we all count to 100 together?"
"Okay!" all the children except Meisi shouted in unison.
"1, 2, 3, 4... 100! You are all so smart. Now, let's continue learning addition and subtraction. Let's say that Erwa, the shepherd, has a total of 7 sheep, but after he took a nap, he found that 2 sheep were missing. So how many sheep does he have left now?" Aunt Li learned from her mistake and decided not to use herself as an example anymore.
The children started counting on their fingers how many sheep were left.
Aunt Li saw that everyone was looking down at the math problems, but Mei Si was still looking up at her. She thought Mei Si didn't know how, so she quickly went over to comfort her.
"Sisi, it's okay, Auntie will teach you how to do it." Aunt Li held up seven fingers, intending to teach Meisi arithmetic.
“There are still 5 sheep left. I just don’t understand why Erwa is sleeping while herding sheep. That’s very irresponsible.”
"..." Aunt Li was speechless. She didn't understand what was wrong with Mei Si. Why wasn't she focusing on math?
After math class, it was time to play games. Aunt Li breathed a sigh of relief, finally free from answering Mei Si's strange questions.
"Shall we play Drop the Handkerchief today?" Aunt Li said, leading everyone to the open space outside.
"Great! Great!" the children shouted excitedly.
"Now everyone hold hands and form a circle. Yes, make the distance between you a little wider. Okay, now let go of each other's hands and squat down. Auntie will be the first to drop the handkerchief. Everyone, let's sing together!" Auntie Li said, taking out the handkerchief she had prepared.
"Drop, drop, drop the handkerchief, gently place it behind the little boy, everyone don't tell him, hurry, hurry, catch him, hurry, catch him!"
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