Kids slurping it up

I always love that hour and a half I spend each week with those eight kids who come to me for math enrichment. By now I am getting to know them as individuals with their own special approaches to the work we are doing. Victoria is the one who just knows that if a problem doesn't check she has to go back and do the work over because maybe she wrote it down wrong in the first place. Natalie keeps everyone on track because she never hesitates to let me know that there was something she maybe didn't get really fixed in her mind. I am trying so hard to let these kids know that this math, this algebra program is beautiful and fun and you need to focus. You need to collaborate. Timarya is so bright and swift she sees the answer immediately but resists doing the checks. I am on her case and make her go back and check her answers. Usually she works with Aaron and Rubin and the three of them work together like lightning.
I tell them that each of them is unique and have different skills and aptitudes. They know I think they are all brilliant (which they are!) I want them to focus and work hard. Chloe sometimes thinks she 'doesn't get it', but I hold back a minute and then she does. Clayton has been absent for two classes and he will catch up. What he is really interested in is the pig (or calf?) he's raising for the county fair and we discuss this quite a bit.
Abigail, Abigail! Here's this quiet beautiful child who just sets out each class day with me, full interest and determination. She gets to work immediately and is totally on task and ahead of the others by a page or two. Often I ask her to help another student, and when I revisit that part of the table, she's explained whatever was opaque to her tablemates.
I am beginning to know the back stories of these kids. There are three Hispanics, two African Americans, and the others are two kids of teachers in this school and one other. A good mix. What is clear to me is that all these kids are well cared for. Physically, they are very handsome. They are quite trim, lovely white teeth, shiny hair.
If we have any time at the end of class we play a game, usually some kind of charades. They all love this. They want me to come and eat lunch in the cafeteria with them. I did this last week, but today I had to load up the clay pieces from Family Clay Night last Wednesday so I can fire them in my kiln. The kids were eager to help me load everything in my car.
The time I spend there goes by so fast! I wish it could be longer. I am thinking that maybe if I regularly ate lunch with them I could read a good book outloud to them. I fantasize that I could take them on a trip to Washington, D.C. or New York City. What furniture for the mind that would be!
Any ideas you have? Let me know.

I am thinking that I should start reading to them while we eat lunch