Every year at Emily’s school, each nursery class (3, 4, and 5 year olds) gets a cool name. Last year, Emily’s class was known as The Dolphins (Els Dofins, in Catalan). And that’s all we knew. It was only at the end of the first semester that we received, amongst the pack of goodies that made their way home, a description of the class name selection process. We didn’t even know there was a process. It apparently goes like this:

Each kid in the class gets to propose a name. Along with the name, the kids draw a picture of their proposal. The drawings and suggestions are shared with the whole class and the three names that appear most often move on to the next phase. The class discusses each option in detail and then the kids vote on which of the finalists they like best.

I was very impressed to receive a bound booklet describing last year’s process. The booklet included:

• Emily’s original proposal – The Dolphins
• her drawing of a dolphin – which looks more like a bunch of red balloons than a dolphin
• a list of each kid in the class and what they had originally suggested, including The Monkeys, The Penguins, The Butterflies, The Chicks, and The Moons
• the list of the three finalists – The Motorcycles, The Lions, and The Dolphins
• a detailed transcript of the conversations the class had about each finalist – that was hilarious
• a tally of the final vote – Motorcycles: 10, Lions: 4, Dolphins: 11

Yes, Emily’s proposal of Els Dofins reigned victorious and, for the rest of the year, that is how that class was known.

As I said, we had no idea that this process was in place. We were just told one day that Emily’s class was called The Dolphins. They had done the whole process in school. Well, this year the kids were told to go home, think of a proposal, and bring it in the next day. So we got to help.

The Pirates? The Fairies? The Tigers? The Princesses and Princes? The Airplanes? There were so many options! In the end, we settled on The Hedgehogs (Els Eriçons, in Catalan). We are convinced that this is an awesome name and will be so much fun if it gets selected. In retrospect, I don’t think there is a very good chance that any other kid will come in with the name Hedgehogs as their original proposal. So, to sweeten the deal, I sent Emily in to school with her proposal formatted in the following manner:

And if that weren’t enough, I attached this photo to knock it out of the park:

Let’s hear it for The Hedgehogs!!