Taken literally

Today I had a laugh out loud moment, and I couldn't wipe the grin off my face for a good five minutes afterwards. My poor, sweet, innocent girl. We were walking out to recess and this student suddenly asks, "Was he in a cage?"

Me: Was who in a cage?
Student: The ant eater.
Me: What ant eater? I don’t know what you’re talking about.
Student: She said “Thanks for bringing the ant eater.”

This is the point where I laughed out loud. Poor girl.
Well, actually what the second grade teacher said to me was, “Thanks for bringing them in earlier.” She had passed us in the hallway and was thanking me for bringing her students in from recess. Second grade already has a pet rat. I don’t think they need an ant eater too. But I guess it makes sense to check to see if they did have an ant eater, if it was in a cage.

That wasn't the only amusing part of my day. Sometimes students take directions so literally, and then you think, Yeah, that should have been worded differently.

For instance, the directions said: Write the plural form for each noun in a sentence. The word penny was listed with a line after it, and underneath was the word wolf with a line after it. Most students understood this meant to write a sentence for each word. One student, however, wrote a sentence.

The wolves found two pennies.

Or take the math worksheet today.  What is the difference between the rounded number of miles and the exact answer?

One is exact. One is not. 

The round number has a zero at the end and the exact does not.

In reading, I think they came up with some pretty good answers to these questions: What do you dream of doing? What would you have to learn before you could do this?

astronaut; how to run a rocket 

going on a trip into the woods for a month and getting lost; how to know how to survive (I knew before I looked that this was written by the boy whose favorite birthday gift was a knife and a set of utensils!) 

being a mom; get married 

mom; how to clean all the time 

I bet you moms appreciate the last one!