Incredible kids

My students find ways all the time to brighten my days. I received a hand-written letter, a whoopie pie, and pictures all in one day!

Last week we had three half days so that we could have parent-teacher conferences in the afternoons. On Wednesday, I reminded the students that Thursday would be a full day. And they cheered. They cheered about having a full day of school. How blessed am I to be teaching these incredible kids? 

As incredible as they are, I don't think I'm quite ready to travel across the Atlantic with all of them. We've been learning about Ancient Rome in social studies, and I mentioned that someday I would love to go to Rome and see the Colosseum. They wanted to go too, so naturally they concluded that we should take a class field trip to Italy. A few days later, we learned about Pompeii, and when someone said that they would like to visit it, I said, "Sure, we'll just go there after our field trip to the Colosseum." I have to remember that not all third graders pick up on sarcasm, because some of them were so confused. "Wait, what? Our field trip to the Colosseum?" 

I explained to one of the students that when there is a problem like 5 + m = 12, you have to find the missing number that m stands for. "Does m stand for mystery?" she wondered. That would make a lot of sense. 

On a science worksheet, one of the questions was, "Are you warm-blooded or cold-blooded? How do you know?" From past experience, I told the students they couldn't say something like, "Because the book says so," or "My teacher told me." But one student wrote, "I know because I am smart."

At break time one day, I heard a group of boys chanting, "Do it! Do it! Do it!" Of course anytime there is a group of boys chanting "Do it!" there are automatically red flags. So I stared at them, waiting to see what it was, but then they started whispering, "The teacher's looking." You better believe it. So it is still a mystery. Probably for the best.