Distractions & smiles

My students have been making me smile. It's amazing what I overhear when I just listen in on their conversations. I hear about everything from their dads' motorcycles to Lady Gaga's red eye shadow to how we're going to get six feet of snow on Friday. Yesterday as I was listening to them work in groups, one of the girls must have told the boy she was working with that he spelled Elisha's name wrong. His reply (instead of erasing and correcting):"Well, I'll spell the next one right hopefully."

Sometimes it's hard to stay on task, but at least it makes me smile. As I mentioned before (in Problem Solving), during class they sometimes raise their hands to tell me problems that I'm not quite sure how to respond to. Here are some new examples:

"My socks are wet."
"I got a drink from the water fountain, and water went up my nose, and now it kind of burns." 

Yesterday, we were looking at vocabulary words for our reading story. We were discussing the word treatment. One of the boys began to have a coughing fit and may have made a little more commotion than necessary and became the center of the class's attention. One of the girls piped up, "Do you need a treatment?"

The story we've been reading is about a girl who had a pet boa constrictor at home. She had to figure out a way to get it to the garage without a group of ladies seeing it. The students brainstormed some ways she could do this, and one of the ideas was for her to wear it like a belt. (None of the students thought their moms would allow them to have a pet snake at home, although many of them would like to.)

Later in the day in science class, I instructed them to keep their books closed on their desks while we reviewed the chapter. One of the girls raised her hand, not to answer a question, but to ask me how the 3 on the ant farm on the cover of their science books stays there.

As we were talking about water vapor, another girl raised her hand and said, "So that's why you're wearing your glasses, because there's water vapor in the air!" Another girl informed me she likes to do science "experiences" at home.

Today, close to the end of the day, one of the girls mentioned that the day seemed so long. I asked the rest of the class if they thought so, too, and some agreed. One girl said, "Because it's raining!" The rest of us looked outside at the sun shining and looked back at her. She continued, "When it's raining, it feels long." We looked outside again. "But it's not raining," I told her. However, they were inside all day. Some other teachers thought maybe I need to open the blinds wider.