Third graders are funny. You can't spend a day with them without laughing about something they say or do. (Or at least I can't!) I love that they keep me entertained. One boy was making balloon animals during lunch yesterday for Show and Tell. :)
Here's some inventive spelling from one girl's paper. (It took her at least 2 weeks longer than the rest of the class to finish the assignment, so I was just happy it was finished!)
poseches (possessions)
tuns of stuff
give money to the pore
and my favorite:
a fyou other people
And, oh the boys. Where do I start?
Yesterday I had the class "writing" big cursive letters in the air. I tried to stop the sound effects coming from all corners of the room, but it was impossible. Noises just automatically come out of their mouths, and sometimes they honestly can't help it. However, the gobbling during class today did have to stop.
Today during Social Studies I read a book to them about the first indigo plantation in South Carolina. It described the process, explaining that the plants were put into large tubs with water and other natural materials, including urine. (You can see where this is going, I'm sure.) I should have just skipped over that or kept reading without pausing. But not completely taking into account my audience, I explained that it meant "pee" and tried to keep reading. Well, they just couldn't quite process this. I may as well have just ended the lesson right then and there, because all they could think and talk about was the urine. One girl kept her hand raised for 5 minutes while I was reading, and when I finally called on her it was to say that they use that word in the hospital. She heard a nurse say it. An hour after Social Studies was over, one boy told me that (if you had lived on an indigo plantation) if you had to go to the bathroom, you could just go right in the indigo tub. (Spoken like a boy.) And another one asked, "So our jeans are dyed with pee? That's what you said!" I wish I could hear their answers when their parents ask, "What did you learn in school today?"
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
Saturday, February 23, 2013
Why I need 4-hour naps
I know I need more sleep than the average person, but this year even more so. By Friday night I'm exhausted. Which is why I slept 9 hours last night and took a 4-hour nap this afternoon! It's no wonder I'm physically, mentally, and emotionally drained by the end of the week when I look back at how much energy each day requires of me. (I could never handle an actual high-stress job!)
These are some of the humorous interruptions during class this week (not counting the many I either forgot or didn't find humorous!).
Yesterday at the end of lunch time, I noticed that one of the boys had filled his plastic sandwich bags from his lunch with air. I had just directed him to sit in his seat quietly, so I decided to ignore the bags until they became a problem. We soon all proceeded to the carpet for read aloud time. This boy was sitting beside my rocking chair with a gleeful look on his face. Much to his disappointment, I immediately noticed the two bags that he had strategically placed behind and underneath my rocking chair. He was hoping for an explosion.
And then there are the countless random responses when I call on students thinking they have an answer or a relevant question. Here are a few examples all from this week:
These are some of the humorous interruptions during class this week (not counting the many I either forgot or didn't find humorous!).
Yesterday at the end of lunch time, I noticed that one of the boys had filled his plastic sandwich bags from his lunch with air. I had just directed him to sit in his seat quietly, so I decided to ignore the bags until they became a problem. We soon all proceeded to the carpet for read aloud time. This boy was sitting beside my rocking chair with a gleeful look on his face. Much to his disappointment, I immediately noticed the two bags that he had strategically placed behind and underneath my rocking chair. He was hoping for an explosion.
And then there are the countless random responses when I call on students thinking they have an answer or a relevant question. Here are a few examples all from this week:
- "My sister scratched me this morning."
- "There was a guy whose stomach exploded because he ate too many pop rocks and soda."
- "I like snow."
- "Look, I made an Egyptian person out of my pencil grip and cap eraser."
- "Can I go take a nap in the health room?"
- After dotting his Math homework with his pencil: "My paper has chicken pox!"
- After I said we should pray for the Elijah play they'll be performing on Monday (Lord, give me extra energy on Monday!): "The Elijah play isn't sick."
- "What happens if you cut off a person's left side?" Me: "What?" Student: Repeats question Me: "Does this have to do with Math? We don't have time for this..." Student: "They're all right."
And then there was the hand sanitizer incident. Those of you who know me know that I’m a “germophobe,” which is why I have a bottle of hand sanitizer next to the tissues and instruct my students on the first day of school to use it whenever they blow their nose or whenever they cough or sneeze in their hands. (I have to say, my class has been very healthy this year!) Every now and then, the sanitizer is misused, as can be expected with third graders, but for the most part they are good about using it.
Yesterday one boy asked me what happened to the hand sanitizer. I didn't know, so I asked the class if anyone knew what happened to it. I expected the usual answer for something like this: “We don’t know!” But no, not my class. This was our conversation:
Students: “It’s probably in the dumpster.”
Me: “What?”
“Yeah, it fell into the trash can.”
“Well why didn't someone dig it out?!”
“Because our bus was leaving.”
“Oh, so it’s still in the trash can?”
“No, this happened a few days ago.”
At which point, I threw up my hands and said, “Why didn’t anyone tell me?!”
I think I'll go sleep some more.
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
Shoelace disruptions
Most of the time, when there is a disruption or misbehavior during class, I try not to let any humor show, even if in the back of my mind I'm thinking, This will make a great story! Some of the students will take even the slightest smile from me as license to laugh at the student causing the disruption, and of course that student will take laughter as encouragement to continue the behavior. So most of the time I'm able to keep a straight face and deal with the problem before it causes chaos in the room.
For instance, today during Math class, a boy raised his hand and when I called on him, he said, "I have a new watch," and held up his wrist for everyone to see his freshly drawn blue-ink watch. I said, "Now's not the time to discuss that," and went on with the division lesson. Later I told asked him to please not draw on himself with pen during class.
But one day not too long ago I couldn't help myself. I did the unthinkable. I burst out laughing in the middle of Social Studies class at the antics of two of my boys.
The class was seated on the carpet, and I was reading to them. Some of the students starting laughing, so I (unhappy at being interrupted) asked the two boys who seemed to be causing the disruption what the problem was. The one said something about his shoelaces being tied together. I thought someone had tied his shoelaces to each other while he wasn't paying attention. I told him to take care of it quietly ,and I began reading again. Well, the giggling and disruption continued, so I told that boy to go out in the hallway and take care of the problem and not come back in until he was ready to listen quietly. I was expecting him to hop out of the room, but I figured at least the rest of the class could concentrate then. So he got up and started walking, dragging one foot behind him. The other boy - quietly, without saying a word - started crawling along behind him, and I realized THEIR shoelaces were tied together! That's when I couldn't control my burst of laughter. That mental image still makes me smile. Oh boys.
I think I might have gray hair by the end of this year.
For instance, today during Math class, a boy raised his hand and when I called on him, he said, "I have a new watch," and held up his wrist for everyone to see his freshly drawn blue-ink watch. I said, "Now's not the time to discuss that," and went on with the division lesson. Later I told asked him to please not draw on himself with pen during class.
But one day not too long ago I couldn't help myself. I did the unthinkable. I burst out laughing in the middle of Social Studies class at the antics of two of my boys.
The class was seated on the carpet, and I was reading to them. Some of the students starting laughing, so I (unhappy at being interrupted) asked the two boys who seemed to be causing the disruption what the problem was. The one said something about his shoelaces being tied together. I thought someone had tied his shoelaces to each other while he wasn't paying attention. I told him to take care of it quietly ,and I began reading again. Well, the giggling and disruption continued, so I told that boy to go out in the hallway and take care of the problem and not come back in until he was ready to listen quietly. I was expecting him to hop out of the room, but I figured at least the rest of the class could concentrate then. So he got up and started walking, dragging one foot behind him. The other boy - quietly, without saying a word - started crawling along behind him, and I realized THEIR shoelaces were tied together! That's when I couldn't control my burst of laughter. That mental image still makes me smile. Oh boys.
I think I might have gray hair by the end of this year.
Monday, February 18, 2013
Is it so hard to sit on a chair?
Some days I wonder if my students conspire beforehand about what to do that day to test my patience. Today, for example, we had chair issues. Many chair issues. Or, more accurately, sitting issues. I can't even tell you how many times I had to say, "Sit down," or "Keep your chair on the floor," or "Your feet shouldn't be on your chair." All day long, I turned around and I saw feet hanging over chairs, chairs tipping backwards, students straddling chairs, picking their chairs up in the middle of class, sitting on the top part of their chairs... Sometimes one student performing more than one of those at the same time (and then I wonder why our chairs are falling apart.) By the end of the day, I was beginning to imagine what my students will be like someday as adults with office chairs. :-/
But then on days like today, I have to remember back to the beginning of the school year, and then I realize how far we've come. In the first few weeks - maybe months - of the school year, I had students regularly lying down on the floor and crawling under desks in the middle of class. So maybe dealing with chair issues isn't so bad after all.
I don't think it's coincidence that this morning in faculty devotions we read this verse:
But then on days like today, I have to remember back to the beginning of the school year, and then I realize how far we've come. In the first few weeks - maybe months - of the school year, I had students regularly lying down on the floor and crawling under desks in the middle of class. So maybe dealing with chair issues isn't so bad after all.
I don't think it's coincidence that this morning in faculty devotions we read this verse:
A person’s wisdom yields patience. (Proverbs 19:11)Since I don't think God will ever look at me and say, "Okay, Michelle, you have enough wisdom and patience now," I guess I better get used to learning this lesson! One of our Social Studies lessons is about Benjamin Franklin, and he wrote his own epitaph, which I love:
The body of B. Franklin Printer;Praise the Lord!
Like the cover of an old book,
Its contents worn out,
And stript of its lettering and gilding,
Lies here, food for worms.
But the Work shall not be wholly lost:
For it will, as he believed, appear once more,
In a new and more perfect Edition
Corrected and Amended by the Author.
Friday, February 15, 2013
Friday smiles
I thank God for the moments in my days that make me smile. They make all the difficult moments worthwhile. Today I had several of them, so I'll share them with you in the hopes of bringing a smile to your face too!
For those of you who read my previous post, "Snack battles," you'll appreciate this. Today at snack time, I noticed a student carrying three food items to his desk: peanuts, a pack of crackers, and a granola bar. (Just for the record, this is not the same student who ate his whole lunch for snack.) I said, "You can't eat all of that for snack! You need to choose one thing."
He looked at me dumbly. "What?"
"Yes, one thing."
More staring. "But my mom wants me to have all of these for snack."
Oh, the good ol' mom line. (I wonder what they tell their moms that their teacher said.) Mean teacher: "No, choose one thing, and put the others back for lunch. You're eating lunch in an hour. You can wait."
This afternoon, I took the class to recess. One of my girls was straggling along behind, and she told me, "I just had my scarf, and now I can't find it." I asked if she checked the Lost & Found, thinking she'd left it out at recess earlier in the day. She explained to me that as she was walking out to recess, just then, she was putting it on, dropped it, and now couldn't find it. I looked in the hallway with her, and it was nowhere to be found. The mystery of the missing scarf. Later in the day, one of the aides brought the scarf to our classroom, so I still don't know where it disappeared to or where it was found!
Writing is always a difficult thing to teach children. You want them to write well, but you can't write for them. Right now, the students are working on writing poems. We first wrote a class poem together about recess. We wrote about the games and activities they do at recess, and then since they have lunch after recess, we ended by saying:
It's time for lunch.
I have a hunch we'll eat a bunch.
We discussed how having two rhyming lines at the end is a good way to close a poem, so I encouraged them to try to end their poems with some rhyming words. As I was conferencing with students today, I realized that, interestingly enough, many poems about trains and thunderstorms and such were ending with lines about it being time for lunch and eating a bunch.
I still smile when I remember meeting with one of the boys. His poem was about a train, and his (non-proofread) poem read:
Chug, chug, chew, chew goes the train.
The train doesn't have blood vains.
So I was trying to help him come up with some rhyming lines that made sense. His one line was, "The train is here." So I asked, "What rhymes with here?" and gave him some ideas: near, fear, dear... This was the line he came up with: "Here comes my ear." He immediately dissolved into giggles, and I couldn't help but join in! In fact, I'm still giggling. I was so glad for that moment with him, because most of our one-on-one moments are not lighthearted!
And lastly, in Science today, we read about "States of Matter." Immediately when I said the topic, one boy piped up, "Like Ohio?" And then again at the end of the lesson, when I said something about the three states of matter, this same boy said, "Oh, I thought for a second that you were talking about real states!"
For those of you who read my previous post, "Snack battles," you'll appreciate this. Today at snack time, I noticed a student carrying three food items to his desk: peanuts, a pack of crackers, and a granola bar. (Just for the record, this is not the same student who ate his whole lunch for snack.) I said, "You can't eat all of that for snack! You need to choose one thing."
He looked at me dumbly. "What?"
"Yes, one thing."
More staring. "But my mom wants me to have all of these for snack."
Oh, the good ol' mom line. (I wonder what they tell their moms that their teacher said.) Mean teacher: "No, choose one thing, and put the others back for lunch. You're eating lunch in an hour. You can wait."
This afternoon, I took the class to recess. One of my girls was straggling along behind, and she told me, "I just had my scarf, and now I can't find it." I asked if she checked the Lost & Found, thinking she'd left it out at recess earlier in the day. She explained to me that as she was walking out to recess, just then, she was putting it on, dropped it, and now couldn't find it. I looked in the hallway with her, and it was nowhere to be found. The mystery of the missing scarf. Later in the day, one of the aides brought the scarf to our classroom, so I still don't know where it disappeared to or where it was found!
Writing is always a difficult thing to teach children. You want them to write well, but you can't write for them. Right now, the students are working on writing poems. We first wrote a class poem together about recess. We wrote about the games and activities they do at recess, and then since they have lunch after recess, we ended by saying:
It's time for lunch.
I have a hunch we'll eat a bunch.
We discussed how having two rhyming lines at the end is a good way to close a poem, so I encouraged them to try to end their poems with some rhyming words. As I was conferencing with students today, I realized that, interestingly enough, many poems about trains and thunderstorms and such were ending with lines about it being time for lunch and eating a bunch.
I still smile when I remember meeting with one of the boys. His poem was about a train, and his (non-proofread) poem read:
Chug, chug, chew, chew goes the train.
The train doesn't have blood vains.
So I was trying to help him come up with some rhyming lines that made sense. His one line was, "The train is here." So I asked, "What rhymes with here?" and gave him some ideas: near, fear, dear... This was the line he came up with: "Here comes my ear." He immediately dissolved into giggles, and I couldn't help but join in! In fact, I'm still giggling. I was so glad for that moment with him, because most of our one-on-one moments are not lighthearted!
And lastly, in Science today, we read about "States of Matter." Immediately when I said the topic, one boy piped up, "Like Ohio?" And then again at the end of the lesson, when I said something about the three states of matter, this same boy said, "Oh, I thought for a second that you were talking about real states!"
Thursday, February 14, 2013
Lunch prayers and Valentine love
There’s one in every class: a student who loves to be the center of attention. Thrives on it. (Unlike those of us who in every college class sat in the third row off to the side, so as to blend in and not draw attention to ourselves.) I may happen to have more than one of those students this year, but one who especially seeks the spotlight. Let’s call him Bobby. We'll get back to Bobby later.
The class marble jar was looking sadly empty, so a few weeks ago I realized they needed some motivation - they earn marbles for good behavior, and when the marble jar is full, they can have a reward. So I made a deal with them that once they filled it halfway, they could choose a reward. They made it, and the reward they chose was a pizza party, which I decided would be nice for Valentine's Day. (Whenever I had to take marbles out, I threatened to take away the pizza party if the marbles went below halfway. Today after lunch I overheard a student say, "She can't take away our pizza party anymore!")
I just finished reading a book to the class about a 3-year-old boy who didn't want to eat. His dad got tired of it and said, "Eat it or wear it." This phrase caught on with my third graders.
Which brings us back to Bobby. His prayer for lunch went something like this: "Dear God, please help us not to eat too much candy so we don't get sick on the tummy. And keep the pizza safe and help it to get here so we can eat it and not wear it."
At the sound of Bobby’s “Amen,” the class erupted into giggles. I looked at Bobby with what I hope was a serious face and asked, “Were you trying to entertain God, Bobby? I hope you weren't trying to entertain the class, because praying is about speaking to God and focusing on Him.” He didn't say anything. I think he got the point. :)
I remember loving Valentine's Day as a student, and so I love to make it special for my students. Our Valentine holders were bursting at the seams this morning!
I received many special gifts - cards, candy, a bag of chocolates, a Hershey's XOXO bar, a pink bucket with puppy chow inside, a card that said "Dear Ms. Weaver, I will try to be good all year." But perhaps the sweetest thing I got today was a homemade, 3-foot high, pink paper heart:
It's nice to know you're loved, isn't it? So much of Valentine's Day is associated with romantic love, but I'm not letting my singleness keep me from enjoying the day! I'm so thankful for my students, family, and friends who love me. I am truly blessed. And most of all, I'm basking in God's love for me and thanking him that it is enough. More than enough. I'm overwhelmed and humbled by his love for me. Song of Solomon 8:7 says this:
Many waters cannot quench love,
Nor can the floods drown it.
If a man would give for love
All the wealth of his house,
It would be utterly despised.
I hope you're basking in His love too. :) Happy Valentine's Day!
The class marble jar was looking sadly empty, so a few weeks ago I realized they needed some motivation - they earn marbles for good behavior, and when the marble jar is full, they can have a reward. So I made a deal with them that once they filled it halfway, they could choose a reward. They made it, and the reward they chose was a pizza party, which I decided would be nice for Valentine's Day. (Whenever I had to take marbles out, I threatened to take away the pizza party if the marbles went below halfway. Today after lunch I overheard a student say, "She can't take away our pizza party anymore!")
I just finished reading a book to the class about a 3-year-old boy who didn't want to eat. His dad got tired of it and said, "Eat it or wear it." This phrase caught on with my third graders.
Which brings us back to Bobby. His prayer for lunch went something like this: "Dear God, please help us not to eat too much candy so we don't get sick on the tummy. And keep the pizza safe and help it to get here so we can eat it and not wear it."
At the sound of Bobby’s “Amen,” the class erupted into giggles. I looked at Bobby with what I hope was a serious face and asked, “Were you trying to entertain God, Bobby? I hope you weren't trying to entertain the class, because praying is about speaking to God and focusing on Him.” He didn't say anything. I think he got the point. :)
I remember loving Valentine's Day as a student, and so I love to make it special for my students. Our Valentine holders were bursting at the seams this morning!
I received many special gifts - cards, candy, a bag of chocolates, a Hershey's XOXO bar, a pink bucket with puppy chow inside, a card that said "Dear Ms. Weaver, I will try to be good all year." But perhaps the sweetest thing I got today was a homemade, 3-foot high, pink paper heart:
It's nice to know you're loved, isn't it? So much of Valentine's Day is associated with romantic love, but I'm not letting my singleness keep me from enjoying the day! I'm so thankful for my students, family, and friends who love me. I am truly blessed. And most of all, I'm basking in God's love for me and thanking him that it is enough. More than enough. I'm overwhelmed and humbled by his love for me. Song of Solomon 8:7 says this:
Many waters cannot quench love,
Nor can the floods drown it.
If a man would give for love
All the wealth of his house,
It would be utterly despised.
I hope you're basking in His love too. :) Happy Valentine's Day!
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
Snack battles
Okay, so I understand it was naive and idealistic of me to assume my students would understand and follow my expectations within the first week of school. I even understand it takes some up to a month to get acclimated to a new classroom. But now they've been in my class for six months! Over those six months, even though break time is at 10:30 every day and the routine hasn't changed since Day 1, I've found myself having to clarify the proper procedures for snack at break time. (Is it unreasonable of me to think that I shouldn't have to anymore?)
- You may eat a healthy snack that you bring from home. Which soon changed to:
- You may eat a snack that you bring from home. (I long ago gave up trying to make them eat fruit and veggies instead of chips and cookies. I need to save my energy for the necessary battles.)
- Please don't eat your sandwich at break time.
- You may not eat your whole lunch at break time. (Yes, this was an actual problem. Therefore, one day one student's lunch consisted of milk.)
Which brings us to yesterday.
After visiting the secondary students' academic fair, I instructed my students to sit at their desks and get out their journals. All the students quietly followed my directions. All but one, that is. This student got his snack, sat down, and calmly started eating his pack of cookies.
I stopped giving instructions mid-sentence. I wanted to say "Take a look around. Is anyone else eating a snack before break time?" But not wanting to take the time to hear what prompted this dear student to think this was acceptable behavior (as entertaining as it may have been), I instead informed him it wasn't break yet and he'd have to wait to eat his snack. He stopped eating, I continued giving instructions, and we were able to move forward with our journal writing.
Just one of the100 or so interruptions that occur in my classroom throughout a typical day. :)
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
First days and expectations
We all have our favorite
TV shows: doctors and nurses scrambling around to save
lives, witty investigators solving impossible crimes,
"real" people falling in love... The list goes on. So maybe you
wouldn't think that teaching elementary school is very entertaining. But I'm
here to prove you wrong. Put 25 8- and 9-year-olds in one room together with only one adult, and there is bound to be entertainment. I've decided I have too many
good stories this year not to share them.
One thing about teachers - we're good at communication. So I knew it sounded like this year could present some challenges, but even though this is only my third year teaching, I knew what to expect from a group of third graders on the first day of school: they would be quiet and slightly shy, obediently following all my instructions. They'd sit at their desks with folded
hands, listening in rapt attention as I explained all that the year would
hold. Surely they'd understand my expectations and rules without much direction from me. After all, this school thing isn't new to them anymore. They've had 3
years of experience being students - more experience than I've had being a
teacher!
What I should have learned on that first day of school (however, I'm still learning this lesson) is not to have preconceived notions about what any day of school will hold. My email to my sister after that first half day tells it all:
Well maybe that last sentence was a bit of an understatement. But yes, it is interesting, as well as challenging, fun, tiring, and - despite the fact that there are no TV shows based on a teacher's life (yet) - entertaining.
You
know it's going to be an interesting year when:
...during
Chapel on the first day of school, within the first half hour of the day, you have to turn around
multiple times to tell the student sitting directly behind you to be quiet and
listen to the principal. You also have to remind 2 other boys to be quiet
during this time.
...one
student during the first 5 minutes of class is putting his boxes of tissues on
top of an already precariously high pile of boxes, only to have the whole class
watch the pile slide and tumble while the boy giggles delightedly and the
others join in.
...after
thoroughly discussing the importance of raising your hand, having the whole
class sign the rules poster agreeing to this rule, among others, one boy has to
flip a card on the behavior chart because already he is not following that
rule. Not only is he calling out answers, but he's making noises as well. (Not
to mention the sock that he had wrapped around his head, even after I told him
to put it in his desk.)
...and
then there's that student who can't seem to stay in his chair. You overlook his
standing up some of the time, but when he starts wandering from his desk or
sitting on top of his desk, you have to ask him to
have a seat.
Despite
all of that, I'm still excited for the year. It should be fun and very, very
interesting!
Well maybe that last sentence was a bit of an understatement. But yes, it is interesting, as well as challenging, fun, tiring, and - despite the fact that there are no TV shows based on a teacher's life (yet) - entertaining.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)