Flashback Friday

For those of you who are wondering what's happening in the third grade, be patient. I'll soon be posting. In the meantime, here's a little flashback Friday for you, taken straight from my journal from a little over a year ago. (The names have been changed.)

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Thank God for days like today, when amidst all the struggles, my students amuse me and make me laugh. The things they said and did are still making me laugh! 

Although I wasn't laughing at the time, it makes me laugh now because it's so ridiculous. At the end of hot lunch, Johnny threw away some of his food. Bobby saw the crackers in the trash can, and in the blink of an eye, snatched one out and popped it in his mouth. Right in front of me! I scolded and said it was disgusting and made him put it back. Apparently, when I turned my back, he took it back out and proceeded to eat it! When I talked to him about it, he told me he was "starving." After I saw him eat his big lunch plus another student's whoopie pie!

One of our Reading vocabulary words today was "somersault." Johnny raised his hand and asked if I knew what a backwards somersault was called. I asked what, and then when he answered, I asked him to repeat it three times, because I didn't understand. Wintersault. I didn't get it until he said off to one side was a springsault and off to the other side is a fallsault. The whole time, the other students were nodding their heads like everyone knows this. 

At recess, Ted and Johnny both had to stay in to do work. Johnny was doing a Reading worksheet with the vocabulary word "lanky," and we're reading a story about a midget. He made a comment about how he doesn't want to get fat - he likes being lanky - because he doesn't want to be a midget. I told him that just because you're fat doesn't mean you're a midget because you don't get shorter if you gain weight. Ted piped up and said, "Yeah, Johnny, because I'm taller than you and I'm plumper." And Johnny responded, "Well, Ted, I wouldn't call you fat. You may be plumper, but you're not fat."  

Winter blues aren't getting us down!

With all these snow days and delays, it's hard to believe we're getting any work done! But the students have been very good about focusing. :)

Time for you to play the teacher. What is this word, misspelled by many of the third graders?

cyrele
serle
seerol
cerl
ceral

A few days ago, the directions on their Language worksheet said to "Write a sentence telling what you ate for breakfast." Many of them ate what you have probably figured out was supposed to be "cereal." (It is a weird word to spell, isn't it?) One girl's sentence was: "I ate cookie cereal. Boring." Doesn't sound too boring to me! (But then again, my breakfast is usually a granola bar.)

Today I had the students start working on a "Multiplication Tic-Tac-Toe" board, where they have to choose four activities in a row to complete. At the beginning of Math time, one boy exclaimed, "I'm so excited to do this! Finally Math is going to be fun!" Another boy said, "I don't know, it might be more boring than you think." I'm not sure what the final verdict was, but they seemed to be enjoying it. :)

And finally, I just have to show off their cute penguins from Art class.