Reasons for smiling

Some of my reasons for smiling this week: 

One of the sentences on their spelling homework was:

"Noah walked with God and was _____."

They had to choose the word "bright" or "upright" to fit into the sentence. My aide came to me and said, "Well, half of the class thinks Noah was bright." We counted it right. I mean, I think it takes a pretty bright man to build a giant ark.

On another assignment, they had to write directions for whistling. Here are some of my favorite excerpts.

"First make a hole in your mouth." 

"You put your lips in a circle like you kiss someone on the cheek."  

"First shape your mouth like you're going to kiss someone, then blow through the kiss." 

"If you blow wildly you are not going to get anywhere." 

7 things to know before becoming a teacher

If any of you out there are thinking about becoming an elementary school teacher, there are a few things you should know.

1. Your students will love to come to the board for any purpose, and they know how to strongly express their disappointment when they're not chosen.

2. You will get to know the unique personality of each student. For example, when you set the timer for break so they know when to be back in their seats, there will be some who wait until the last possible second, while others, to be on the safe side, are in their seats with a couple minutes left.

3. It's quite easy to amaze your students... Bubbles on the screensaver never get old... Laminating is a wonder that transforms a boring old name tag into something truly wondrous.

4. Every day, your students give you another reason to smile, whether it's the girl that raises her hand and asks, "May I use the facilities?" or the boy who writes this opinion sentence on his worksheet: "I love pizza, I repeat, I love pizza!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Or it may even be when a student misinterprets directions:

5. You will run out of time to hear everyone's stories. In Science class, when one student shares a story about a reptile, suddenly there are 29 more stories waiting to be told.

6. You will also run out of space to exhibit all their displays of affection for you.

                    (You may also start receiving snow flakes in September.)

7. Children know how to make you feel loved.

Alive and well

A wise colleague told me that if children are noisy, that means they are alive and well. I'm happy to report that my students are alive and well. Although I have a feeling the noise level may have something to do with the number of students in the classroom. To give you an idea, this was my class last year:

And this is my class this year:

Sometimes, the classroom feels a little like that tree looks: full and overflowing. But the students are doing very well, and I'm thoroughly enjoying this class. The middle of last week, one student asked me when we're going to start using the behavior chart. She hadn't realized it started on day one. :)

So maybe it's not fair of me to say that they're noisy. But it turns out that students make generalizations about teachers, too. I heard one say, "That's how teachers are." (Stopping a story just when it gets to the good part.)

They're also doing well academically. I've enjoyed reading some very creative sentences in language class. For example, on one worksheet the directions said to "Pretend you are the teacher. Write a command for your students."

"You all go to the principal's office for 24 hours while I go four-wheeling." 

(When I asked if they thought it would work if I tried that, they were too distracted by the very idea of me going four-wheeling.) 

Another time they had to write an exclamatory sentence, pretending a flock of wild ducks just landed in their backyard. 

"There's some ducks out back! And sadly one bit me." 

I'm looking forward to much more entertainment!