I rearranged the students' desks into groups and let them choose group names. One group chose Mountain Lions, but another student thought they were the Mennonite Lions.
Many of these little boats have been popping up all over the place. I'm trying not to let my control-freak tendencies make them disappear.
One day I waited outside the bathroom for some boys who were taking incredibly long. When they finally emerged and I asked what was going on, they excitedly described the new lights and the way they looked in the mirror.
One girl had to stay in from recess to finish some work, and eventually the other students in the room went out to recess and she was the only one left. She told me, "I feel like I'm stuck in here, like a prisoner."
On a reading worksheet, the students were supposed to explain whistling and how to whistle. This always gets interesting responses.
"It's fun, is it not?"
"First make your mouth look like a fish blowing bubbles."
"Humans have been trying to do it for years. The first person to discover this was Albert Einstein." (When he read that aloud to the class, I couldn't stop from laughing and asked him how he knew that.
"Maybe it was the caveman or George Washington.")
Another student's sentence answering a question about pets: "I have 2 cats, guppies, and dog nabers [neighbors]. I mean my nabers have dogs."
These days there are so many reasons why I find myself pausing in the middle of a lesson to redirect a student. Today was the first time I had to give a kid "the look" because he had a pencil taped to his chin.
And to sum it all up, the weather we've been having lately is perfect. One of my students agrees. As we walked outside this morning, he exclaimed, "It's so nice out here! It's cold and it's warm."
