September 11-17, 2013 (aka Miss Señorita Slacker)

It's been a busy week and sadly blog posts have taken a backseat to, well, everything else. And when things get hectic that's the way it has to be until someone offers to pay me large sums of money to blog (anyone?). Sadly, I know that there are some quotes I've forgotten because I've even been too busy to jot them down! The good news is that I tend to remember them (usually at really random times). So I'm just going to throw down what I've got from this past week and the rest will come whenever.

A first grade girl entering the portable to work with a reading teacher...

Girl: Wanna feel my pants? They feel really good.
Teacher: That would be a no.

While working on a coloring page for the word naranja (orange) with a kindergarten class...

Girl: Did you know pumpkins come alive? I saw it on a commercial.
Me: I did not know that.
Boy: And right here on pumpkins [the stem] can be green.
Me: Now that I did know.

More kindergarten interactions...

Boy: I hate preschool. You know why?
Me: No. Why?
Boy: Because there's no treasure box.
Me: That seems like a really good reason.

Me: Did you poke her with a pencil?
Boy: It was sharp yesterday.
Me: OK, but did you poke her with it? It doesn't matter when it was sharpened. You don't poke people with pencils because it can always hurt them.

When I arrived to one class, a boy (the one who said "hey buddy" to me) still had his gogurt snack out on the table. I told him to finish eating it, but he didn't. Naturally, class ended with yogurt all over the table. His solution was to put his whole hand into it and then lick his hand. We were helping him clean it up and he kept assuring us...

Boy: It's ok, it's ok. I'm not in trouble.
Me: Well, I'm really glad you're not in trouble. We need to clean this up.
Boy: It's ok.

Animal wheel from Spanish Playground

I discovered a cool website for Spanish resources called Spanish Playground and this week I started an activity with my first and second graders based on the book Oso café, oso café, ¿qué ves ahí? (Brown bear, brown bear, what do you see?) We're making an animal wheel for them to practice their animal words and colors. It's been quite a hit with my students.

Here's how a second grade girl encouraged a classmate who was struggling to finish his animal wheel...

Girl: I know it's hard to speak Spanish, but maybe when you travel you could take this [the animal wheel] with you and it will help.

In addition to learning about space, I've been teaching the fourth grade about ordenal numbers. I was very nervous about getting to sixth because the word is "sexto." Awwwww, it has sex in it! But one fourth grade boy set everyone straight...

Boy: It's not bad, it's Spanish!

I don't write the names of students on this blog, but one of our fourth graders has a name that is very similar to one of the Native Indian tribes of Mexico (although it's spelled differently)...

Boy: The Mayan Calendar; it's not a calendar I made up. It's a real thing.

Today, a fourth grade girl kept asking me the same question over and over...

Girl: Isn't the real Rose from Titanic still alive?
Me: No, it was a movie. There's no real Rose.
Girl: No, but it was real. She's still alive!

The portables are coming!

I was listening to a first grade girl working with one of our reading teachers today. This girl is prone to tangents, and reading her ABC book was no exception...

Girl: Ss, snake. I petted a snake on the head once. I was at a family reunion and my old granddaddy had it. He died in the big earthquake at the beginning of time.

Another first grade boy brought up a very important question while working on his animal wheel...

Boy: What if there was a guy, and he was walking down the street...and then he shot a missile? And then...there was wood in it and it exploded?
Me: Well, then I guess that would be a bad day.

Before my third grade class started I watched a student cutting out some drawing he had made. I thought it looked sort of computery and assumed it had to do with that Minecraft thing all the kids are so obsessed with so I tried to talk to him about it (mistake)...

Me: Is that a Minecraft thing?
Boy: How can it be a Minecraft thing if it's a circle? Circles are invalid in Minecraft.
Me: Why would I know that? All I know is that all of y'all are obsessed with Minecraft.



Fifth grade has been working on vocabulary about sports and free time activities as well as talking about people's likes and dislikes. After asking classmates about things they like to do, students had to write sentences about what other people like to do. One student decided to draw pictures to go with his sentences.