Wednesday, January 29, 2014

January 29, 2014

We (the ladies of the trailer park aka portable) decided to impart some wisdom upon 2 third graders who were out there for math intervention...

Teacher: When you have kids, you make sure they wear coats in the winter.
Me: And gloves and hats!
Boy: We have a long time ahead in front of us.
Me: I think we just seriously freaked him out.

Speaking of third grade boys and math intervention, check out this non sequitir...

Boy: Do you sleep in clothes when you go to sleep?
Teacher: Do I sleep in clothes? No.
Boy: I sleep in long-johns.

Tuesday, January 28, 2014

January 28, 2014

First of all, I'm ashamed to say that I forgot a quote from M yesterday!

M: Do you want to hear about this thing I saw from York Country?
Me: [inner monologue: York Country?] No, not really.
M: You know them papers that they have? The tissue paper that's all cut up for decoration?
Me: Papel picado?
M: Yea, that I saw that in Richmond at an eating place.
Me: A restaurant? [Inner monologue: What is York Country? Wait, does she mean "your" country? That makes more sense. Except, this is my country. So she thinks I'm Mexican.]

Talking about Mesoamerican Indians with third graders...

Girl: Who built the pyramids for them?
Me: What do you mean? The Aztec pyramids?
Girl: Yea, who built them?
Me: Well, the Aztecs.

Boy: Did they ever sacrifice anyone by throwing them off of the pyramid?
Me: I don't think so. I'd have to check to be sure.
Boy: Like they threw them off the pyramid into a ring of fire?
Me: Well I'm fairly certain no one was ever thrown into a ring of fire. [Inner monologue: I fell into a burning ring of fire...]

While reading a book about Pablo Picasso in kindergarten, we learned that his blue period started when his best friend died...

Boy: Sometimes when you grow up, your friends die before you.
Me: I suppose that does happen.

First grade, tick tok tick tok...

Boy: Look at my watch. If you press this button it counts. It can count all the way to 59.
Me: That's right, it's counting seconds. There are 60 seconds in a minute.
Boy: See, watch. And if you forget any numbers it tells you because they're on there.

First grade native speakers got some splaining to do...

Boy: Me and her and Miss Black know more Spanish than all of you.
Me: Of course we do, sweetie. You 2 are native speakers, that means you speak Spanish at home.
Boy: No. My mom doesn't know no Spanish. She's learning. I go to Louisville to church to learn Spanish.
Girl: Louisville is for some people who speak Spanish but more for people who speak English.
Boy: 101 people speak Spanish there!
...
Girl 2: I think church is more important than just having fun.
Girl: Church is for talking to God, you know?

A kindergarten girl walks into the empty room before dismissal...

Girl: I guess we're the first ones here.
Me: That's a good guess.
Girl: It's because sometimes I think. Wait, I need to zip up my coat.
Me: Sometimes you think.
Girl: How did my coat do that?
Me: And sometimes you don't.

The funniest thing happened and I wish I could share it with my kindergarteners...

Ever since Dexter came back to Netflix I've been running some hardcore marathons when I'm on my own. I'm up to season 8 (the final season) and in the first episode I hear this guy say what sounded like "sapo". I figured that I misheard it because I was in the kitchen making my very adult meal of chicken nuggets and mac and cheese at the time. But then I heard him say "Mr. Toad" so I knew that he must have said sapo because sapo means toad. I got so excited because I just taught kindergarten "The Sapo Song" and I thought, "Wow, what a funny example of running across Spanish in real life. I should tell my students." But then I realized that very few 5 year-olds probably watch Dexter.  At least I hope that's the case. Even if it is a case of poor parenting and kids just watch whatever is on TV, Dexter isn't on the air anymore so the kids are probably watching a current show that is equally damaging.


Monday, January 27, 2014

January 27, 2014

If you thought that all the Polar Vortex brought was wind and snow, you were wrong. I learned today that it also brought a blizzard of funny quotes. Today was our first day back after an unexpected 9 day weekend and I guess these kids have been holding their hilarity in while they've been at home or something.

I was back at my car duty this morning, opening doors for our students...

4th Grade Girl: It's actually not that cold out.
Me: Well I've been standing out here for quite some time so I'm going to go ahead and disagree with you.

Overheard during reading recovery, an excuse for why a third grade boy didn't read over the break...

Boy: I had basketball for 7 hours a day, every day.
Teacher: Well you still should have read.
Me: But his arms were probably tired from all the dribbling.

I'm beginning to teach my students about Spanish artists, first and second grade has started learning about Salvador Dalí. Our first activity was to read a book from a series called Getting to Know the World's Greatest Artists. It created some interesting conversations in my first grade classes...

Girl: My mom has that picture in her bedroom.
Me: That's cool!
[A few minutes later, she puts her hand over her mouth and throws her other hand in the air and starts waving it around like crazy]
Me: Yes?
Girl: I think that guy, what's his name?
Me: Salvador Dalí
Girl: Yea, him. I think he lived in my house. My friend said that a famous person lived there and that he buried gold in the front yard. [She grew increasingly more excited as she was speaking]
Me: Well, I'm pretty sure he was never in Kentucky but I'll look into it. I'll do some research to see if Salvador Dalí ever lived in Lexington, Kentucky and buried gold in someone's front yard.
Girl: I have to tell my mom and dad!

My next first grade class was more focused on Dalí being from Spain and the fact that I lived in Spain for awhile, so we began chatting about Spain. There were a lot of contributors, so I'm listing them all as "kid"...

Kid: How did you get to Spain?
Me: I flew there, on a plane.
Kid: You can also take a train.
Me: No, not really. There's kind of an ocean.
Kid: Or a subway.
Me: Um, nooo. Again, the Atlantic Ocean.
Kid: You could take a boat.
Me: You could but a plane is a lot faster.
Kid: You could swim, like this. [And then he did the arm motions of swimming, in case I was unfamiliar]
Me: Swimming across the Atlantic Ocean...Good luck with that.
Kid: This one guy did it.
Me: I wish I could stay here all day because this is getting hilariously intriguing.

Boy: Miss Black, can I see that one picture?
Me: Which one?
Boy: The one that looks like a T-Rex?
Me: I have no idea which one that is. [And that's the trouble with surrealism, right?]

I've been teaching my kindergarten classes "The Sapo Song". It's a song about a toad, I learned it on a mission trip to Honduras in 2012. 

Me: This song is about a toad. Who can raise their hand and tell me what a toad is?
Girl 1: Something gross!
Me: Well, ok. More specific.
Boy: A giant!
Me: No.
Girl 2: It's like a frog.
Me: Yes, a toad is very similar to a frog.
Girl 3: But slimier.
Me: I'm not sure about that.

I also told my kindergarten classes that next class we would start learning about a famous Spanish artist named Pablo Picasso...

Girl: I know him. I saw him on TV.
Me: Well that's impressive because he's dead.

Here's one another teacher heard the other day and I forgot to put on here...

Third Grade Boy: I bring home diseases to my family all the time but I never get them. That is pretty amazing because you would think someone who looked like me would get the diseases.

On another note, a co-worker mentioned to me that she and another co-worker were discussing the idea of me being the moderator for our district Facebook page because it would be hilarious. I laughed because I can't imagine that would be my job very long! I may have mentioned before that one of my favorite activities (especially when it becomes Snow Day Season) is to see the things that people post on the page. You can never make everyone happy (why are we in school today?!/why did we call off today?!/everyone is stupid!) I don't think I could tactfully moderate the page. Mostly it would be me responding with smart ass comments and memes.

Wednesday, January 22, 2014

Snow Days

Last year we had zero snow days and this year, tomorrow will be our fifth! It's all that Polar Vortex thing--some of our snow days are actually just cold days. So I've been hanging out around the house doing a variety of random things. Many shows have been watched.

A lot of people are angrily posting on Facebook about how they don't want any more snow days, but I remain ambivalent. I am ready to just get back in the swing of things and get adjusted to my routine, but I'm not to the point of complaining yet. Our last day of school is now June 4. That's not terrible in my book.

Tuesday, January 21, 2014

January 21, 2014

So far we've had one full week of school. Thanks to the Polar Vortex we've had a few snow days (like today and tomorrow) which is making it more difficult to get back into the swing of things. I have been writing down some student quotes though.

1st Grade Boy: I need to take a hip hop class.

4th Grade Boy: There's no such thing as robots.

5th Grade Boy: What color is Washington state?
Me: Color? It doesn't have a specific color. It's colored like all the other states.

New 5th Grade Girl: I don't have the Beiber Fever.
Me: I like her already.

Me: Who's ever heard anything about the Aztec, Inca, or Maya?
4th Grade Boy: Why is everything made in China?
Me: Because it's cheap labor. That's not what we're talking about.
4th Grade Girl: Is it really made in China?
Me: Yes. It doesn't just say that on there for fun.

Me: Some people make new year's resolutions...
3rd Grade Boy: Yea, but they're all a throne of lies.

Teacher: If you're tired, then maybe you should go to bed earlier.
1st Grade Girl: I can't I gotta watch my shows.
Me: Well, at least she didn't say "my stories".

2nd Grade Boy: That hat we made [the what I want from Santa crown] was wrong. I wrote that I wanted a kazillion dollars and Santa didn't bring it to me.

3rd Grade Boy: You know there are some dinosaurs that are still alive? Birds are dinosaurs.
Teacher: That's right. Birds are descendants of dinosaurs.
Boy: What are bats? Bats?
Teacher: Yes, bats are bats.

Me: Let's not argue about the date. We can do that later.
1st Grade Boy: Yea, let's argue at home guys. We can text each other.

I'm still not sure if this first grade boy was talking to me or not...

Boy: If they do have the legos in the blue packs, I definitely need more scarecrows.

3rd Grade Boy 1: It was God's birthday on Christmas. He's 1,000 years old.
Boy 2: I forget, if you swallow the Baby Jesus [in the King's Cake], is it bad luck?
Me: I don't know about bad luck but you're certainly going to have a bad time.
Boy 3: Is Jesus married? He's 10 billion thousand years old.
Me: I'm not aware of him being married, but you should talk to that kid over there because he said he's 1,000 years old.

Me: So, the shoe [drawings] on this paper are kind of silly looking but I wanted to make ones that had enough room for you to draw lots of presents from the Wise Men. You can make yours any color, mine are just brown...they're kind of boring and ugly.
3rd Grade Boy: They look like shoes you'd wear.
Me: Well thanks.

Teacher: You're from Louisiana, did you eat typical Louisiana food?
3rd Grade Girl: Yea. (she starts listing off food) crawdads, chicken, Burger King.
Me: Ah yes, Burger King, the most traditional Louisiana food.

Thursday, January 2, 2014

And We're Back

We returned to school today after a glorious two week break. For me that also means returning to my outdoor morning duty which is not my favorite, but it wasn't bad today. Speaking of not bad, I expected the kids to be somewhat insane today but most of the ones I encountered were pretty well behaved.

We're still talking about Three Kings' Day and kids were drawing what they'd like the Wise Men to leave them in their shoes that day...

4th Grade Boy: I drew a $100 bill.
Me: I see that.
Boy: I drew a gangsta face on it!
Me: A gangsta face...excellent.

Time was almost up in a second grade class...

Me: We have about cinco minutos until clean up.
Boy: Five minutes.
Me: That's right.
Boy: Cinco minutos. You say that in Spanish. That's because it's Spanish class, right?
Me: Yep. (You can't get anything by some people)

A first grade boy has some sort of time-saving plan for his mornings...

Boy: Maybe tomorrow morning, do we have school tomorrow?
Me: We're supposed to.
Boy: Maybe tomorrow what I can do is bring my clothes to school and go to the bathroom and change in the bathroom so then I won't have to get dressed at home.
Me: Ummm...I guess you could do that. (And then I walked away)

AS updated me on our ice skating plans...

AS: Miss Senorita Black, if we go ice skating the ice could crack and you might drown in the water.
Me: I might drown in the water? That's pretty dark...but a much more likely scenario if I were to go ice skating.