Papers

I' ve been finding papers here and there and everywhere. The papers contain words and quotes from my students. I write them, stuff them, and find them later. I'm ready to clean out a few from my purse. Hope you enjoy:

• I'm pretty sure I've written this one before, but after hearing a new word when I read aloud, most of my kids start to use it. The word was dung. The sentence was, "My dog's dung is disgusting." I love the alliteration. I love the sentence used the word correctly. I love my class.
• We read a book with our Twitter buddies in our corporation. Hooway for Wodney Wat. Wodney can't say his r's. I have several students in my class that can't say their r's. I thought it was perfect. When we read another book, one of my boys popped in with, "That's how Rodney feels. I mean, Wodney." I just smiled.
• We are getting ready to write informational books. We are in the midst of researching. Straight from my Star Wars boy, "Did you know that dinosaurs were invented before dinosaurs?" He paused...looked at me, then said, "I mean, did you know that sharks were invented before dinosaurs?" I thanked him and then started writing it down before I forgot.
• A few weeks ago, one of my students came up to me after putting away his items for the day, asked if he could fact drop with me. Absolutely!!! Later on, I noticed he was standing next to the bathroom just waiting there. Wanting to know why he was just standing around, I said, "What are you doing?" He calmly came back with, "I'm just waiting to throw up." I quickly said (okay, maybe screamed), "Get the trash can and go to the nurse." And within one millisecond of grabbing the trash can, he was throwing up into it. Good timing and great aim!
• We were on Brainpop Jr. watching a video about the main idea (which we've been working on for over a week). Afterwards, you can take quizzes. A hard one or an easy one. It says so on the screen. I don't let my class say easy. Simply because it's not for everybody. Two years ago, I had students recreate the word into "e-word". It has stuck. Some of the students started chanting, "E-word quiz. E-word quiz." I just had to smile and write down e-word quiz.

I truly am thankful for the smily moments. They get me through the rough spots!

They are too funny...

My kids make me laugh! I'm so grateful for that. Sometimes I feel like they are puppies and around my feet all of the time. Anyone else know what that's like?

Some days are better than others.

Today's funnies -

• One of the boys says his mom is clasperphobic. We had been talking about the miners. I was pretty impressed with one of my boys. He had learned a lot about it through his brother. It was fun to hear him share his knowledge with the rest of the class.
• I had been working with a child trying to find words that would fit in the -oat family. I suggested maybe a word that began with a g. He said, "Giraffe." I said, "No, it rhymes with boat." He responded, "It does?" I said, "No, an -oat that starts with a g." Basically handing it over to him. He finally said goat. Woo hoo!

I'll keep my ears open, reader!

Writing Conference blurb

I was talking with my Disliker during our conference. Our focus lesson had been on collecting words. He didn't have any yet. (The students were expected to look for words to collect during no walk, no talk, and then they could choose what to do after that.) I asked him about his other entries...trying to look for another teaching point. He said, "I have to find words. I might as well get it over with."

Oh....I felt so bad that he thought it was a chore. He made an amazing map of his face and after a teaching point on naming your entries, he was off and working on something else.

Tomorrow we are creating wish lists...excited to see what the writers wish for.

Voices

If my students knew how I wrote down about them, I think they'd stop talking.

My talker announced that he doesn't hear his thinking voice. I quickly dismiss it, letting him know I'll meet with him, knowing that a few days practice will help. A few days later, I was getting ready to conference with another reader and he lets me know in his normal voice (because the Talker doesn't know softer levels yet) that he remembered that I was going to work with him, and can we work now?

I pulled him over by me and then told him to say his name out loud. Then he was to say his name inside his head. You could see the lightbulb go off. With a big, "Oh...I do hear it all the time. Maybe I hear it, I just don't know it."

Oh Talker, you hit the nail on the head!!! I wish all students had that amazing light bulb experience you had!

They said it...

For some reason we were talking about the word revolution in our morning meeting and its meaning. I jokingly asked the class if we were going to have a revolution in our class and they all said no...then my Star Wars boy says, "But we will have revels." He means rebels...he just doesn't know it's with a b. Not sure when I'm going to burst his bubble.

I was walking by my Disliker...the only thing he likes is drawing monsters with three heads and creating puppets for writing workshop (future unit will probably be writing plays!). He said I looked like my hand was mad. I looked down and noticed my veins were popping a little from my hand...and as I was standing there near his desk, he reaches over and traces my bulging veins. I had to laugh (inside of course!).

When I give spelling tests, I always give a sentence with the word in it to help build context. Of course, students have to comment on my amazing sentences. The spelling word was "of". The sentence was...The pencil is made of wood. One of my students asked, "That's true, isn't it?" Another one popped in with, "She tells only absolutely true stories." (They got it from Gooney Bird...I just smiled.)

Knowing that I tell only absolutely true stories, I have somewhat warped my class. I teach, every year, the reason the trapezoid is the way it is, is because King Zoid was trapped in a pyramid where they cut off the top. Brilliant! Star Wars was cutting out pictures of Egyptian writing (because he likes Egypt) for his writer's notebook when I realized that maybe my stories are going too far. He showed me a picture of an Egyptian king and asked if it was King Zoid. Whoops!

I was meeting with students going over short vowel sounds when my pirate boy was trying to explain the word puch to me. It was supposed to be push and he had written a -ch instead. I asked him to give me a sentence with puch in it. Without hesitation, he said, "I caught a puch." I asked him what it meant and he then honestly said, "I don't know." At least he tried!

At the beginning of the year, I taped black paper over all of the baskets in the library to show what was open and what was not. One of my students talked about the baskets the other day and was very excited that a basket had been unlocked. I loved the choice of words they use.

One of my girls was given a different spelling list this week. One of her words was quaint. I asked her if she knew what it meant. She didn't. I told her that it meant pretty...in an old fashioned sort of way. Without a pause, she came back with, "Like in the 80's?" I just sat there for a minute dumbfounded wondering if she knew what she had just said. Oh sweetie!

And the reason why I am loving the class right now...when I was conferencing with one boy about after we learn new words, we remember them. He said, "Because it's in my lexical system." They get it. They use it. They do it. We created covers for our writer's notebooks on Thursday and Friday. I am blown away by how much they got it. They chose pictures that were meaningful to them. My Star Wars boy wanted a picture of an old video game, but couldn't find it. I grabbed it off Google Images and went on. Hummingbird found a picture of Johnny Depp for Pirate boy. Another boy cut out a picture of a crayon because he likes to color. I am truly impressed!!! Excited to see how they grow this year!

Flowing out of their mouths

Let's call her hummingbird. She flits and flies around the room so quickly, I often wonder how she gets from one side of the room to my hip in less than a nanosecond. Today, during our sharing time from reading workshop, Hummingbird was sharing her tricky word, jalapeno, courtesy of Skippyjon Jones. As she's talking about the word, she starts with, "Reading English isn't easy for me." Oh darling...I think she meant Spanish, but we'll see if English works too.

My complainer today was sharing about a student I had previously. He told me they are March enemies.

You just can't make this stuff up! There are days where I am so envious of my friends in their offices and cubicles, but when my kids give me so much laughter, I am thankful once again!

Smile

I have a student who doesn't quite get things socially. I adore him, don't get me wrong. However, sometimes when he is repeating the same phrase over and over and over again, it can get a little old.

He had been pondering out loud when he would get to be the student of the day. (The first twenty or so days - depending on number of students - is how many I need.) Today, happened to be his lucky day.

I had had him carry a basket of books and maybe pass out a paper or two and pass out lunch cards. As he approached me, he began shaking his head and said, "Man, being student of the day ain't easy."

Oh, nelly...

Funnies

I tend to lose my voice often the first few weeks of school and during the fall (thanks sinuses). Friday was no exception. I was greeting some of the students as they walked into the classroom and one of my girls simply said, "You have a problem." Duly noted!

The students wrote down what they learned about bees on Friday afternoon. Our class is decorated with bees due to choosing a bee themed fabric on a whim seven years ago. However, I find that being bee themed is helpful. There are worker bees. They are a community. They live in a hive (we created an area in our room called the Hive). And, last but certainly not least, there's a queen bee that is in charge. Hello me! I even have a queen bee shirt from a student a few years ago. One of the girls wrote down..."I dit no that thrs 1 mom be." Translated into proper English - I didn't know that there's one mom bee (the queen bee). I definitely had a great laugh tonight!

They're back!!!!

I am truly looking forward to filling my blogging book with funnies from my students. It was the first day, and I am not sure of names to call these kids yet...They'll come though.

I was asking the kids to wait patiently while we were waiting for other students to write what they knew about bees. While we were waiting, and waiting, and waiting, and waiting, I asked the students to sit there and look pretty if they were finished. (Apparently, this class doesn't have much background knowledge about bees.)

One of my boys piped in with, "Why not manly?"

As I smiled, "Sure, you can look manly too."

I then walked and grabbed my book. Should be a good year.

Old Funnies

I collect what my students say. They crack me up. Here are just a few of the conversations that occurred this year.

• We were talking about vocabulary and using the words we learn. A student said that they used this word every day. Another student replied, "You do?" They replied with, "I use it in my mind every day." The other student came back with, "I do that too." I love their concept of using words. :)
• One of my students hurt his crazy bone. (He meant funny bone.)
• We were reading Amelia Bedelia to understand multiple meaning words. In one of the books, I had to explain what icing was (frosting vs. freezing) and prune (the noun and the action). As Amelia iced the fish (put frosting on them rather than freeze them) and then fed the fish to the ladies that had attended a shower, one of my students exclaimed, "Chocolate sushi."
• And one of my favorites...I had a boy who passed gas every day. Every day. Sometimes it was silent, but most days it was loud and during a time I was reading to the class. Go figure. I finally had had enough. I pulled out my Oh Yuck book and read to the class what farting was all about. Flatulence. As I was reading and imparting gross knowledge to the class, my quirky one let one rip. It was loud. It was perfect timing. He let us know that he had done it on purpose. My chocolate sushi girl said, "Looks like he delivered some flatulence to the room." I had to stop and have a great belly laugh with my class. Sometimes you just have to laugh.

They're ridiculous...

One of my students walked in today and told me that I could blog the comment she was about to make...oh thank you. So glad I have your permission to write down what you're going to say next. However, I do have some doozies from over the past week.

• While the students were working, a conversation about being God's children came up at the table right next to my desk. They began sharing how they thought it was weird that we are all brothers and sisters in God's eyes. After one of my students got over how weird he thought it was, he said, "Well, who's God's father? And does that make him the godfather?" I just had to laugh as I kept writing down their comments.
• My precious one came up to me to talk to me about my bee bookmark. She mentioned she had one just like it, but in the shape of a cross. She then studied the back of the bookmark and then in a disgusted voice said, "Why is everything made in China? Ugh, argh." I didn't have the heart to discuss labor laws and finances.
• While the above student was taking an AR quiz, she mistakenly clicked on the Spanish version. After she had been back there for a while, I was getting irritated. I asked her why it was taking so long and she replied that she needed * in our classroom because the quiz was Mexican talking." She had wanted one of our bilingual students to translate...oh my. I also explained to her that the language is called Spanish.
• When we do our working with words, I have the kids ask about any words they may not know or understand. Last week, one of the students didn't know what a plow was. I had another student explain it (because whoever is doing the talking is doing the learning) and while he was explaining it, the boy who had asked about it came back with, "Since he used the word in the definition, I don't know what it means." Yay for some teaching getting through their heads.
• One of my girls was in early this morning helping me out. She's smart. She's witty. She loves animals. And so enters my story. I asked her what she was going to be when she grew up. A vet was her answer. I said, "I can see that." She replied, "I bet you can." Oh, I enjoyed the smile.
• We were encouraged at church to say Scripture when we are tempted. I recited the fruit of the Spirit a few times today when students were acting up, reminding myself of the way I should conduct myself. During the afternoon, I had had it with a certain student and I walked out of the room to see if the room next door was empty so they could talk to their parents in private (BTW, students calling parents is the best! - No offense to the parents that read my blog, but you should see how a child's behavior goes from nothing to crying within a nanosecond.). As I walked out of the room, one of my girls encouraged me to say my verse...ha ha! She thought I was upset and needed my verse.

Even on the rough days, they still can make me laugh.

Waiting and here it is...

Oh, my students were on today...

While we were working on a small project (circling missed problems in math), my quirky one was sitting in the bucket with pillows. I know...sitting in the bucket...you've got to see it to believe it. The kids love it. Someone his pencil had fallen in between his abdomen and lap and as he bent to get the gumption to stand up, there was a snap. He was shocked. His stomach had just snapped his pencil in half. I waited...and then he began exclaiming how tough his stomach is. He told three different students in the process of three minutes. "I guess my stomach is pretty tough." It is dear one...it is.

During our sharing circle we were sharing how we had connected to our characters in our books. I shared how inferring character traits can help us feel connected to the characters. I had read Julius, Baby of the World by Kevin Henkes. I shared how I used to hate my baby sister and how I had been jealous of her. One of my girls (who's too smart for her own good) told me she knew how the class could make me jealous.

"Really? How?"

"By everyone in the class having Dove dark chocolate. That'd be tempting, wouldn't it?"

And as I'm writing down this quick conversation, students notice that I am writing and once again, they know the drill...I'm spying.

During a read aloud I decided to read some informational text to boost my students' background knowledge. I had been reading from a book about Rocks. We had begun reading about precious stones and my quirky one lets us know that you can make diamonds out of dead people. While students groan, another one of my boys (who can be a Jekyll and Hyde) replies in a perfect tone, "That's gross and that's off topic." I couldn't have said it better myself kid!

At least they keep me laughing!

They got me...

Today I visited my old students and listened to their presentations. I learned that kangaroos are in the WWF. However, his brother (who's currently in my class and also came down to listen) helped him and explained that kangaroos don't fight in the WWF, they are in cages. Ah...I get the connection - cages and fighting and WWF and MMA...it all makes so much sense.

Did you know that coyotes are in Canada, Mexico, Arizona, and Los Angeles? I had to stifle my giggle as another boy shared the location of his animal that he had researched. Just to make sure, I had him repeat himself...yep, the only city mentioned was LA...everything else was a country or a state.

I've had some neck pain...slept wrong I think. I've taken a few pain pills to help me out with the pain...couldn't sleep the other night due to the pain. I don't think I've heard things as clearly. We were talking about Despereaux and some of the other characters and one of my students said, "Botticelli." I could have sworn she said "A pot of chili." I asked her to repeat herself and she did and then I explained what I thought I heard her say. We all got a great laugh about it and then she said, "Will you excuse me?" She left our meeting area to go write down what I had said in her notebook (and as she did, a wonderful, evil laugh came out). I guess the tables have turned. At least they are learning about being writers in practical ways. I just never knew I'd be the one giving them ammunition.

Oh, the sarcasm...

Today was rough...but the class did provide a few funnies.

I didn't pay attention to one of my student's shirts and paid for it later. While I was reading Tale of Despereaux to the class, one of my boys began giggling. I was irritated. I already had talked with four other boys about their behavior and was frustrated with their lack of poetry creation in writing workshop. I had had it. I asked him what was so funny and then waited. He was the only students who had been laughing. The boys had been discussing soap while I had talked with another teacher in the doorway. What's the connection? Here goes...

The boy squirmed in his seat on the bench and finally coughed up the reason for his giggles. He said, "I was farting." Oh...

The soap connection? One of the boys was wearing a shirt with a duck on it who had eaten soap and was emitting bubbles. That's why the boys had been talking about soap. The conversation had turned to flatulence.

One of my girls then told me that their parents should buy their children soap for Christmas. My sarcastic comment that I always make when they play around with things that normally aren't toys...overhead projectors, pencils, paper, etc. Oh dear class, you all made me laugh today!

Their own riddle

Tuesdays are known as Tickle Me Tuesday...I said it once and now in March, it has still stuck! Every Tuesday, on our morning message, I write a riddle and then using color-changing markers reveal the answer. It's so fun to listen to the collective Oh, as they "get it."

One of my girls was telling us about how she had discovered that a wood duck (she referred to the Encyclopedia of North American Birds to find the picture and show us at morning meeting) had ended up in her house last night. As the students were exclaiming, a boy piped in with "How did it get in your house?"

"It came through the wood burning stove."

"Oh, it's a wood duck."

And then my quirky one never lets me down..."He must have sensed the wood."

Oh how I love them!

Later on during the day, the students had received their artwork back from the elementary art showcase. Every piece of artwork had a participant ribbon stapled onto them.

My quirky one said, "I won an award. Momma, I won the art show."

Another boy lets him know that everyone got a ribbon.

You could hear his disappointment fall over him like Niagara Falls, "Oh."

Day...

Oh, what a long day it seemed to be. We accomplished a lot in the classroom, but I am most thoroughly impressed with their writing prompts. We are only studying prompts for two weeks and will try our hand with poetry when we come back, but I see some great improvements in the writers. Some of the writers are dabbling with tag lines other than said, using adverbs (sadly, angrily, happily), and using ending punctuation correctly (for the most part). They were creative and after having read Boy Writers by Ralph Fletcher, I am not going to talk to one of my boys about using the word poop in his writing. Honestly, it's kind of funny and gross and I can just imagine the grossness in my mind as he was having it flung by monkeys. He's using action...

However, when I was reading the prompts tonight, I had to laugh. My quirky one, that had tipped over my student teacher's coffee, used "I did not see that coming" in his writing. It brought a smile to my face. And after having heard almost every teacher comment on how crazy their class was today, it was nice to at least see growth in their writing (since it didn't happen in their listening today).

BTW, one small funny...I was explaining what cauliflower ear was and how you get it. (We're reading The Tale of Despereaux.) After telling them how wrestlers often get it, my quirky one jumps in with, "Like Jacob wrestling with the angel." (from the Old Testament) He must have just had that lesson in Sunday School.

How does he know?

Most of my friends know about my quirky habits in finding fun and exciting recipes that hide vegetables and other foods in them. The other day, I took some friendship bread into the classroom that hadn't risen and was as dense as bricks. As I was handing out pieces of bread, one of my boys asked, "Is there celery in that?"

I have yet to bring in any foods to my class where I am hiding vegetables, but maybe now I'll try. :)

He's just funny

I have this one boy who has a quirky sense of humor. Today, I was conferencing with him about his reading and he was in the middle of Skippyjon Jones: Lost in Spice. After talking with me (and since he's seen and read the book before) shared with me that one of his favorite parts is when he finds his "twin brother." And yes, reader, he used air quotes as he spoke. I was laughing inside so hard that I almost missed his next amazing comment. He began talking about the voices he hears as he reads. I can't quite describe how he said it, but I definitely smiled.

** The previous paragraph was written a few weeks ago and as I was postponing the drafting of it...he struck again.

I was talking with the writers in our class about how Gail Gibbons dedicates and thanks the people in her book who help teach her. As I was explaining who she had thanked in The Pumpkin Book, I told them that she had thanked an owner of a greenhouse. My quirky one pops in with, "Greenhouse? Is that like the White House?"

"No," I said and kept teaching.

And yet, another day, as I was talking with him to keep him focused (it's definitely hard somedays), I tried to encourage him as I left him to work on his book review. As I turned, he said, "I just haven't unlocked that power yet." Classic! I handed him a key to help him unlock his power and we are daily unlocking his power, and sometimes more than once a day.

Don't quite have it...

I try to not use sarcasm in the classroom. I've read and heard that there just isn't a place for it. Sometimes I can't help myself. So, after teaching them what sarcasm meant a while ago, I figured the topic was over. I, again, was wrong.

Today, I asked the students to clean off their desks so we could focus on researching for our writing. Last year, many of my students were very literal...this year, not so much. I haven't had to explain figurative vs. literal language. After I gave them the instruction, one of my students asked if that applied to their water bottles as well. My amazing librarian student replied with, "Don't be so sarcasm."

Ah, sweetie, you don't quite have it...

And I just had to chuckle today when one of my boys high-fived another after he had passed some gas while we were reading a book together...boys will be boys. :)

Out of the mouths of babes...

The other day, the students were sorting their spelling words based on the sound of e in the words. We have read through all of the words and then talked about the meanings of the words that they didn't know. I noticed one boy was just sitting and looking at a word. I thought he was spacing out, so I decided to just check in. I asked him what he was doing.

He replied, "I took a picture of this word, but I can't find it." And for those of you who don't know...we take mental pictures of words that we learn so they can move into our lexical system (thanks to Ellin Oliver Keene). He was trying to find that picture in his mind to say the word...LOVE HIM!