Baby voice

I'm coming out and admitting my week back to work after a restful, blissful February vacation was stressful. Once again, none of this stress was at the fault of the children. What does that say about adults??

Anyway, there were plenty of interactions that made me smile, and here are a few of them:

I tutor this little boy, Aiden, who sometimes looking at him alone brings a smile to my face. He's a little chubby, fully of snot, has very curly hair that covers his eyes a bit, and as if that wasn't enough, he has an unfortunate breathing problem. He and I get along great, but he does have behavioral issues at school, and he loves, loves to be right. In fact, he and I have a behavioral chart for each time he doesn't argue with me while I'm helping him. He's currently working hard for a chance to play a video game on his dad's ipad for as this little guy says "a whole 20 minutes." His dad isn't worried that he'll have to had over his ipad any time soon. At this last visit, Aiden was only talking like a baby. We had this interaction:

boy (in obnoxious baby voice): I need help on 'dis one.
Me: Aiden, I'll help you, but you are too big to talk like that.
boy: sorwee! (still in baby voice) I'm 'da baby in 'da house.
Without responding, I walk over to the kitchen counter where I usually leave a note to his mom. Aiden stops me and STILL in his baby voice he says, "where you goin'?"
Me: I'm writing a note to your mom that you should go to bed very early tonight because you're a baby now.
boy: (NOW in regular voice) what?! why?! Don't do that. She'll do anything you say.
Me: We'll if you are a baby now, you should be going to bed soon. I don't, at say about, 7:30.
boy: Okay, okay...let's just do this math.

:) Worked like a charm!

I think your N should be a V

It is crazy, absolutely crazy, at school now. We are doing reading tests, the kids are putting on a play with loads of rehearsals and we are teaching at the same time. In some time that I was actually teaching, we were continuing our study of economics. Yes, in fifth grade, there is now an economic component to the curriculum. Overall, we are looking at how people make money in different parts of the Western Hemisphere. Today's topic was Canada. When talking about Canada we talked about how valuable their natural resources are. As we hit on one of them, Niagara Falls, a boy raised shared this:

Boy: Ms. F, I think you spelled the name of the waterfall wrong.
Me: (turned around, looked, didn't see a mistake) I don't think so. How do you think it should be spelled?
Boy: Well, the N should be a V. I think it is called Viagara Falls.
Me: (I can only imagine what my face was) Why do you think this?
Boy: Well, I saw this commercial with a man and a woman walking near some water. They look like they're in love or something, and the commercial said Viagra and not Niagara. Maybe the commercial was trying to get people to come visit.

Now, you might expect the whole class to be laughing. They weren't. What do these sheltered kids know from that? So, I was relieved that I didn't have to get into what Viagra was. With 90% of my energy dedicated to not laughing at that moment, I used the other 10% to saw.

Me: Hmm, that sounds interesting. I'm not sure I've seen that commercial. I do know for sure that the waterfall you need to know about is Niagara Falls for it's hydroelectric power.

Happy New Year! Long time no post...I know, I know I dropped the ball a bit. My class was displaced from our classroom due to the no heat. I'm happy to say we are back in our usual surroundings. It was a big stress on me to have things everywhere.

For a creative writing assignment, some kids have chosen to write a persuasive letter to their parents about wanting more pocket money. All of these letters are hysterical. Here's one that I thought we all could enjoy!

Underwear and experimenting with a new word!

It’s been awhile since I’ve updated this blog. There is quite a bit going on right now: 1) I am still managing some health issues. I know I’ve said this before, but we’re on the upswing (at least I just keep telling myself that). 2) There is no heat in my regular classroom. We had to move into another classroom. Not only did we displace someone else, but we also don’t have a lot of our usual stuff. I have one more week in this other room, and then, after winter break, I may be back in my classroom. This really shakes things up for kids. With that said, my class of angels are doing really well with it.

Here are two highlights:

We are reading this mystery book in one of our book groups, and in this story, a boy is searching for something in his grandma’s room. By accident, the character in this book opens a drawer that turns out to his grandma’s underwear drawer. Most of the kids giggle and laugh. This one boy stops me and says:

Boy: wait, I’m confused. Why is there an underwear drawer in his grandma’s room?
Me: Sweetheart, he’s in her bedroom.
Boy: grandparents wear underwear...wow..I never really thought about that before! I guess they do...
Me: of course, they do! They’re people too.
Boy: weird

This other story I heard in a the teacher’s lunchroom today, and I was really laughing at this one. A teacher shares that one of her students, who is kind of into eccentric and reads a lot, discovers a now inappropriate, esoteric n-word to describe a black person. It was a a black girl’s birthday on this particular day, and the boy decided to wish her “Happy Birthday, n...” He did not mean it in a derogatory way. The adults really believe he learned it in a book and didn’t understand the other implications of the word. I guess that’s what a second grader can do when he’s exposed to adult words without knowing the adult consequences...kind of sad but funny too.

the color of you...

Hi! It's been awhile. I have been not well these past days/a little over a week. Thank goodness I have a dream class because I am truly beat. I felt badly for them because I started having to leave work in the middle of the day. One day, I was in so much pain from this that I ended up pulling a random teacher from the hallway to watch my kids and I drove myself to the ER. I'm thankful I did, but I felt badly for my students. Anyway, I felt like I needed to provide an explanation for them about midweek. I sat the kids down on our class rug, and I started to explain that I have something going on. I didn't want them to worry, but I just wanted them to know what it was so they wouldn't let their imaginations get the better of them. One of my boys, with some social skill issues, decides to join the conversation my contributing this:

"Oh wow! Ms. F, you're looking horrible lately, so I'm not surprised. My mom won't be either because when she dropped me off this morning she said you were looking skinny and tired. Besides, the color of you ( he was trying to say I looked pale) is not how it usually is. I've seen you look bad, but ...."

I stopped him by saying, "OOOOOOkay, thanks for sharing your opinion. Does anyone have a question, not a comment, but a question about what I just shared with you?"

Clocks

There have been so many times over the past week or so that I thought "that's one for the blog!" Unfortunately, I have been so busy that I haven't had a chance or the energy to even write. The thing is that I feel like I am running on a treadmill that keeps speeding up. I put a stop to it for a little though, and I'm thrilled to go to Boston to do some visiting. Here's something funny that happened today:

I had this feeling that I lot of the kids in my class can't read an analog clock. The truth is that they aren't really required to do it that much anymore. All of the electronic devices in homes, in cars, on portable devices and even in our school are digital. Either way, call me old fashion, but I feel like reading an analog clock is still a valuable skill (even if it means that they just use it during a power outage). So, acting on my feeling, I did random poll of the class asking anyone who still have trouble reading non-digital clocks. This is what one girl said to me:

Me: Raise your hand if you feel you still need more practice reading clocks.
(more than half the class raised its hand).
Girl: Ms. F, I don't think we should waste our time with those circle clocks.
Me: Why not?
Girl: Well, I've practiced this before and every time the circle CLOCK isn't right.
Me: What do you mean the circle clock isn't right?
Girl: See, let me see your watch.
(Show her my watch)
Girl: Our classroom clock says 1:48 and your watch says...(long pause-she started counting by fives on her fingers :)..says 12:58.
Me: It does..let me see that...Sweetheart, the watch is right but you're reading it wrong.
Girl: So, the circle clocks do work?
Me: Yes, they were even around before the digital ones
Girl: Wow! that must have been so hard

I just love this little girl!

Fragment

It's official. I love my class this year. I know I said this last year, but this year it is also true. There is this one girl who seems to make me laugh often (I know; usually it's the boys that make me laugh). Anyway, one of my pet peeves is that the kids come into fifth grade thinking that dependent clauses are sentences just because it has a capital letter and a period at the end. I quickly burst that bubble and drown them in practicing the difference between dependent and independent clauses. They can now say in their sleep that a dependent clause is considered a fragment (I'm so proud!).
During reading time today, we were focusing on character traits. I used this story about a girl who is a copy cat type character. The discussion went to the idea that this character is not an independent person. This little girl said, "Yeah, I agree. She's just a fragment."

I loved it!