Grading Papers

I'm grading papers to go out tomorrow. In the morning I always give a writing assignment. Recently the children wrote about putting on a holiday pageant. They needed to say what holiday they would pick and what kind of program they would put on. This is what Adrian wrote:

"I would pick Christmas. I would pick Christmas because a big person could be Santa Clause. Everybody else could be an elf. Ms. J. could be the head elf."

So, okay I'm a petite person at just 5 feet tall. I am sitting her wondering did my student just call me short?

Pick Me Ups

To encourage students to do homework, I have a homework pass lottery every day. If the students do all their homework, they receive a ticket and I draw out a name every day from my basket and that child gets one free homework assignment pass. I find this works very well, the children want to receive their tickets. I have a class of mostly boys, 10 boys to 7 girls, so naturally I tend to pick a boy's name most days. So far this year, a girl has only won one time. As I pulled the name I slowly reveal one letter at a time. You should have seen the look on the girls faces when they realized that again I had pulled out another boys name.

I love this system with the tickets, it has reduced a lot of the problems I had last year with students not turning in their homework. Today, after seeing the girls's faces, I realized I needed to give a girl the opportunity to win one of those homework passes. I decided I would give Raphael his pass and draw out another name, I pulled out Maximus. Not showing the class whose name I pulled out I threw it back in the basket. Immediately, Joseph calls me out as being unfair.

Well, if there is one thing I do not like, it is being called unfair as a teacher. I work hard not to be an unfair teacher, I stick to classroom jobs like they are the law, no child is allowed to do someone else's job. I work hard to hear all sides of the stories and do not get mad, but instead encourage the children to see the other persons side and why they would be upset. So, I responded back to Joseph, "How am I being unfair? Raphael will still get his homework pass. I just would like to give an opportunity for a girl to receive a pass, too."

Joseph tells me, "but you already drew a name."

"I realize this and I would never take Raphael's pass away from him, but in order for this lottery to work (meaning the kids continue to do their homework), I need to draw another name out for the girls. This will not happen everyday. It is just that the girls I notice are beginning to feel like they will never win and this might discourage them from doing their homework. Right now they do not care what girl receives the free homework pass, but just want to know that a girl is capable of winning."

The girls in the class begin to shake their heads yes and smiles appear as they realize that one of them will be the winner of a free homework pass.

Joseph asks, "if the girls start winning all the time, will you do this for the boys?"

"Of course, I will, we will call this pick me ups, because sometimes we need that boost in knowing we can win. So, today the girls got a pick me up and maybe later in the year I will have to do a pick me up for the boys."

Joseph is satisfied with this answer and no longer sees it as being unfair.

I love massages

I can't believe I forgot about this earlier when I wrote up my blog, this is the reason why I try and write things down throughout the day. I will have to start doing that again. So, all day long Cronius would want to tell me something and to get my attention he would tap me on my arm, shoulder, and back. Every time I reminded Cronius that poking and tapping is not the way to get my attention. At the end of the day he comes up to me and taps me on the back to get my attention.

"Cronius, Ms. J. has asked you all day to not tap her," I say.

"I know, I keep forgetting."

I tap Cronius on the shoulder and say, "Cronius this is what I have been feeling all day, would you like to feel this all day."

"Well, it actually feels like a massage, and I love massages Ms. J."

I guess that didn't work out too well for me.

Cain and Seth Get Married

I enjoy fourth grade religion because we get a little more detailed in our religion studies. We began studying Adam and Eve, Cain killing Abel, and today we discussed the birth of Seth and how eventually Cain and Seth get married. My class seems to take many things very literal and it ends up causing a lot of questions.

After reading about the birth of Seth in our book, we learn that Cain and Seth marry. In fact in the book it says, "Cain and Seth marry." Okay, as an adult reading this I take this to mean that Cain and Seth marry women, but my class took this to mean Cain and Seth marry each other. "Why would they marry each other?" one of the children ask.

"They do not marry each other, they marry women," I respond.

"Well, it says Cain and Seth marry," says Cosmas.

"Yes, and they do get married just not to each other." To help my literal children I also add, "If Cain and Seth married each other the book would say Cain and Seth marry each other, but it doesn't so we know they married women."

This brings up a whole new problem now, earlier this week Cronius asked me who did Adam and Eve's children marry. I told him that the children may have married each other, but the best person to ask was Father. Cronius wastes no time and finds Father that day in the school and asks his question. He comes back saying that Father told him that there was probably a time when it was okay for the children to marry each other.

So today, the same question comes up in the class, "who did Cain and Seth marry?"

"Cronius had the same question the other day and he asked Father, Cronius will you share what Father told you."

"Well, he said that it probably was okay for them to marry their brothers and sisters because there was no one else for them to marry," Conius tells the class.

"That is disgusting!" says Kateri.

Trying to help the problem, I said, "years ago Cain and Seth probably did not find it disgusting and if there was no one else for them to marry, they had to marry siblings."

So, Raphael decides to change the topic slightly, "I heard in some states it is legal for cousins to get married."

"Yes, that is true, in Louisiana it is legal for cousins to marry," says Celine.

Could this lesson get anymore off topic, why yes because Joseph then says, "Is that why in some states men can marry men?"

Hmm, not exactly a good question to hear in school, I quickly say, "Joseph, we do not support that, God tells us that marriage is between a man and a woman."

"People can really marry their cousins in Louisiana?" asks one of the girls.

"Yes, isn't it gross," Celine answers.

"Well then, my sister should go there because she really likes her cousin," the other girl says.

"Okay class, we have really gotten off topic and now Ms. J. wants everyone to know something. We do not talk about our families in negative or embarrassing ways. If we want to make a comment about our families we need to ask ourselves three questions. Would we be mad if that family member was sharing a story about us like the one we are getting ready to share with the class? Would we feel embarrassed? Would we be upset? If you answer yes to any of those questions, we do not share that story with the class."

When teaching young children you must remember, stories are often exaggerated and our not typically interpreted well. The way I see it the one child's sister does not want to marry her cousin, instead she probably gets along well with her cousin.

Second Calls

We do not have buses at my school and so at the end of the day the children pack up and I ask them to complete homework while they wait for their ride. When their parent arrives in the car pool line and they are near the building, the child's name gets said over the intercom and the child leaves to go home. This year I am working hard with the children to keep their desks looking nice and neat. Therefore the only items they are allowed to have in their desk are books. I do not allow them to keep paper, pencils and pens in their desk at the end of the day.

To help them with keeping a clean desk, I walk around the end of the day to inspect each desk. Slowly but surely the children are catching on and I only have a couple students now who need those reminders. I get to Agnes' desk today though, and it has paper, scissors (which are not allowed at the desk unless we are cutting), pencils and pens. It is a complete mess. I call Agnes over to clean her desk.

Agnes begins messing around with the items in her desk and then her name is called. She grabs her backpack and two lunch boxes (she forgot one yesterday) and begins to leave the classroom.

"Wait Agnes, did you clean your desk?" I ask.

"Yes."

"Well, just wait until I inspect your desk before you leave." I get to her desk and realize she has really not done anything but move her mess around to new locations in the desk. "Agnes this is not clean. You need to clean this before you leave."

"My name was just called."

"Well, you will have to get a second call then, so you can clean out your desk."

"I have somewhere, where I need to go."

"Well Ms. J told you before your name was called to clean your desk and now you will have to learn to get that done before the end of the day."

Agnes was not happy with me, but she quickly got the point she wasn't leaving until her desk was clean. I don't think we will have this problem again tomorrow.

Agnes is on a roll!

Every morning I give my students morning work. This typically consists of a few math problems from our previous lesson in math, two sentences that need to be corrected with proper proof reading marks, and a writing entry. I have really been on the children about writing in complete sentences, writing more than one sentence and writing neatly. At 8:10 students are considered tardy, I stop greeting students at the door and I begin going around looking at morning work. I pass by Agnes' desk and look at her work, I see her handwriting which I know she can write a little neater and I say, "Agnes, nice handwriting." I said this meaning Agnes, please write neater. This class takes things literally, so I should have just said that comment to Agnes the way I was thinking it, because Agnes gets a huge smile on her face and replies, "Oh, thank you!"

Last school year, I posted a few times on how the children think I am old. I recall one of my students last year asking me if I had pictures in color when I was their age. Today was one of those days. During math I typically take out the personal sized dry erase boards to practice math problems, because who doesn't love getting to write on dry erase boards! So, today the children got the dry erase boards out and after the lesson we began practicing as a group on our dry erase boards. I usually make the problems up in my head, but today I said that I was going to use my childhood phone number to make a problem. WIthout a second to think Agnes yells out, "Did you have a party line? My grandmother said that a long time ago that people had to share the same phone number with the street."

Walmart: One Stop Shopping

I picked today's blog mostly because I made stop at walmart today and as soon as I got into the parking lot, I remembered a funny story from a few years ago. A few years ago, I taught the very same class that I teach now in first grade. It was close to the Thanksgiving Day holiday and our class was preparing for a Thanksgiving Day Feast before we left for a long weekend. I volunteered to make apple pies for our feast and had invited Celine over to help because I am good friends with her mother.

The weekend before Thanksgiving, Celine comes over to help make Thanksgiving apple pies. It suddenly occurs to me that I definitely do not have children. Because Celine begins to help make apple pies and she becomes thirsty. So, I make Celine some hot chocolate, because the only other thing I have to drink is water. I give Celine her hot chocolate and she says it is too hot and would like it to be cooled off. So, I make Celine some new hot chocolate, this time not so hot, and she decides she is hungry. I do not have a lot of food, so I make Celine a grilled cheese sandwich. Celine finishes her grilled cheese sandwich and would like more food to eat, so I tell her she is welcome to anything in the pantry or refrigerator. Celine begins to look for food, she does not find anything she wants, and so she tells me that I should go to walmart. "At walmart they have everything Ms. J.!"

We go back to school on Monday and Celine who now thinks I am poor tells the class that Ms. J. needs to go to walmart. She tells the children she came over and that I do not have any food to eat. Now three years later, we were lining up in class to go somewhere and Celine asks, "have you gone to walmart, yet, Ms. J.? Trust me they have everything there." Celine has not let me forget that walmart offers one stop shopping and has a large variety of food.

Did you know I have beautiful handwriting?

Scholastic books came in, hooray! They were very fast this year, I received the order before a week of submitting it. If you are a teacher, you know all about scholastic. I enjoy scholastic for the free books, but sometimes it seems like an endless job. First of all you have to separate all the little fliers. This year I am trying to get better as this is the second year I am the one sending out and submitting the orders. I am making a goal to send out the fliers the first of every month. Okay, so after you get all the fliers to send out, I do online ordering so I have to set that up for parents online and print out a sheet telling them how to order online. And then it begins...

As soon as a child submits an order whether online or they bring back the flier with money, they will ask every day if their books have come in. I explain to the children that the other students have until the 15th to submit their order. Of course, the 15th comes up and the questions about the books come back.

Have the books come in?

My mom ordered me some books, she said you would have them.

When will the books get here?

Seriously, it is like a child constantly asking, "Are we there yet?" It is enough to drive you crazy. In an effort to get all the books sent at one time, I have to put the paper orders online and then send a check. It seems like a lot of work, but oh well scholastic is nice to teachers and we end up getting free books for our work. Typically I have waited anywhere from a week and half to two weeks for books, so I was excited to get them so quickly to put the questions to rest.

Regina received as one of her ordered items a neon scratch book. Basically one of the books where you draw pictures with a wooden object that looks like a pencil without lead on a black piece of paper and color appears. Well, Regina quickly goes to work scratching off all the black. I say Regina, "you are supposed to draw pictures and write things and look at the cool colors it makes in the drawings." I write her name in cursive on the paper she has currently scratched off most of the black paint.

"Oh Ms. J. you have such beautiful handwriting!"

"I try, but don't see how cool your name looks with all the pretty colors?"

"Yes, but I just wanted to see what the color designs were behind the black."

Judge J and the Court of 4th Grade

Over the summer, I had the opportunity to attend a Tools for Teaching Workshop. It honestly was very fascinating and I have applied many of the things I learned over the summer into my classroom. One of the things I have added this year was the Telling Jar. If you teach you probably know that tattle telling is a very popular thing to do if you are a child. Now before I go any further I have a rule on tattle telling that I have used in previous years, which is "You are not allowed to tattle tell on someone if they are not hurting you, someone else, or themselves." I overall like my rule, but when I moved from first to fourth grade, I found that the children had a harder time getting over the drama.

So, this year I put in what is called the Tattle Tell Jar. During the school day if something happens that is really bothering a child, that child is allowed to write on a piece of paper what is bothering them and put it in the jar. At the end of the day if there is anything in the jar, I will pull the slips of paper out. First I will ask the child if they are still bothered about what they wrote on the paper, if they are I will read the paper and as a class we will talk out the situation and make everything better. This has worked wonderfully, we have only used the jar one time this year.

Today after arriving back from music class there were a number of unhappy children, it seems that they were having some issues with the drama. One of the children was extremely hurt, so I opted to have what the children call court earlier during the day versus the end. Court is how he handle the drama in the telling jar. I put the four children in different corners of the room and gave them an opportunity to give their own side of the story without interruptions. I explained to the children that Judge J. was going to call some witnesses, and that the witnesses were students who were not the best friends of the people standing because I need unbiased opinions of what happened.

I call to the stand Margaret. Margaret walks up to the middle of the class and I ask, "Margaret, were you in music class today?"

I know this seems like a silly question, it is. The entire class giggles, which is good because it causes everyone to relax some and those standing to not feel so upset or angry at someone.

Margaret answers, "yes."

"Did you hear Celine say something to Cosmas today during music?"

"No, I wasn't sitting near them."

Oh well, that witness didn't work out to well. "Okay Margaret, you may go sit down."

I call my next witness "Adrian."

"Adrian were you in music class today."

Again with the giggles, "yes."

"Did you hear Celine say anything to Cosmas today?"

"No" not even waiting for anything he turns around and goes back to his seat.

"I would like to call my next witness, Ambrose."

"Ambrose were you in music class today."

Again with more giggles, "yes."

"Did you hear Celine say something to Cosmas today?"

"Yes."

"Can you repeat what Celine said?"

"Cosmas, Cosmas we are not allowed to use those." (Cosmas was trying to clean his recorder during music class. Cosmas is new and did not know he is not allowed to clean the recorder during class.)

"Celine, is that what you said?"

"Yes."

"Ambrose did Celine say this in a nice or mean way?"

"I'm not exactly sure, I couldn't tell."

"Celine diid you mean to say what you said to Cosmas in a mean or nice way?"

"In a nice way, I didn't want him to get in trouble."

"Okay Celine, Ambrose had a hard time telling, so do you understand what Cosmas thought you were being mean to him and maybe bossy?"

"Yes."

"Please apologize to Cosmas."

Celine apologizes, one down a few more to go.

"Ambrose what did Cosmas say in return to Celine."

"Leave me alone."

"Did he say this in a mean or nice way?"

"Mean."

"Cosmas did you yell at Celine and tell her leave you alone."

"Yes, but I really meant to say you are not the boss of me."

"Cosmas, remember two wrongs do not make a right, if someone says something you don't like, you need to tell the teacher. It does not give you permission to yell at them and now you know Celine was only trying to help you so you did not get in trouble. Cosmas will you go and apologize to Celine."

Cosmas and Celine apologize and Cosmas hugs Celine for what he did. Celine returned to her desk and made Cosmas a card saying she was sorry. Court was working out rather well, but I still had two students standing.

Agnes was getting quite annoyed and was demanding her side of the story be retold. Before allowing her to tell it again, I decided that we ask if any of the people are still angry with Jospeh.

"No."

"Okay, Joseph you may go sit down. It seems that you are forgiven for whatever you have done."

"Now, Agnes before you tell your side of the story please know Judge J. is going to be very honest with you when you are done because you are using up my class time to retell your side which you have already done."

"I know." Agnes tells the whole story over.

"Agnes, Judge J. is very good at her job, you see Celine and Cosmas have apologized to each other already and have forgiven each other. Now the problems in music was between the two of them, it had nothing to do with Agnes."

"I know."

"Agnes you should have never joined in on their problem."

"I was trying to stick up for Cosmas."

"That was very nice of you to want to do that, but you see in the end a small problem has become such a big problem. You were also telling Celine what to do. Remember our reading from the other week about removing the log from someones eye, and how we must first remove the beam from our own eye first?"

"Yes."

"Well, Agnes you were yelling at Celine and telling her what to do because she was telling another student what to do. That is not fair, you can't correct someone by doing the same wrong thing to them that they are doing to someone else. Now please go and apologize to Celine for yelling at her."

The lesson of the day: stay out of other people's drama, it only makes things worse.

Poetry Fun

Today my class and I read some poetry and we discussed what the writer was trying to tell us. We read two poems, the first one took a little bit of thought, but the class caught on quickly to what the writer was trying to say. The second one took us a little bit longer to figure out. The writer was writing about the impact her ancestors had on her. Through her writing you quickly learned that her ancestors were Native Americans. This quickly started up some questions in the class, as to if people still live in teepees like the writer was writing about in her poem. I said, "yes."

Kateri asks, "Can you visit them?"

"Yes, many of them will invite people to come on their reservations and experience some of their culture."

We have a few minutes of questions and answers, until I finally get this question from Celine.

"Ms. J., I'm trying to understand, but why do the Native Americans not live in teepees anymore and stay in hotels?"

"Who said they live in hotels?"

"Well you said they live in a reservation, you know how when you stay at a hotel and you have to give a reservation?"

I laugh to myself and then explain to Celine what a reservation is.

Gizmo

Just to give an update Adrian read beautifully today at Mass. As a teacher you sit there and you can do nothing but take a deep breath of relief and smile. For a backup plan I sat at the front of the church today with my readers incase I needed take over with the reading, but thankfully I was not needed.

Today was Friday and on Fridays we bring out the class pet, Gizmo. Gizmo is a grey colored dwarf hamster and loved a little too much. At the beginning of the year, poor Gizmo tolerated a lot from the children constantly waking him. My rule to the children is that we do not wake Gizmo Monday through Thursday. I try to explain that we do not like others waking us during our sleep, so we need to be respectful and let Gizmo sleep during the day because he is nocturnal. On Fridays we will wake Gizmo and play with him, but overall we leave him be unless he is up on his own.

Typically on a usual Friday we will put Gizmo in a ball and let him run around the class, but today I took him out and put him in a giant bin and allowed groups of four children at a time to go and pet him and hold him. I was very pleased with Gizmo, he was very friendly with the children today, he can sometimes be grouchy and go to bite. Before hand I go over how to pet Gizmo, so we do not make him mad. The children sat patiently waiting their turn to go and pet Gizmo.

After Cronius' turn to pet Gizmo, he then says, "Ms. J. may I go wash my hands I think his penis touched me?"

Okay, I'm dealing with a class of children excited to play with Gizmo, so I ask myself did I hear that right? "What was that Cronius?"

"May I go wash my hands I think his penis touched me?"

Yes, my student just said penis and having him repeat it a second time caused another child to overhear and ask, "what did he say?"

"Nothing," I say.

I tell Cronius that is not a word we say in school. You can say that was a close call.

The Mass

Fourth grade at my school is the first year that the children are allowed to read the readings at Mass. In my first year working with fourth graders last year, this was such an exciting event, everyone wants to read at Mass! This week, it was announced that fourth grade had the responsibilities for the Mass. We would be responsible for the readings, gifts, and alter servers. As soon as the announcement was said over the intercom, I had five students immediately say they did not want to read. Eeek, this is not the same thing I got last year.

I picked my gift bearers, my readers, and my alter servers, I thought it was a done deal, until...

Today, on Thursday we always go up into the church to practice before we attend Mass on Friday. I begin by going over when you go up to read with the students, how to properly bow, and where the microphone should be when we read. At last it is time to let our readers take a turn reading, up comes Adrian to read and he begins to read and the tears begin to flow. What have I done? I have picked a child who is nervous to go up and read. Typically all children are nervous, but never had I have one to cry and running through my mind is,

"Dear Lord, it is Thursday and we say Mass tomorrow, what do I do?"

The children begin to ask why is Adrian crying?

"He has allergies," I tell them.

"But what is he allergic to, Ms. J.?" Regina asks.

"I have no idea." I sit there puzzled as to what I should do. I cannot let this child fall apart in front of the entire congregation tomorrow.

When it is time to leave I walk along beside Adrian and ask, "Did you want to read?"

"No." The tears begin to come back.

"Would you like me to ask another student?"

"No."

Tonight I pray that we make it through the Mass.

Character Sketches

Today we began brainstorming for our first writing assignment, which is to make a character sketch. To help the students understand what is expected of them we do one together. I explain to the students that they first want to generate a few ideas of what to write about and narrow those ideas down to one. I ask the children to help me come up with some ideas, so I call on some of the students.

Person 1: I call on Joseph and he responds, "Selena Gomez."

I begin to write on he board Celina Gomez. Although I have heard of the name before, I do not have cable and I do not keep up with teen celebrities. When writing the name I decided that maybe it is best to write C-E-L-I-N-A because it sounded close to the name Celine. The children were insulted, mostly the boys because of course some of them like Raphael were quick to say, "How can you do that Ms. J., I ♥ Selena Gomez. I decide to continue on with my lesson.


Person 2: I call on Cronius and he says, "K'neen."

Don't ask, I still have no idea who this person is.


Person 3: I call on Aaron, who says, "Gizmo."

Now Gizmo is our class hamster, so I write Gizmo's name on that board.


Person 4: I call on Ralph, who says, "How about Ralph?"

Yes, my student just nominated himself to be the person that we write our character sketch about.


Person 5: By this time I have called four boys, so I decide to pick a girl, Melanie, she says "Johnny Depp."

In my mind, I'm think ooh, we have a good person for our character sketch.


Now, that we have generated ideas, I tell the kids I want to pick the person that will be easiest for me to write about. I tell the kids that I'm sorry Selena Gomez and K'neen have to go, because I really don't know much about these people. I then take Gizmo off the list and say it would be hard to write a character sketch on our class pet and it would be much easier to use a person. The choices we are left with are Ralph and Johnny Depp. Being a nice teacher I take a class vote and of course we are a classroom full of boys, so we began brainstorming ideas to write about Ralph. I go through how to brainstorm and set the children loose to begin brainstorming their own character sketch.

Half way through the assignment Agnes comes to me, "Ms. J. I am going to do my character sketch on Joseph and there is something I want to write down, but I'm not sure it will be appropriate." As a teacher you hear this, you immediately think it probably isn't appropriate. I write down a word on the paper and ask Agnes if this is the word she would like to use, she says, "yes."

"Well, by writing that word down you know that the other children will see this, right?"

"Yes, Ms. J. but they know this already."

"Maybe we should ask Joseph how he would feel about this because he may not feel to comfortable with you writing this."

I call Joseph over to us, Agnes immediately begins to blush. I show Joseph the word, cute, and asks him if it will be okay if Agnes includes this in her paper.

Joseph asks, "What exactly does it mean?"

I write on the paper good looking.

Joseph is fine with Agnes writing this and now the fourth grade love is beginning. Thankfully in the lunchroom the children are still split like the Red Sea, girls on one side and boys on the other. Hopefully this year we will not have another proposal like we did last year.

The Lunch Bag

I have a policy in my class, you leave your lunch bag two days in a row at school and it gets moved to my closet. When the child finally realizes that I have it, we make a trade. In the first week of school, I moved Agnes' lunch bag into the closet. Mind you we are now in the third week of school and until today she has yet to ask me about it.

I tried dropping subtle hints, but she never thought to ask me about her lunch bag. There wasn't even a can I go check the lost and found for my lunch bag? Today I decided to drop a subtle hint to the children, actually not so subtle, others were getting ready to join the same club as Agnes if they left their lunch bag another day. So, I say, "Okay boys and girls, just to let you know when you leave your lunch bag two days in a row Ms. J. will take it and put it in her closet, we can then work out a trade for you to get the lunch bag back."

The class instantly starts laughing, that is everyone except Agnes. "Ms. J. I do not understand why everyone is laughing."

I quiet down the class and fifteen minutes later as we are packing up to go home, I do another reminder about lunch bags. Agnes finally realizes that I have it. She walks up to me and says, "Ms. J. can I have my lunch bag?"

"That depends, what are you willing to trade for it?"

"Silent lunch."

"No, I don't really want you sitting in silent lunch over this," I said. In my mind I'm thinking Agnes really needs the time in the lunch room to socialize, so she will not socialize as much in class.

"Five dollars."

"No, I do not want money, how about stacking chairs for the week?"

Agnes does not even take a second to think before she responds, "No, you hold onto it, I have another one I am using."

Who doesn't love popsicles and hamsters?

My Monday was starting off well, actually overall today was great, we were able to get in most of the lessons I had planned. One of the things I love about fourth grade is encouraging the students to make their own opinions and to begin small debates. Today for our social studies activity we broke off into groups of four. I first asked the students as a group to pick the student with the best handwriting, 3 out of 4 groups did not have a problem with this. Hooray, we are off to a great start! For the group with difficulty I asked the student that seemed the least argumentative at this point about wanting to write to be the recorder, knowing if I pick one of the three that did, it could be bad.

The students were now ready for the assignment.

I tell my class, "Okay class, what we are going to do is come up with 20 ways we use water. We do not want to go over 20 (so I write a big 20 on the board). Now I will give you a suggestion that you might not think of and that is that a toilet uses water. One suggestion that you will probably think of for using water is a pool. I will give you five minutes to come up with 20 ways we use water."

The groups get to work and in the end I have only one group that ends with 20 ways, two groups that come very close and one that has 11.

"We are currently facing a drought and we are being forced to conserve water, you will have three minutes to discuss with your group what five ways we use water that you are willing to cross off your list."

I was very impressed, I still remember hearing Ambrose tell his group to cross off swimming pools because it was going to start getting cold out.

"We still have not had any rain and the president has issued a state of emergency, we must conserve water before we run out. You will have three minutes to cross five more items off your list."

One group is unsuccessful and their household dies because they ran out of uses for water. They handled the news well and I'm sure next time they will work a bit faster. We had a small amount of time to discuss this while the other groups were still finishing up on their time. The timer goes off and I begin with the group that is unsuccessful on wether or not they have the necessary things to survive. They said no, and I move onto the next group.

"What are the ways you can still use water?"

They read off their list and they are left with all the necessary items, but then Celine speaks up.

"I still think we should have kept the popsicles and got rid of the toilet, all you need is a backyard and a shovel!"

Celine's statement by far has to be the funniest thing said in class today and it still makes me smile and laugh. Celine got the assignment and used some higher level thinking to keep some of her wants during the drought. On the other hand I must give credit to another student for saying probably the sweetest thing to me today and that is Gwen.

Over the weekend, my hamster died. One of the children brought up my hamster today and I told the class that she passed away. Gwen immediately tells me she will get me another one. I tell Gwen that I would like to wait awhile before getting another one. At lunch Gwen asks me how long is awhile? I tell her that I'm not sure I just want to give myself time to grieve the loss of Fiona. Gwen then says, "When my hamster Sarah died, I got a new hamster the next day and it made me happy. Maybe a new one will make you happy, too."

Best Buds, Scapulars, and Black Marks on the Floor

The teacher in me wants to put the title in alphabetical order, but I'm forcing myself to be okay with chronological order. It was an eventful day, not only was it a Friday, but we also had a fire drill. Awesomely, I got to the be the one to pull the alarm!

Fridays tend to be test days, at least in my class, we will typically have a reading and spelling test every Friday. During the reading test, Margaret came up to me to tell me Gwen was crying. I stop what I was doing and ask Gwen to join me at the round table, so I could ask her what was wrong without having to worry about all the children budding in on the conversation. Gwen says Celine is mad at her and she doesn't know why. I asked her how she knew that Celine was mad at her and she said that Celine is playing with other girls in the class and she rather play with them than her. I told Gwen that everything will work out and it is probably a misunderstanding and to give me some time later today to talk with Celine. Ultimately, I didn't want to go from Gwen to Celine right away making Celine feel that she was in trouble.

On our way to library I walk beside Celine and just as she is getting ready to go in I pull her to the side discreetly. I ask Celine if something was wrong between her Gwen, that they are best friends, but Gwen feels that she is mad at her. Celine responds back saying that Gwen doesn't sit at lunch with her and is playing with other girls in the class. I said okay to Celine and let her continue into library. When they both came out I sat down with them and explained that the two of them are upset over the same thing. I told them that although they are best friends, that sometimes they will want to play with other children, and the important thing is to try not to be jealous. Friends sometimes need a break, but that will help them to build a stronger friendship. Celine and Gwen hug each other and walk back to their seats. I smile seeing two little girls happy again, I couldn't let a friendship die that I saw start in first grade.

A little later in the day Father came to visit our class. He began talking about scapulars and the promises and indulgences you receive by wearing one as well as praying the rosary daily. Immediately, I thought about the fact that I was not wearing one. To make this visit worse, he asked the children why they weren't wearing the scapulars that he had given them. This is one of the moments where as a teacher you want to put your head down and cry, asking yourself why did they just say that. Joseph immediately yells out his broke, other children chime in with the same response and then of course we had the others that say they lost theirs. Now in hopes to be the good Catholic teacher that I want to be, I will be finishing this blog and order a class set of of scapulars, so that we can receive our indulgences.

At the end of the day I told the children I would like to have a clean classroom before the weekend. I wanted them to wipe their desk, their chair, I needed the teacher's aide to clean white boards, the sweeper to sweep the classroom, and everyone to make sure their belongings were neatly put away in cubbies. This started out GREAT! I was thinking to myself, oh I can't wait to do this again. The children went straight to cleaning and were down to getting on their hands and knees to wipe the marks off the floor. It was the most wonderful present the children could ever give me, but too good to be true. Because of all of a sudden Regina learns something new. You know how when children learn something that they think is cool they want to show everyone and do it repeatedly? Well, Regina wanted to show off her knew found skill, which once shown the other children wanted to learn too. REGINA LEARNED HOW TO MAKE BLACK MARKS ON THE FLOOR!

"How do you do that?" asked Maximus.

"Like this" says Regina with a squeal in her voice. She bends her leg at the knee and swings forward full swing so the bottom of her shoe gracefully hits the bottom of the floor to make this huge black mark, which she considers awesome.

The next thing I know I now have half the class trying this out marking up my once beautiful floor.

F.S.A: Future Stalkers of America

When I was leaving school today, I was running different things through my head of what I could write about. My first thought originally was to write about my morning with Leo. He isn't in my class, but in first grade. He was the only child I was caring for in morning care for most of the morning and he had much to say, like how his mom used to work for the government and would shove people on a plane and say go back home! I'm sure it wasn't exactly like that. You have to love how children process information!

Then I thought about how the school librarian gave us a book today, O is for Old Dominion. We study Virginia History in fourth grade and the librarian thought we would like having the book. Immediately upon seeing this, one of my students goes oh is that about Kings Dominion before we called it Kings Dominion, it was Old Dominion?

Very cute things happening today, but when I sat down to think about actually writing something up, something came into my head that happened today and I just have to write about it. Last year, my students told me that they googled me. At that point I was like hmm, I need to google myself and see what they are finding. When I started this blog I began trying to promote it on some public pages on facebook and quickly changed my last name, so that it wouldn't show up in a google search.

At the very beginning of the school year, one of the students had mentioned that they saw me on youtube, being that I have an account it wasn't a big deal to me and I don't put anything on there that I wouldn't want children to see. Immediately Agnes asked how she could find me on youtube. I told her that I wasn't going to promote my youtube videos to the class, so if she planned on seeing my videos she would have to do all the work. In my mind, I knew that this wouldn't necessarily be an easy task for her to accomplish.

Today at school Agnes says, "Ms. J. I tried typing in your first name, then your last name, and both your first and last name and I could not find you on youtube."

I laughed to myself thinking, wow I have hid this well from my students. So, I respond back saying, "Oh!"

"What is your middle name Ms. J., I really want to find you on youtube?"

I tell her that she does not need to know my middle name. Before Agnes is able to pop out another question about finding me on youtube, Cosmas goes, "Hey, Agnes did you know last night I found your address online and I can make directions to get to your house?"

"Cosmas, do you live close to Agnes?" I asked.

"No, but last night I found her address and you can click for directions."

There you have it, by fourth grade, children already will begin searching you online and find out where you live.

Bad Parenting

If you are a parent, there is one thing you should know and that is how much your child loves you and what they are willing to do to not make you feel bad. This morning Cronius came into class, his mother made him a special lunch today, a sloppy joe, his favorite. The problem with his lunch today was that it ended up leaking inside his backpack. It got on his homework and apparently leaked on other items in his lunch bag.

Cronius was handling the day well, until we started getting close to the end of the day. He came up to me, crying, and said he had a feeling in his stomach. Immediately trying to cheer him up, I told him we needed some background music like in the movies. I decided to play Horton Hears a Who, "I Can't Stop This Feeling." Okay, he had a feeling, I instantly thought of the song. I put the song on and he responds I think this helping, but when the song ended, he was still upset.

I decided to sit him down at the round table with me to have the first of many small counseling sessions I will have with students this year. It seems that Cronius first off didn't want to turn in the homework that all the lunch leaked on today, he didn't want to get a bad grade. I decided let's tackle one problem at a time. My response was that homework was a material object, who cares if it got wet, oh well, things happen. Cronius said then he will get a bad grade and he won't be able to go to college. I tell Cronius that colleges won't care if he forgot to turn in his homework in fourth grade. He told me they will, so I asked him what is stopping him from turning in his homework today. He said it was wet and one of the papers was torn because it got wet. I handled the problem by telling him to turn in his work. I can be very strict, but very understanding, wet papers, not a big deal.

This wasn't the end of Cronius' problems. You see deep down what was really bothering him was that he didn't want to make his mom feel bad that his lunch leaked on his homework and ruined the rest of his lunch. I asked him why this would make his mom feel bad? He answered because then his mom would feel like a bad parent. I told him he had two choices: one to not tell mom about the lunch leaking or to tell her. If he opted to not tell her, the problem would be if she ever packed the same lunch, he could encounter another leaky mess. If he decided to tell her, I don't think she would feel like a bad parent. "She will Ms. J." he said. Well, Cronius, the decision is yours, if I were you, I would let her know, because if the only thing she has done to be considered a bad parent is a leaking lunch, then your mom is doing a pretty awesome job!

Cronius left the round table in a pretty good mood, but I guess I will have to wait until tomorrow to find out what he decided to do.

Congratulations

This past weekend was a three day weekend for us at school. At the end of last school year, I signed up for the Rock N Roll Half Marathon in VA Beach. It was great, I finished later than I hoped, but in the end I did well with this being my first ever half marathon. I cannot wait to run another!

That night after the concert I had posted up my stats on facebook for the race and many of the teachers commented on my time. Today when I went to pick up my class from music the music teacher told me congratulations. Basically she was congratulating me for a job well done on my race. She then asked me if I told the kids, I said yes. Joseph immediately thinking that I was being congratulated for something else, says "you did not tell us you were getting married!" I instantly started laughing and said I wasn't getting married, but that Mrs. M. was just congratulating me on finishing my race.

Tonight as I write this I think back to when I taught this class in first grade and Celine came up to me one day in the hallway and said she was praying for my future husband, how cute is that? I guess in the end these kids are just ready for me to get married, but in their defense there are not many young single Catholic school teachers in our school, in fact I'm it. In my defense, I still figure I have some time before that.

BINGO

My 2010-2011 school year officially started on Monday. Due to moving and not having internet I have unfortunately waited until today to post on my blog. We are off to a great year and I love the fact that I have my original first class that I taught in first grade now in fourth grade. This class will have many entertaining stories to add to my blog. I still remember one of the girls in my class now, telling me in first grade, that she hopes when she grows up that her husband is great with kids and cannot smell. I originally thought she said spell, but she corrected me. When I asked why, she said because sometimes she toots. I also still have a drawing and journal entry that I made a copy by another little girl in my class, "What is your favorite thing about you and why?" She wrote, "My bottom. It wiggles." She also drew a picture of a bottom with wiggle marks.

Over the summer, I was fortunate enough to go to a three day workshop called, "Tools for Teaching." This year I'm incorporating as much as I possibly can into my classroom. One of the things I started this year is called P.A.T (preferred activity time). I give the children fifteen minutes at the end of every day to have some kind of educational game that does not involve reading and writing. The children have the chance to add additional time for P.A.T during breaks. To help reduce the amount of students constantly getting up to sharpen pencils, go to the bathroom, and getting water, I give the students 3 five minute break periods. I will stand by the door and during the five minutes they can get up walk around the class, go to the bathroom, get water, sharpen pencils, etc. After their five minutes they are not allowed to do any of those things, with the exception of one emergency bathroom pass for the day. If the students are all in their desk with the desks nice in straight in the classroom and trash off the floor before five minutes I give them the difference onto their P.A.T. Today the children were very excited because they got a little over 20 minutes of P.A.T.

Today's P.A.T. activity was multiplication bingo, very grade appropriate for my fourth graders. While we were playing Gwen was becoming very frustrated with the game. She wasn't getting many of the called numbers on her game board and unfortunately Cosmas, sitting right next to Gwen won the first game. Gwen instantly wanted to switch boards with Cosmas. In my head, I thought this would be a bad move because I would hold off calling those numbers that I just called, increasing the chance of her getting Bingo on the card she currently had, so I said no. Gwen's game didn't get much better. Trying to cheer her up some I jokingly told her not to grow up and be a professional bingo player. Of course, what was I thinking, to get a smile on one's face, I have started an open discussion among the others. Celine instantly says that she will grow up and play bingo. When asked why, she says that is what you do when you are an old person. Raphael sitting near Celine instantly agrees, he too wants to play bingo. Maximus on the other hand, after spending much of the game in the same boat as Gwen says, "it is best that he doesn't play bingo when he grows up."

As a teacher, I often think about the life skills I teach my students. Today's life skill was BINGO, will you grow up to be a BINGO player and will you be any good at the game? If left to Celine, of course she will, it doesn't matter to her if she wins or loses, just that she plays the game because that is what old people do.