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."