Undercover Wrestler

Today was an awesome day! My students had me entertained the entire day starting in the first five minutes of our day starting. Yesterday, the IT guy was in the room downloading and installing some software that I wanted on the computer. The kids saw him working on the classroom computer for a good portion of the morning, yesterday. Today one of the children comes in with a wrestling book he brought from home to share that the IT guy at the school, is in fact a wrestler!

This I had to see! I ask to see the picture and the child shows me...



This wrestler surprisingly does look like the IT guy. So much so, that I grabbed the ipad and took a picture to send to the IT guy. Before I got a chance to email the IT guy, it was time for morning prayer. Every morning we have petitions and so this morning one of the children said, "I would like to pray that the next time the IT guy is at the school, he will give me his autograph."

After morning prayer, I sent out an email to the IT guy and also let him know that I have a student who said a prayer hoping to get his autograph.

While the children were in art class, I checked my email. The IT guy replied to my email and said, "That is funny." When I go to get the students, they immediately ask if the IT guy emailed back. I told them yes, but I don't think he is the wrestler. One of the children told me that they still wanted to get his autograph just in case.

At lunch the children, were back in the book reading information about the wrestler. It ended with the children still believing that the IT guy is in fact the wrestler because he is 6' 2" and from our area.

Baby Siblings

At the end of the day, one my students was talking about wanting a baby sister because he only has a brother. The rest of my students seem to have mixed reviews on more siblings. Some want them, others figure they already have little brothers and sisters that "get into their stuff" and do not want more. As a teacher, I love kids, and when the children talk about siblings, I will always ask, "Don't you want another baby in the family?" So, today I learned my lesson on entering in on their conversation of wanting or not wanting more siblings in the family because one of my little girls in the class goes, "Ms. J. I am ready for you to get married and have a baby!"

Let's get the oxygen moving

I am probably not the first teacher to comment on this, but the difference between the morning and afternoon is the children being awake and sleepy. The mornings are the easiest time to get things done, the children are more alert in the morning, at least mine are after the morning song with exercise, and come afternoon they tend to be rather tired. I also tend to notice that if you do not keep the children entertained, they are more likely to start getting sleepy earlier in the day.

There are a variety of things I do throughout the day to keep the children awake. For example, this year every morning after prayer, we have a morning song. Something like "Go Crazy" by Jackson Harris is a popular song in the morning. I get all the students up and get them to dance and exercise by their desk. If you throw in a few silly dance moves it really gets the kids excited. You just have to be willing to laugh at yourself or embarrass yourself in front of a class of kids, and the morning song becomes a popular hit. My class loves this part of the day so much, that the students requested that they get to take turns leading the class in the morning song exercises and dance. We call this person the fitness trainer.

The biggest thing of teaching is keeping the children entertained while you teach. The funnier you are, the more likely the children will pay attention to you, along with your principal standing out in the hallway laughing at you while looking through your window. The only thing you need to remember is that you must be able to laugh at yourself when someone catches you doing something rather silly for your students. I will do almost anything to keep my class entertained, become an actor and act out an example of a word meaning, I sometimes carry a yard stick around during math class on my belt loops like it is a sword (I will even knight my students for correct answers), or today I taught a fifteen minute portion of my reading lesson as if I were a stand up comedian. I would love to say I do this just for the kids, but really it makes the job fun.

Today towards the end of our day, I noticed the heads dropping. I immediately said, "Alright class, let's start taking in some deep breaths! We need to fill our bodies up with some oxygen!" I was sure this time to leave out my explanation that yawning is a sign of lack of oxygen. "Come on everyone let's start taking a deep breath in..."

Before finishing my sentence, Mary up front says, "Ms. J. why are you so energetic? You are like this all the time."

Be Careful What You Tell Children

Teachers hear all kinds of things, some can be so off the wall that you just nod your head or sometimes I respond by saying,
I'm not sure your family member wanted you to share that." I however have learned that children will share everything, so people should be really careful what they tell their child. Today was one of those days where I should have taken my own advice.

Today was picture day, so naturally I went through some rules for pictures in the morning.

Rule #1: Do not be like one of my classmates, who in the fourth grade stuck the little black comb in his mouth for the class picture. When everyone received their class picture the child's mouth was black. I must say back in fourth grade this was hysterical, but I do remember the teacher not being pleased.

Rule #2: After pictures do not play with the comb and remember that it is not a curling iron. My first year teaching fourth grade I had a child who tried to curl her hair with the comb. I spent a half hour trying to get her hair out before sending her to someone else. I thought we were going to have to cut it out of her hair.

Rule #3: When the photographer tells you to say stinky cheese, stinky feet, monkey, money, etc. do not get really excited and just say it a little. Last year, one of my darling students got very excited by this and her picture came back with her mouth wide open and eyebrows raised. I told the students our goal is to have beautiful pictures.

When it was time for pictures, everything was going smoothly. That is until it was Daniel's turn. The photographer tells Daniel to say, "money." Daniel says absolutely nothing, the photographer doesn't take a picture, but says, "Oh, you don't want to say money?" Daniel replies, "My teacher told us not to say money." The photographer looks at me, then asks Daniel to say stinky feet. Daniel again doesn't say anything and says, "Actually, she doesn't want us to say any of your words."

Oops, I don't know what I was thinking. I ended up telling the photographer that I had the child last year with the raised eyebrows and open mouth whose parents sent the photos back saying unacceptable. I didn't want this year's students to have open mouth pictures, so I asked them not to really say the words allowed. I must say it was rather an awkward moment.

Name Changes

This week in reading, we have been reading the story, "My Name is Maria Isabel." It is a cute story about a little girl who would like to be called by her name, but with two Marias already in her class, her teacher decides to call her Mary. This morning, I gave the children a journal question, "Why do you believe Maria Isabel wanted to be called by her name?" The kids came up with several answers and used the story to help guide their answers. One of the children said that they heard that you can change your name. I told them this was true, that some people do change their name. They asked why, so I said maybe they didn't like their name. Thankfully, many of the children do not feel the same way about their name and do not wish to ever change their names. However, I did have one. One of my many animal lovers spoke up and said that she would like to change her name to Catherine, so everyone can call her Cat. She will now forever be named Catherine in my blog. :)

School is back in session!

Okay, so school actually started yesterday, but there is this wonderful rule saying teachers should never smile for the first half of the school year, so nothing funny really happened. Honestly, that is so untrue, I smile all the time, and it is ridiculously hard for me not to smile. With yesterday being the first day, I came home exhausted, and my throat hurt from all the talking I did when teaching. Pathetic, I know.

I'm testing out a few new ideas for school this year. We are continuing to do word study for our spelling program, and I'm introducing online classrooms and writer's workshop this year. A small change I made this year was to take our daily question for reading and turning it into a small journal to encourage all the students to share their answer. I had 100% participation today and none of the children said they needed more time.

Today's questions was "How would you improve a vacant lot?" Vacant is one of our vocabulary words. I was so happy when a couple of the students answered by saying, "They would spruce up a vacant lot...". Sprucing is another one of our vocabulary words. Teachers get excited over small things like that, I guess. Many of the children answered that they would improve the vacant lot to help animals. Building an SPCA, animal shelter, and animal preserve were just a few of the answers. When all students had a turn, I said "I can tell you all really love animals." Rose, one of my biggest animal fans, says in response, "I would own all the animals that needed a home, but that would make me a hoarder." This made me laugh because I once tried to watch the show Hoarders, I couldn't watch anymore after the third episode.

We are off to a wonderful start for this school year! The children are behaving beautifully and are excited to be in school. I think will have an awesome year together.

Footprints

I'm sure you read the title of today's post and you may have instantly thought of the poem, Footprints. It is one of my favorites, but it isn't what I'm writing about today. Today we had a crazy morning. When I walked into the classroom before the children arrived, the heat had not yet been turned on, so I turned it on to warm up the classroom. Well, while we were saying morning prayer, the classroom began to smell, kind of like the typical smell when you turn on the heat and dust is on the coils. The children began to complain of the smell, but since we were in the middle of prayer I told the children I had just turned on the heat, that dust was probably on the coils. I was also thinking, we were in the middle of prayer and God would definitely protect us.

Well, come to find out that the hallway began to have the same smell, which the hallway and my class share the same unit. After the maintenance man took a quick inspection on the inside of the ceiling, the classrooms were instructed to go to a different section of the building, the parish hall. I lined the children up with work and we went to sit in the parish hall. Then we had a number of firetrucks at the school and the firemen instructed us to go outside the building. Today was rather chilly, hint the heat needed to be turned on, and slowly but surely our coats and jackets were brought to us. When I finally got my coat, we were told we could go back in the building, but only back in the parish hall. The children got back to work and eventually we were allowed back to our class.

It took a few minutes before one of the children saw a black spot on the floor. I told the children that it must have come from the bottom of one of the firemen's boot. WOW, the children thought, we have fireman's footprint on the floor. Yes, this was exciting news to some in the class. Raphael raised his hand and asked, "Can I get on the floor and kiss the footprint?"

"I'm not sure you want to do that, we don't know where his boots have been," I said.

"Oh, that's right, he could have stepped on a dead body." Ralph replies.

Gwen finds in her reading book an old story we read titled "Fire!" "We should have read this today," she says.

Many of the children agreed with Gwen. I said, "Too bad we didn't think of that earlier, we could have got our books autographed by real firemen."

You're not listening

As a teacher, repeating what I have said over and over is a daily occurrence. The only frustrating part of repeating myself over and over again is when I'm repeating myself because a child was not paying attention to directions the first time. This morning, I can't even remember what we were talking about, but Cronius and I were going back and forth on something I said. He didn't hear me the first time and then was trying to tell me I was wrong about something I was saying. Eventually our discussion ended like this:

"Ms. J. but -"

"Cronius, I'm trying to tell you-"

"but really-"

"Cronius, you are not listening to me."

"I know."

"Exactly."

Everyone in the class bursts out laughing, to include Cronius who needed an extra second to finally figure out that he admitted to not listening to me.

Space Boundaries

Today I talked to the children about the types of things they and may not have at school. This was used as a reminder as the third graders seem to be having a yard sale during recess, in which you can buy their old happy meal toys with fake money you make. Apparently, they even have some coupons out of buy one get one free. One of the toys they had yesterday was small toy water gun. I told my class this type of toy is not allowed at school, ever. The other toys are fine for them to buy, if they play with them in class, they become mine, but the water guns will cause them to be in trouble.

Naturally, this will start the 20 worst case scenario questions, which eventually gets to Joseph asking, "What if you didn't bring that toy to school and someone just put it in your pocket without you knowing?"

"Hmm, I think you would know, if I'm walking around and someone puts something in my pocket, I will feel them do that and look right away to see what it is. I'm confused on how you wouldn't know someone put something in your pocket."

"So, if I put something in your pocket, you would look to see what it is?"

"Yes, but don't you think that would be inappropriate?"

"Why?"

"Because you would be touching my leg," I quickly said back. (For people who know me well, they know that I have this space issue and do not like having people I don't know touch me. If someone is sitting close to me and they slide in my direction, sometimes without realizing this I will naturally slide over or lean back.) Maybe I said this comment a little too quickly, but I felt the need to protect my personal space.

St. Patrick's Day

St. Patrick is the patron saint of the school and church that I work at and attend. Naturally, we plan a low key feast day for our patron saint, low key because we are in the season of lent and this should be a penitential time. When I taught first grade, I do not recall us celebrating St. Patrick's Day. On one of the years, St. Patrick's Day fell during holy week and if you did not know this, holy week trumps St. Patrick's Day and therefore that year we only attended Mass. When I moved up to fourth grade, I knew that the third grade teacher brought in bagels and cream cheese for the kids while they watched a movie on St. Patrick. I decided that I would borrow the same idea for fourth grade.

Last night, I went to the store to pick up bagels and cream cheese for the kids. Recently, I have started going on a healthy food kick. I have started hitting running season, and like last year I have changed my diet, I even stopped drinking diet coke. So, far I'm having some great runs, which I'm contributing to my change in diet. When I went to the store I found plain bagels, but they are thin, which is less calories, because I read that one bagel is equivalent to five slices of bread. When you think about it, that is a lot of bread for an adult, let alone a child in one serving. Please don't think I get crazy on calorie counting, I actually eat all day long and am trying to build up to a 3,000 calorie diet.

When I got to school today, I started unpacking the items for later in the day and Ralph sees the bagels and realizes they are thin. Gwen then says, "Ms. J. why do you have to go all healthy on us?"

"Isn't this great!" I said.

"No, Ms. J., only you," Gwen replies. (This is a common response from Gwen, only Ms. J. would do that. For example, only Ms. J. would bring in a small wedge of Laughing Cow cheese to put on organic crackers that smell like pizza.)

Before Mass more and more children realize that I got the thin bagels, which like Gwen, they wanted to know why. Apparently last year they got the good bagels, with cinnamon and sugar. So, I tell them, "you guys are lucky, I almost bought you the whole wheat bagels, but then I figured you wouldn't want to eat them." This kind of changed their minds on the thin bagels.

In the afternoon when it was time for the movie, I started pouring drinks of green lime fruit punch, that was generously purchased by a parent in the class. As a class we said a blessing over the food, I put on the movie, and children patiently waited as I colored the cream cheese green and served bagels. Well here is the thing, I thought the third grade teacher colored the cream cheese green, that is the only reason why I did that. As soon as I did this the children were oohing and aahing over the green cream cheese. I decided to ask the children if they had green cream cheese last year, no they tell me it was just plain. Okay have you even tried to color cream cheese with a plastic spoon and knife? SERIOUSLY!

If you could ask a priest anything, what would you ask?

On Tuesday's Father will come to visit the class. Typically Father will plan well planned lessons on different saints and will bring in a relic of the saint if he has one, which he usually does. Today, he briefly discussed the mission and allowed the children to ask question. So, what does a fourth grader want to ask the priest?

Father sees Joseph's hand raised and calls on him.

"Father, where did you get your coat?"

"Well, I got it at a military surplus store. Do you like it?"

"Yes."

"Would you like to try it on?"

"Yes."

Father took off his coat and let Joseph try it on. I was sure to take a picture of this, it is probably a once in a lifetime event. This makes me laugh though because out of all the questions Joseph could have asked, what he wanted to ask most was where did Father get his coat?

Where is My Mother?

Lent has started and I think I may have over done it with what I'm giving up for lent. The past two days have been extremely hard for me, basically a non stop headache. I keep telling myself next week will be better, next week will be easier, and of course my favorite saying, "Jesus hung on a cross for three hours." The days I have a headache are much harder to get through, because it is one of the days I wish I was one of the kids, can I please go lie down in the office for fifteen minutes? So, when it is time for dismissal, I'm counting down the minutes so I can leave and go home.

Usually, the weekend before a holiday weekend or holiday break, I'm eager like the children to start my weekend or vacation, too. If not a lot of children have left the classroom and it is close to the end of carpool time, I will go, "Where are your mothers?" Today to make it through dismissal, I started trying to guess what child would be called next for carpool. I guessed a child and Ralph says, "Wait, what about me? I could go next, because this is about the time I'm asking, where is my mother?" This made me laugh to myself and Ralph was right, he was the next one called.

Flammable

Well, before I start I just want to recognize the fact that I have now reached over 100 posts. There were a few funny things mentioned today, for example, when we studied the word "flammable." I asked the class if they knew of some things that are flammable? Alexander raised his hand and told the class, "One time, my brother took a lighter and held it..."

I said, okay let's move on to the next person, knowing exactly where this story was going. The rest of the class did not, so children began asking Alexander what he was going to say because they wanted to know. Of course, Alexander then tells the class that his brother farted and it caught on fire. Therefore, farts are flammable.

I just want to know if anyone else has experienced this, because honestly where do you go when a student just tells the class that you can catch a fart on fire? The only thing I could think of is to tell the children that they should not play with fire and please don't try this at home.

Will you marry me?

The past couple weeks in reading, our weekly stories have centered around fairytales, fractured fairytales and folktales. One of the parents was so kind to send in three fractured fairytales to share with the class. Today I read them the book, "Prince Cinders." This was a very cute book and the children loved it, but it brought up some smaller discussions.

First off, Prince Cinders wanted to be big and hairy. The children thought this was so funny, but my honest Regina announces to the class that she doesn't like men who are big and hairy. Which then causes a new problem, because some of the boys speak up and say that their father is big and hairy. In a fourth grader's mind, a fourth grade child will take what Regina has said and translate it to mean: Regina thinks their fathers are ugly. Cosmas on the other hand announced to the class that he would like to be big and hairy, in fact he also adds he now his first chest hair!

The children calm down and we continue with our story. If you have not read Prince Cinders, you will have to check this book out from your local library because it is a great read. Not wanting to tell you the entire book, I will just have to skip to the end. Of course like many other Cinderella tales, Prince Cinders will have to meet his princess and get married. The difference though is that the princess proposes to Prince Cinders. Right away majority of the children have a problem with this, this is not how it is supposed to work. Agnes though ponders this thought and says, "When I get older and I'm of marrying age, if I have dated a guy and he hasn't proposed by a certain time, I'm going to ask him."

Majority of the students respond to Agnes, "WHAT!?!, but the guy is supposed to propose."

Raphael thinks about this and goes against the class and says, "Well, if a girl comes to me and says will you marry me and I like her, I think I probably would say yes."

Chair Crisis

Today, I had two children sitting in silent lunch. Silent lunch is not to meant to be fun times, I don't have students sitting there often, but every once in a while I do. As I am having lunch with the third and fifth grade teachers I notice, Raphael move his chair, in fact is appears to me that he trades chairs for a new one. I decide not to say anything. A little while later, I see Raphael up again with his chair, moving it throughout the silent table area. The third time I see this happen, I say, "Raphael, why are you playing around with your chair, you are in silent lunch, this isn't playtime."

"Ms. J., that would be because he is stuck to his chair," says the third grade teacher. She was sitting closest to Raphael and realized when I spoke to him that he was stuck.

In disbelief, I get up from my chair and tell Raphael to come over, so I can see. I have no idea what I was thinking on that one, because poor Raphael starts walking to me with this chair dragging behind him. I realize this was not the smartest move on my part and say, "I will come to you."

Sure enough, Raphael had somehow got one of the bungee strings at the bottom of his jacket caught in one of the pieces of the chair. This explains why every time he got up to throw trash away, his chair was constantly moving. I was then left feeling like a bad teacher for not realizing this to begin with and trying to correct his behavior, when all along he was stuck.

On a side note, Jospeh recently said to another child in class, he was going to try really hard to be honest, because honesty is our word of the month and he has not gotten Witness to the Word this school year. If that as a teacher doesn't want to make you pick Joseph, today Father came to visit the class and was asking the class questions. Joseph raised his hand, but Father answered his own question before calling on Joseph. He tells Joseph he is sorry, and asks if Joseph was going to say the same answer. Joseph looks directly at Father and says, "No, Father." Father, I think a little surprised by Joseph's answer says with a smile on his face, "Well, Joseph, I thank you for being honest with me." I don't think I have looked forward to Witness to the Word certificates coming out as I do for the month of February, I am excited to see Joseph's reaction when he gets his certificate. After today's lesson with Father, he truly has earned his certificate. :)

It's Electric!

I haven't posted much lately, I have been reading too many articles about teachers getting fired from their job for their blogs. I finally read an article and the teachers were writing blogs about hating students. I figured I don't hate my students, I very much enjoy them, and want to share on some of the funny experiences we have in class. Today was a one of a kind day with the kids, there were so many funny things I could share. Gwen explained to me why girls don't like boys, they like cars and money, so that they can have some free time. Cronius wanted to know why fourth graders didn't have dances and when I explained that there were slow dances at the middle school dances, he was shocked because he thought everyone just danced alone. Cronius decided he is not ready for a dance. Joseph continues to ask me daily if we can have another paper war and reminds me everyday that it is one day longer from the first one we had last week, because the children loved this activity and I told them it would be a while before we did it again. (I was teaching how the soldiers fought in the Revolutionary War, so we all made paper balls with recycled paper and had a war.)

Today was also my first lab while teaching electricity. Last year, I made the mistake of teaching electrical safety first, which meant the children were then afraid to do the lab. It was my first ever lab, where I heard students say, "No, you go first." I still laugh, thinking how the children were afraid to light up the lightbulb because they were afraid of being electrocuted and I had to show them how I could touch the batteries and the wire and not be electrocuted. The first activity was to see what groups could figure out how to light the lightbulb. Then the children went through a bag of items to find out which items were conductors.

We did the fun activity of filling a container up with salt water, putting two long screws on each side of the container and lighting up our lightbulbs. This is one of my favorite activities because last year's class thought this was like magic. I explained to the children, that now we are going to learn why we get out of the pool during a thunderstorm. Some of the children didn't find this as cool as last years group, but I can't really complain because the children actually touched the wires and batteries without fear of being electrocuted. One of the groups was having difficulty, so I went over to help them. I noticed most of their salt was sitting on the bottom, so I was about to reach my hand in and stir up the water when Magdalene stops me and asks, "Wait, are you going to electrocute yourself?"

"No, this won't electrocute me."

"Would you electrocute yourself on purpose?"

Well, there you go, I'm the crazy teacher that is having wars in class and now my children think I would do anything, maybe even electrocute myself.

For the record, I would not electrocute myself on purpose.

The 1 Calorie Breath Mints

A few weeks ago, one of my students brought in a small container of tic tacs. This has started a new trend in the classroom, roughly half my class now comes to school with tic tacs. I also hear at least one child a day ask another if they would like a tic tac. Today, however, one of the children brought in "Ice Breakers." I replied back saying, "Hmm, are we replacing the tic tacs with Ice Breakers? This may be a more expensive alternative to tic tacs."

Cosmas replies back, "Yes, but they last longer than tic tacs, so our parents do not have to buy them as often."

What students choose to remember from first grade?

I meant to post this last week, but completely forgot. When I taught first grade, I taught with my aide Mrs. M. and we had this unwritten rule, if you had to leave for part of the day and were coming back to school, you had to purchase the other person's favorite drink. In the winter this meant starbucks peppermint hot chocolate for me and pumpkin spice soy latte for her.

Recently, with Catholic Schools Week, we had an ice cream day at school and Gwen took this day to remember a special day in first grade, which made me laugh when she said it. The day of ice cream Gwen asks, "What kind of ice cream are we going to have? Are we going to have ice cream sandwiches like the day Mrs. M had to go to court for a ticket, so she bought the entire class ice cream sandwiches?"

Oh, the things they choose to remember. B )

The Teacher Needs an Intervention

My name is Jestine and I'm addicted to diet coke! Here is my story. I do not drink coffee, I cannot stand the smell, and find it nauseating. So, instead of drinking coffee for a caffeine kick, I took up drinking Diet Coke. Not a school day tends to go by without me having Diet Coke.

This past weekend my running season kicked off, my goal is to complete the Grand Prix series of races in my area, along with year two of running the Rock and Roll half marathon. The Grad Prix series consists of 12 races: 1 wild mile, 5 5Ks, 1 4miler, 1 5miler, 1 8K, 1 10miler, 1 15K, and ending with a half marathon. Last running season, I finished my last race 4th in my age group. This years ultimate goal is to place in the top three of my age group, in at least one race. I really want to improve on my running times, so I'm making small changes, for example this years New Years Resolution was to give up doughnuts for the entire year. My latest goal is to cut back on the amount of Diet Coke that I drink.

Last week, I went my entire Monday without Diet Coke, towards the end of the day I realized this and said, "Wow, I did not drink diet coke the entire day!" The children cheered and Regina made me a certificate of achievement. Agnes, who was in Walmart the weekend before, purchased me a four pack of 2 liter Diet Coke, because I loved Diet Coke and hid the soda out of sight. I have now managed to be able to go most of the day without Diet Coke.

Today however, I had a craving in the afternoon for Diet Coke and when I went to have some my students were trying to talk me out of drinking diet coke. Regina told me if I didn't drink the Diet Coke she would make me a certificate. Celine, so cute, used one of my reward methods on me. In first grade, I had Ms. J. Dollars for good behavior. Celine made a Celine dollar to give me, if I could go the entire day without drinking Diet Coke. And in true Catholic fashion Magdalene told me that I should take the Diet Coke Agnes purchased for me and give it to the poor.

As I sit here after a full day school, followed by Spelling Bee club, and piano lessons; I realize that I need to stop drinking Diet Coke, it is what my students want and it is healthier.

Can I get a mute button?

This week, we have been celebrating Catholic Schools Week and yesterday to end our celebration with the kids, kindergarten through fourth grade went into the Parish Hall to watch Ramona and Beezus. Our school secretary left early in the morning because her father is very ill and in the hospital, prayers are welcome, and I was the only other person at school who knew how to pull attendance for the day. If the attendance does not get pulled in the computer system, it will not come out correctly on report cards. At the beginning of the movie, I went to pull attendance, and when I came back, I walked into the movie just as Ramona's teacher is muting the children with her invisible button. I thought to myself, why have I not invented this myself?

I must say I read a few of the Beverly Clearly books when I was in school, but I did not read Beezus and Ramona. I knew going to watch the movie that Ramona is a lively, spunky 8 or 9 year old, who tends to find herself in unwanted trouble. You can actually read the first couple of chapters online at this link, http://browseinside.harpercollinschildrens.com/index.aspx?isbn13=9780380709182. What I saw of the movie it was very cute, but of course there was kissing, which led to the children saying, "EWW!" In fact there was kissing a few times in the movies and when Beezus kisses Henry at the end, Alexander looks at me and says, "Why do they that, this is a kids movie, don't they realize that is inappropriate?"

This comment made me laugh, I really think I'm rubbing off on some of the children. Thursday afternoon during dismissal, Cosmas told me his sister, in high school, likes to watch Jersey Shore when mom and dad aren't home.

Margaret says, "I have never heard of that show."

"Oh, good, because that is inappropriate. Ms. J. would say that is good parenting. You have good parents."

Sitting Alone

A child tends to have to really do something, or repeatedly do something to be in big trouble in my class. One of the children today was caught lying to me and has been caught on a few occasions recently. I try to keep an open mind with the children, and if they are honest and tell the truth, they tend to get a small punishment. Mostly, I just want to know if they realize what they did was wrong and are they sorry for what they did, because if this is the case they need to be forgiven. There are also times when the children do something and not realize it is wrong, so I will explain why it is wrong.

Today a student was upset because another child was laughing at them for something that happened in class. When I asked the child that laughed, she looked at me and said, "no." The rest of the class nodded their heads, yes. I told the other child, that today they will sit the morning away from the other children, because she had the opportunity to be honest and apologize to the other child, and she chose not to. In the past, I have had children learn very quickly what they did was wrong sitting along. They tend to quickly go back to the original spot because they did not like this. They also tended not to do what they were doing to be set by themselves, twice. But then again, there was the case of personal space last year, when some of the children saw this and wanted a desk off alone, so they could have "personal space." It only took the other children roughly a half hour before some of them dreamed to have a desk off away from the other children. This year Cosmas asked, "Ms. J. I think I would like a desk by myself, then I can have personal time." Hmm, last year was personal space, this year is personal time; seriously what is it going to be next year?

Leap Years

Today my class was studying about measurement in calendar time. What is a decade? What is a century? What is a leap year? Hmm, this is where we seem to have gotten a little stuck. So, today when discussing a leap year, we discussed how a person who is born on February 29th, still ages like everyone else. That the difference is that they may not celebrate their birthday as often as everyone else on the actual date they were born. And so, this struck a question from Celine, "Don't you think it hurts that person's feeling when everyone says they are only 3, and they really aren't?"

"Well, I think with time, the person would probably get used to everyone making comments like that."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I am short (only 5ft tall, some of my students are the same height as me). Growing up and even now, people tend to tell me, I'm short. Now, I have heard it so often, that when people tell me I'm short, I always say wow, you just figured that out."

Gwen goes, "I know today I saw you standing next to Cosmas' dad and I was like wow, Ms. J. is short!"

Cronius, you have to love Cronius, because he replies, "Ms. J. isn't short, she just hasn't hit her growth spirt yet."

Valentine's Day

Last year with all our snow days, we were not able to celebrate Valentine's Day, but this year as long as there is a break in the weather we shouldn't have a problem. Today the children have already started talking about Valentine's Day, so I make a small request, please do not buy me any candy. "Why?" Gwen asks.

"Well, you know I like to run, I want to start training to get ready to run some races when the weather warms up." I tell Gwen. I love running and realize that I want to get back into running shape I need to cut down on some of the sweets. The weekend after school started, I ran a half marathon and am hoping to possibly run a full marathon this year.

"You're going to run outside now?"

"No, it is too dark, but I'm hoping to workout inside, so I can be ready to run outside when the weather warms up."

"Well, I'm going to still buy you candy."

Margaret a little confused asks, "Why do you want to stop eating candy?"

So, I tell her, "It isn't good to consume candy when you run, because it can make you sick."

Gwen tells me, "Well, don't eat the candy on the days you run. And if you want to work out you should do Wii Fit. I once lost 15 pounds in 3 days."

"15 pounds???"

"Yeah, I was doing everything: balancing and yoga. It pretty much has everything."

Well, I'm positive Gwen didn't have 15 pounds to lose and the child has really thought this whole candy thing out of eating candy just not on the days I run.

I am a toy

Today I was working on report cards, so I had a sub covering my class, while I printed report cards for the school. During the day I saw my students briefly as I was delivering report cards to teachers to check. Cronius seems to be very attached, so when I walked into the Spanish room while the children were having Spanish he immediately comes and hugs me and asks, "How much do you cost?"

"What do you mean, how much do I cost?"

"Well, I want to buy you and take you home."

"Hmm, I don't think you buy me, but I will see you tomorrow."

Once I was teacher, now I'm a toy that one of my students wants to buy.

Bieber Fever and Ms. J. is ages old

This week my class is reading, "The Case of Pablo's Nose." I get excited every time my class reads this particular story out of their text. It reminds me of my fourth grade year and my addiction to the Encyclopedia Brown series. I shared my excitement with the story to the children in the class and Cronius' response was, "Ms. J. you must have read the Encyclopedia Brown books ages ago." Again, I'm only 26, now I'm ages old. You have to love children though and devoted little students, because when Cronius made his comment, Celine yells back, "JERK!"

"Celine." I say quickly back.

"What Ms. J.? He was being mean to you. You are not ages old."

I thank Celine, but tell her that we can't yell out words like that in class.

Today I also gave the students a writing assignment. They had to pick one famous person they would like to make sculpture of and write why they selected this person. I got a very wide selection of people: Louis Armstrong, Johnny Depp, Michael Jackson, Selina Gomez, Abraham Lincoln, and George Washington. Of course you can't leave out teen celebrity, Justin Bieber. While the children were trying to figure out who they were going to pick, one of the children was trying to remember that guy's name with the hair. I quickly recalled hearing on the radio Justin Bieber pays $18,000 for a haircut. I asked if they were talking about Justin Bieber. Raphael then asks, "You know who Justin Bieber is?"

"Yes."

"Do you find him attractive?"

"No."

"Why?"

"I'm not attracted to teenage boys."

"Oh, that make sense. Were you attracted to teenage boys like Justin Bieber when you were a teenager?"

Yikes, this is getting bad. Sorry to say that tomorrow I will be out of the classroom and will not have any funny stories to share. :(

4th Grade Stand Up Comedy

The weekend after Thanksgiving, the first Sunday of Advent, one of the priests at the church told a joke, which many Catholic adults have probably heard many times. A little boy wants a bike and instead asking Santa for the bike, he asks Jesus. Towards the end of the joke, the boy gets clever and locks up a statue of the Virgin Mary and writes "If you ever want to see your mother again, you will bring me a bike."

The joke is always amusing when you hear a priest tell it before giving his homily, but to my fourth grade class, it was the talk of the town. It was the start of what would be a very comedic year for them. After the joke about the bike, the children were coming into class ready to share jokes. I listened to the jokes, of course, but after the joke that started "Ms. J. there was a priest and rabbi that walked into a ...," I put a small end to jokes. Not really sure where that joke was going, but in my prior experience of jokes starting with a priest and a rabbi, none are usually appropriate for a fourth grader.

Last weekend, one of the members of our church was ordained a deacon and is now a new deacon for our church. The church is going to have a celebration for the new deacon this Sunday and the school children were asked to make cards for him. I told the children that we were going to make cards for our new deacon. They wanted to know who the new deacon was, so I told the children his name. At this point, Celine was starstruck and ready to fall out of her chair with the news. Our new deacon's wife works at our after school program, Celine enjoys going to the after care program and talking with the deacon's wife, so she was almost too excited for words.

The children began making cards and I had told the children that we should write how we will pray for our new deacon. Alexander, one of my top comedians in the class, comes to me while figuring out what he wants to write in his card and says, "Ms. J. do you remember the joke about the boy who wants a bike, so he locks up Mary and writes if you ever want to see your mother again, you will get me a bike."

"Yes, Alexander, I remember that joke."

"Well, wouldn't it be funny, if I wrote in my card, I'll start praying for you, when you start praying for me."

"Uhmmm"

"Do you get it? He has to start praying for me first. It's funny, right?"

"Yes, I get it, but I don't think our new deacon and the other people reading our cards will think of it as being funny."

Well, I didn't Alexander's joke to be appropriate for the deacon, but it was rather clever, so I thought I would share it on here.

What time is it?

Well the fourth grade class and I have hit that time of year where we are praying and hoping for snow. School gets a little crazy because we may be in class for a full week or just one day. So far, we have been in school two days this week, and tomorrow is up in the air. I would lay to say I'm secretly hoping for a 2 hour delay, but I'm not very secretive about that fact. Although, being a short week, this has been a hard week for getting up in the morning, these days off spoil me.

I guess it is time to get started with my funny story of the day. I really should try and do this every day. So, in my class I have this clock on the wall. You know the standard black analog clock you see in most classrooms. I was excited at the beginning of the year when I was given the clock because I used it to replace the old clock, which was promoting some odd brand of medication. It just didn't fit right in the classroom. Well, the black clock started off well, but then the battery died. I put in a new battery and after about a month, the battery died. I put in another new battery, by the next week the time was off. After replacing a number batteries I have decided, I just don't want to keep putting new batteries in the clock.

I have been fine with not having a big clock working in the classroom and have resorted to using my cell phone to keep track of time. This has also made me skilled at guessing the time, sometimes I can get the time correct down to the minute. My students on the other hand, you know how kids constantly want to know how long until lunch, are not enjoying not having the correct time on the classroom clock. Now, I constantly hear, "Ms. J. what time is it?" Jokingly I will sometimes say, "time for you to get a watch."

This little saying can get kind of catchy. I once had at least half the class say it to one of the repeat time askers. Today though Alexander wanted to know the time. Alexander likes to ask the time a lot, so he has heard "time for you to get a watch," a number of times. So, being the smart boy that he is, he decided to try a new approach. He walks to me and says, "Ms. J. I'm sorry I keep meaning to buy a watch when my family goes shopping, but I always forget, so can you tell me what time it is?" I laughed and told Alexander he does not to buy a watch. Maybe tomorrow I should try putting a new battery in the clock.

P.S. Agnes has found my blog and she knows her character name. :)

What is that?

What can I say? Sometimes my students get some really interesting Christmas gifts and I may ask them to bring them to share, because I want to see what it is or what it looks like. For example last year, one of the girls got a doll that she said could breathe. Sure enough she had a baby doll that looked like a real baby breathing. In fact parents picking up their children at the end of the day thought it was a real baby.

This year the hot ticket Christmas item was a fushigi. Gwen wrote in a morning journal before Christmas about wanting one. I had no idea what it was, so I looked it up on youtube. When Gwen announced that she got one for Christmas, I asked her to bring it in. Secretly, I thought I could do all the things on the youtube video. Let me tell you, the people in the video are quite talented, I have not figured it out yet. When it was time for Spanish, Gwen lent me her fushigi ball to try and do the tricks that they did in the video. I carried it while walking with the kids to Spanish.

When we got to Spanish, Mrs. F. sees what is in my hands and asks what it was. Forgetting what it was called I turn towards Gwen and ask her what it was, she says, "A fushigi ball." The rest of the children yell, "it's a rip off."

Mrs. F. looks at the children, who continue to say, "it's a rip off."

Then one of the children says you are supposed to be able to roll it on your arm. Mrs. F. tries this.

What can I say? The people in the video made the fushigi ball look so simple to do tricks, my class is quite disappointed because they were hoping to be able to do the same tricks. Maybe in a couple weeks Gwen will have mastered the fushigi and give the other children a show, then they won't think it is a rip off.

School Nurse

My school secretary, God bless her, she does endless jobs in the office, one of them being caring for injured children that come in from out at recess. The 3rd and 5th grade teacher and I take turns watching the children outside with the school principal. If I am in the office and am not that busy during recess, I have helped out some if the office is busy getting the students ice packs and band-aids. I'll have you know, just in case you didn't, but ice packs are the new band-aids.

Today in comes two of my students while I'm in the office, Cronius and Agnes. Agnes was crying and Cronius being the caring boy he is, walks with Agnes into the office. I tell them to go to the back and Mrs. M will be with them soon. Mrs. M, then thanks Conius and sends him back outside to play. I leave the office and Cronius is still in the hallway.

"Cronius why are you not outside?" I ask.

"Well, I just wanted to ask you why you aren't playing school nurse today?"

I turn around, feeling bad for sending my students to the back of the office, when they obviously expected me to help care for them. I go in the back and cheer up Agnes and send her on her way with Cronius when she is done being bandaged up.