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."