Earth Day... Yesterday

Last night, we had an awards banquet for some conservation stuff the kids had done earlier in the year.  It just happened to fall on Earth Day 2010.  Doing the ceremony were some folks who don't normally come out to our school.

As they were cleaning at the end, they got confused as to which recyclable bin to put things, so they yelled for assistance in determining where to put everything.

Our principal yelled back, "Don't worry about the recycling, just throw it in the trash bin!" He was trying to help them get done and get out and didn't want to have to explain how to sort.  Totally understandable, they were here to give us food, awards, and money.  Why bother them with such details, right?

One of our little boys got a shocked look on his face.  "But, it's Earth Day..." he lamented.

The poor principal got turned into the bad guy from Captain Planet with four words.

Good Nails

I've mentioned before about how children will often come in with bug bites and rashes.

One little boy came in today scratching like crazy.  I asked him why he was scratching (besides the fact that it itched).

"Poison ivy" he replied digging a little deeper into his skin.

"Do you want some poison ivy cream so it doesn't itch?" I offered.

"Nope" he said.  "I kinda like scratchin'."

Fair enough.

Shhhh... Be very, very quiet...

The other day, we were priveleged enough to go on a field trip to the state capitol.  Since it's a long trip, we got back well after school had let out and were waiting on all the children to get picked up.  Finally, all we had left was one little boy, who was staring hard at a flock of birds attacking a bird feeder nearby.

All of a sudden, he jumps up and exclaims, "I'm gonna catch me a bird."  Thus declared, he began creeping slowly and stealthily toward the bird feeder.

After watching his slow progress, the aide that had went with us stood up and declared that she was heading home.  The little boy slowly turned, put his finger to his lips, and went, "Shhhh".   Then, he turned back to his birds and resumed creeping.

She laughed (quietly) and left.  I watched the predator.  Once he hit the end of the pavement, he got down flat on the grass and proceded to very slowly military low-crawl towards the birds an inch at a time. 

Finally, he got about 6 feet away from the feeder when the birds all took flight.  On his knees, he lifted his hands in the air and wailed, "Nooooooooo!" in the style of "Apocolypse Now."

"It's been almost a week since I killed me a bird...."

Talkative...

Sorry for the delay.  Between a field trip, Spring Break, and being sick, I've missed a few days.  My apologies.

I teach four grades: third to sixth.  In each grade level, we have a set of twins.  It's a unique situation that I'm sure scientists would love to study sometime.

Anyway, One of my twin sets is a set of girls.  One day in science class, the talkative one of the set began telling a story.  I should note here that one of her story can cause your legs to go numb, so we (the class) kind of sat down and waited for the storm to die down. 

This little girl is known for her long diatribes and abrubt endings.  As her story gained length and there seemed to be no end in sight, the survivors looked around at each other for support.  It was going to be a long haul. 

After a few more minutes, the story ended suddenly.  Feeling slightly relieved, I looked at the little girl who had just finished her narrative and asked her a question. "Do you talk in your sleep?"  Then, not to seem rude, I added, "Just curious."

She wasn't offended.  "Nope."  she said.  "But my sister does!"

Beside me, the quieter sister muttered under her breath, "That's the ONLY time I get to talk..."

She has to save up, but they're good when she gets them out.

Starving Artist

It was a nice, sunny, warm day, so I thought I'd have class outside.  We had been talking about life science and food chains and adaptations and so forth, so I had an idea.  Any idea, really, just to get us out of the room. 

I gave each kid a pencil, paper, and a magnifying glass.  Each kid got their own square foot section of playground.  Their instructions were to look closely in that square foot and write down or draw as many organisms as they could find.  The idea was to get them to look deeper and notice that nature is more than trees and deer.

They searched for a few minutes with some mild discoveries.  One little girl was amazed with a dead beetle she found.  She ended up having to take it home to show mommy.  I know mommy will be every bit as thrilled as the little girl.

Anyways, one little boy got really excited when a gnat landed on his paper.  "I don't even have to look in the grass.  Nature is coming to me!"

I reminded him to write down gnat on his paper.

"Naw" he said.  "I'm gonna trace it."

Trace.  A gnat.  Ok.

He put his pencil down.  Frowned.  Pulled his pencil back up and studied the tip.

"Hmm.  Squished it.  Guess you're not supposed to trace gnats." he concluded.

Fast learner, I was impressed.  The gnat was not quite as impressed.

Physician, Heal Thyself...

Like most teachers, I have a first aid kit in the room where I keep a selection of items that we routinely need.  Things like band-aids, aspirins, neosporin, hand sanitizer, tums, and itch cream are needed alot for both what kids do during the day (especially recess) and what they bring from home.  Just normal kid-injuries (kidjuries for short). 

I have a couple types of anti-itch creams.  I have cortisol for general itching, a special kids bug bite cream, and a gel for poison oak, ivy, so forth.  We need these more and more the closer we get to summer break.

One of my little boys came in the other day scratching wildly. 

"Oh, you gotta help me" he said.  "This poison ivy's about to kill me"  While talking, he continued to dance around the floor and scratch fairly deeply.

While I was getting the gel out, I asked, "How long has it itched?"  I was just curious as to how long this poor kid has suffered.  It was Monday and I wondered if he had done it recently or had to deal with it all weekend.

"I'm itching it now" he said.  "I've itched it all morning, I itched it last night.  Heck, I've itched it many times.  Give me the itchy stuff!"

I handed it right over.  I didn't want him to have to itch it anymore on my account.

Sleepy...

Sometimes my classes take in alot.  I'm usually proud of how much they can retain, even it's a bit advanced for their age.

One day we were going over a pretty hard subject.  I know it was hard, but I like to challenge them.  Apparently, the challenge was too much that day.

One little girl started smacking herself in the forehead for no apparent reason.

"What are you doing?" I asked her.

"Sorry, my brain fell asleep" she said. 

Hmm, maybe it's time for a break...

Almost Made It

This story happened a long time ago.  Back when I was in high school, my mom worked at an elementary school.  I bring this up because that meant I "volunteered" for a lot of afterschool projects working with elementary kids. 

In this story, I and some others were babysitting some small children while their parents took some kind of class.  It was at school, so everyone's familiar with the layout.  I'm not used to dealing with preschool to kindergarten age for extended periods, so I was amazed at the amount of potty breaks we had to have in an hour.  Truly astounding.  Oh, and I love how they don't always share that they need to go.  They like for you to discover all on your own.

This I know now.

So I'm scanning the room, trying to control the chaos, or at least pretend to have it in hand.  That's when I see him.  This little boy is about two and a half feet tall and weighs maybe 35 pounds soaking wet with a backpack.  He is tiny.  And he is doing the tiniest version of the "gotta pee" stance I've ever witnessed. 

I walk over and say, "Bub, do you have to go to the bathroom?"  He nods yes.  "Well go on" I tell him.

He takes two microscopic steps and looks up.  "Can't walk mister."

Uh oh.

I'm new to this.  I didn't know what else to do.  The restrooms are about twenty feet down the hall. 

I pick the kid up and run for the bathroom, much in the style of Adam West's Batman running while holding a bomb. 

I'm running like never before.  I close the distance.  The kid has a strange look.  I run faster.

We get to the door.  I kick it open and prepare to leap through.

At this point, the little boy (whose name I never learned) looks up at me and says...

"Never mind"



Almost. Made. It.

Fairy Shoes

So there I was, holding the door the other day because I had early duty.  To those who don't know what that means, I was there early to watch the children while they came in and ate breakfast while the other teachers trickled in.  We take turns.

Anyway, one of our teeny little girls walked past and as she did, I noticed her shoes lighting up when she walked.  I love those things.

As she walked by, I said, "Them's some sparkly shoes you got on, girl."

Without looking up, she replied, "Those are my twinkle toes."

I had just been served comedically by a 6 year old.  Lovely.

Strength

I've mentioned before about the climbing wall we recently erected on our playground.  The kids love this thing.  We have several that conquer the tower everyday.  We also have some that ALMOST conquer the tower everyday.  And then, we have the group that conquers it daily, but not without help.

One of our tiny (tiny, tiny) little girls was climbing today.  She climbs everyday and can almost do it by herself.  Today, she learned a new trick.  She stuck her scrawny legs through the metal net and hung upside down.

She hung there for several minutes waving at friends and yelling at the teachers to look at her before she decided it was time to get back off for a few minutes. 

She grunted, she groaned, and she stretched and moaned for the longest of whiles and yet, had nowhere to go. 

Sorry, my mind went all Dr. Suess for a moment.

Anyway, after a while of struggling she yelled for me.  "Help!  My butt muscles are too weakly to pull me up!" she screamed at me.

Honestly, how many times can you honestly say that you've had that phrase screamed at you?

That's what I thought.

On a Roll...

Sometimes my students, during the day, will earn "time outs" for recess where they have to stand a while and not get to play for a few minutes.  Occasionally, I'll make a deal with the offender.  If you don't get in trouble for the rest of the day, I'll forget about your timeout.

One morning, a kid had gotten in trouble during breakfast, before even getting to the classroom, and earned a time out.  Since the kid wasn't the type to usually get in trouble, I made the deal with them.

About ten minutes later, we were in the classroom ready to go.  The kid raised their hand and asked if they had gotten rid of the time out yet.

"Not yet" I said, "You've only been in here a few minutes."

"I know" they answered.  "But I'm on a roll by being good so far and I don't want to ruin it."

The scarier thing is that the longer I think about that, the more sense it makes.

Mysterious Marks

This morning, one of my little boys came up to tell me something.  The best way I can describe it is to just write it in script form.

Little Boy:  Hey, yesterday I wore shorts cuz it was warm out!  But I got scratches everywhere.

Me:  Well, thats ok.  Scratches just means that you did something instead of sitting around.

Little Boy:  But I didn't do anything yesterday.

Me:  I'm confused then.  How did you get scratched up?

Little Boy:  I don't know!


Cue: X-Files theme.  Mulder and Scully need to come investigate.

Dusty Out There

We had a beautiful day today.  It's a Friday, it's beautiful, and we had stuff going on throughout the day.  Therefore, I decided my last class was going to do something outside.  At the last second, I concluded that we should go and draw stuff on our basketball court with chalk. 

So my third graders and I were outside drawing animals for foods chains and such.  It was hot out, very hot and dry.  I didn't realize how dry it was out there.

After about an hour, when class was up, we all lined up at the door.  One of my little girls was holding one hand above her head and holding that arm's sleeve open with her other hand. 

I was a little confused.

"What are you doing?" I asked her.

"I'm dusting in there" she replied.

Oh, well that makes sense.  I don't know why I didn't think of that in the first place.

Easter Eggs

At my little country school, our parents get together and have an Easter Egg Hunt on our playground for any kids that want to play.  The eggs have a little candy or cheap toy in them, and the kids love it.  Even my older 6th graders love to do it. 

The kids get a little too excited sometimes, as any teacher will tell you.  So before they came to get my class to go hunt eggs, I sat them down for a quick talk.  I told them that they had to set the example for the school and that they needed to really behave and mind well so that we could get everthing done and we needed their help to make everything work, and so forth and so on.

One of the last things I said was about how the parents had spent so much time and effort and money to make this happen so they should be appreciative.

One of my little girls raised her hand and I called on her.  She started telling us, "Man, my parents are cheapskates.  When I was little, they used to hide rocks for us to find." 

At this point, I'm about to pop.  That's funny.  And sad.  Mostly funny, especially if you could see this kid's face.  She was thrilled that she had a funny story to tell.

She continues, "And we had to find just the right size rock, or we didn't get no prize."

Wait a minute.  I had to ask.  "So they made you hunt for rocks, but they bought prizes?" I asked.  "What were the prizes?"

"Bigger rocks."

I was done with questions.  It was my fault.  I asked.  I should have known better, but I asked anyway.  And now I couldn't breathe.