Age is Just a Number...

One of my little girls is head over heels in love with an actor named Sean Faris.  The only problem is that she's 11 and he's 28.  A slight age difference to be sure.

However, she is not deterred.  "He'll wait on me." she tells us.

I asked her one day, "But would you marry such an old man?"

She looked shocked.  "No!" she exclaimed.

I thought I had broken the obsession.  Silly me.  She wasn't done.

"He has to propose before I can marry him.  Duh." 

This is logical.  I don't know how I thought anything else.

Starstruck

I don't watch much TV, so I'm usually out of the loop of new actors and shows.  As far as I'm concerned, Punky Brewster still rules the airwaves.  Anyway, my students usually keep me informed of the relevant shows.  We may not know whats on the news, or have any idea what is said during a state of the union, but we have Disney programming down. 

So there's a new actor named Sean Faris.  He's less than one year younger than me.  And at least two of my little girls have a MASSIVE crush on him.  And one of my little boys has a budding man-crush on him.  So, this guy is all that AND a bag of potato chips.

Today, during a few minutes of free time between classes, my trio fan club (called either the Faris Wheel or Sean Squad, depending on which girl you ask) were comparing Sean, Zac Efron, and Justin (full-body shudder) Bieber. 

They had decided that Zac had nice abs but was old news (though still hot), and that Justin was hot, but too girly (agreed).  They also agreed that Sean had a great set of abs. 

As they were discussing his abs, one little girl gets a far away look in her eyes.  She reaches out with one hand and says, "I just wanna touch 'em..." while making pawing movements.

My aide and I were crying so hard we couldn't reply.  If this guy only knew.  FYI, Sean Faris, according to wikipedia and IMDB is single.  So they (the girls) are convinced he's waiting on them.  And the boy is convinced that Mr. Faris is waiting on his mom. 

Next week, on As the Class Turns...

Bodybuilding

Somehow, today after recess, the boys in my class got to showing off their muscles.  They all had their shirt sleeves pulled back and were flexing for all the girls in the class. 

One of my skinniest, tiniest, most petite little girls wanted in on the action.  So she lifts her arm and flexes.  Honestly, there was no change in her arm. 

Sadly, she reached up with her other arm and squeezed the flexing arm.  Again, not much change.

Then she had an epithany.  "It feels like pudding."

I couldn't answer.  I was crying.

Being Helpful

I've talked alot about the climbing wall in our playground.  It's a great source of amusement.  Today, one of our little girls was determined to make it over on her own, without any help, even from me.  Once at the top, however, she got stuck. 

Luckily, she has a best friend that was there to support her.  The three supervising adults were laughing so hard we couldn't sit down.  The buddy on the ground, you know, for support, unleashed a torrent of taunting that I have rarely heard equal to. 

Probably the best moment came when the support girl started to climb up, which caused some vibrations.  "Stop climbing!  Get off!  What are you doing?!" shouted the girl at the top.

Without pausing, the other girl continued to climb and yelled, "I'm the fire department!  Coming to get a scaredy cat out of a tree!  (Ambulance noises)" 

So what finally got her over the edge?  The support girl's promise to just go away.

To Be or Not to Be...

The other classes, especially the preschool and kindergarten, will sometimes come into my class for a tour of the "zoo".  I usually have at least a degu and three snakes in the class.  The little ones love to come in and I'll tell a bit about the creatures and let the little ones pet the animals.

Today, the preschool came to a visit.  They had no idea what a degu was, but they were very interested.  I asked if anyone knew what it was. 

One spellbound little boy said, "I think there's something wrong with your rat, Mister..."

Well, that's one way to look at it.

Lefty's Back In Town

Sorry for being gone so long!  I was in AIT training for the army and was unable to post.  I'm back and working on one post per day once again. 

My first day back in town, I came to school to visit and say hi to everyone.  I had missed the first day of school this year and there was a sub in my room.  When I walked in at the end of the day, naturally, the kids had all kinds of stories to tell me. 

One little girl was telling me about a movie that I simply must go see, when a little boy to the side of her started pestering her, wanting to tell me something different.  She ignored him for a moment, then turned to him.

"Don't make me pull off righty." she told him.

As I pondered what on Earth that could mean, she pulled off her right flip-flop and proceded to smack the tar out of the boy.  He stopped. 

It looks like a commonplace occurance since I've been gone.  There is a healthy respect for "righty" in my class now.

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.