The Magician

Tattling is a popular pastime in grade school.
We have caterpillars in our classroom and I had a student tattle a rather serious offense the other day. I was told that a boy in the class had somehow got a hold of a caterpillar and was holding him where we usually read our books.

All the clues added up: The boy had been a sort of assistant when i was transferring the last of the caterpillars, he is sneaky sometimes, he LOVEs critters and a group of students were gathered around him looking at something in his hands...

So I marched up to him and asked him straight up if he had a caterpillar. Then came the astonishing moment for when the boy slowwwwwly opened his hands... there i saw it... he had magically turned his caterpillar into .......a pencil lead.

Thorax

We have a problem in my grade one classroom.

ANTS

Kids love them. They love watching them, squishing them, letting them run all over their hands ...the sad thing is they love them more than math, more than writing, more than reading and more than listening to anything I have to say. This morning I had this conversation with one of these Ant lovers.

Little girl: There's ants marching all over our classroom!

Me: I wish they'd march somewhere else.

Little girl: Yeah, like Newfoundland.


Lastly, I named this post Thorax because I wanted some sort of ant related term. Looks like I actually remember something from elementary other than the bat jokes I put on my grade three animal project.

BLT sandcastle

I love Primary.

Yesterday I was supposed to explain to them how sand was made. I asked them first what they thought. My two favorites were 1) an asteroid hit the earth and created sand and, 2) sand is actually crumbled up peices of bread. Both were said in complete seriousness. I learned a lot. Next time i'm at the beach I intend to make a sandwich ....and watch the sky (just in case).

Happy Valentimes day!

Let's just start with I love that kids say ValenTIMES and not ValenTINES.

This week a primary with a long flowing mullet informed me that he was probably going to fall in love with a girl. And then almost instantly he WAS in love with a little girl named Emily. When i asked him about it he looked at me very seriously and said " I am falling into her love". Which I thought for a five year old was very romantic.

Tiny winter thoughts

The other day I asked some primarys to say their name and their favorite thing to do in the winter. A few kids said snow forts, one said snow angels, two said drink hot chocolate but my favorite of all was when a little boy said : "my favorite wintah activity is scoobeedooing!"

Math sickness

My favorite teaching moment this year happened when i was passing out math worksheets to a grade 5 class.

Grade 5 student: "Math! i'm allergic to math!"

Me:" if you were allergic to math you would have a doctor's note to get out of it."

- several minutes pass -

Students: " um, here, i have this for you"

- Student passes me note -

Note: "charles is allergic to math. Signed- the doctor"

Me: " How funny charles, I've never heard of any doctor names "the doctor".

- Charles takes back the note and returns seconds later. The note is now signed "Dr. Einstein"

Me: " Your doctor is doctor Einstein?"

Another kid in the class pipes up: "Dr. Einstein? uh yeah, he's my doctor too!"

Me: "Charles, do your math"

I thought that was the end of it but later when i went to my desk I saw another note.

Note: " Charles is allergic to french as well"

Catch ream ahhhhh .....is who this entry is for

A certain someone who is home a lot wants me to update this more AND since I love her I will. Get ready for a a DOUBLE ENTRY!

1) I was in the office of a school yesterday and a little boy came in all rattled. Usually children are sent to the office because they are bad so the acting vice principle asked him why he was there. it went like this...

Vice principle: Why are you in here?

Boy: Our class was being noisy and our teacher yelled at us really loud and now my throat hurts.

Vice Principle: So WHY are you here?

Boy: Our class was being noisy and our teacher yelled at us really loud but I was being good and now my throat hurts.

Vice princple and I make eyes at each other like...is this boy really here to tell on his teacher?

Vice principle: Go back to class.

Tip for children trying to tell on their teachers: say your EARS hurt for a teacher yelling not your throat....that just doesn't make sence.

2. I was walking down a school hallway today and a middle aged lady was sitting with two kids.

The kids were talking to her about somthing and she said " I'm really not feeling that well for that today" and then I here a little boy say in a VERY excitted voice " I know what will make you feel better......(dramatic pause)..... A SONG!"

For some reason I thought that was really cute. In reality what would have made that lady feel beter was if her kids were at a babysitters and she was doing anything else.