Oh the name game....

Today we started a unit on biographies. I was explaining that biographies are about real people, who did something important, and it tells the story of their life. I read a book about Wilma Rudolph and modeled what facts I would write about her biography. At the end I wanted to check for comprehension, so I began by asking who remembered the name of the person we talked about. One boy raised his hand and answered...

"Umm....Hmmm....I THINK that it was somebody reindeer?"

So you know, Wilma RUDOLPH or REINDEER...I guess it doesn't really matter.

It did make me feel better that while they couldn't quite remember her name, they did remember a lot about her life!

Hold on, what did you just say?

Yesterday was crazy, so I didn't get to post this then, and I can't remember the one I was going to post today, so I'll just post this one from lunch yesterday. First of all, lunch with kindergarteners is like feeding time at a zoo. You just pray for something like spaghetti that will take them a long time to eat. Corn dog days are nightmares. They're done in 5 minutes and then they are trying to sword fight with the corn dog sticks.

So anyway, yesterday at lunch I was sitting by a boy who asked me this...

"Mrs. Barnett, do you know what a swolly is?" (I was confused because he can't quite say his r's yet).

I said, "Umm...I'm not sure."

Boy says, "A sworly (aka swirly), you know, where someone has their head stuck in the toilet?"

I said, "Yes, but how do you know about that? You shouldn't know about that."

Boy says, "I have had one."

I said, "What, who gave you a swirly?"

Boy says, "My mom." (I'm thinking, hold on, what?) "Yeah, I got in trouble, so she picked me up and gave me a swirly."

So I guess spanking is so 1980's...apparently giving your kid a swirly is the new, fashionable form of punishment.

Oh and just so you all feel a little better about this...I'm almost positive there wasn't a lot of truth to this story that he told me.

My momma said...

Today was the 100th day of school for my students, so during one part of the day, they reflected on the year so far and discussed what they had learned. This evolved into a time for them to share what they wanted to be when they grew up. They had to tell what the wanted to be and why. Here was one students' response...

Boy, "I want to be a policeman."

Teacher, "Why do you want to be a policeman?"

Boy, "Because you get the bad guys and you can do anything you want."

Teacher, "Being a policeman doesn't mean you can do anything you want and get away with it. You have to follow the same laws and rules as everyone else."

Boy, "What!? Well that's not what my momma said...My momma LIED to me!"

Well okay, we'll just leave it at that then!

Who said you couldn't talk about that in school...

Today I was doing a picture walk of the book Dan, The Flying Man before reading it to my students. As I went through the pictures I was asking students what they thought was going on in them and what would happen in the book. We arrived at a page where Dan in flying over the sea and there is water and boats in the picture. I asked what was happening in the picture, and here were their responses:

Boy 1: "He's flying over the water."

Boy 2: "I think the people are trying to catch him."

Boy 3: "I think that look's like Jesus's boat!"

Well okay, who said you couldn't talk about Jesus in public schools.

Baby, Baby, Baby, Oh...

So today at the lunch table, I was serenaded by 4 five year old girls singing Justin Beiber's song "Baby." It was quite entertaining and funny and I played dumb and asked them who sang that song. This was the conversation that followed....

Girl one: "Justin Beaver sings that song."

Me: "I think its Justin Beiber, not Beaver."

Girl one: "No, I'm pretty sure it's Beaver."

Girl two: "My dad says Justin Beaver sings like a girl."

Indignant Girl three: "He does NOT sing like a girl. He sings our cheerleading songs. Justin Beaver does NOT sing like a girl."

Moral of the day...don't mess with 5 year old girls and their knowledge of pop culture.

Tough Skin

Today as we were on the rug getting ready for whole group reading, one of the little boys said to our teacher...

"You need some of that cream for your face that my mom has."

Her reply, "What, what cream are you talking about?"

His reply, "You KNOW...that cream that helps you because the skin under your eyes is all squished up."

Glad she has taught kindergarten for many years that has given her tough skin and the ability to laugh it off, apparently you need that quality around 5 year olds.

Maybe we need to teach that ONE more time...

During reading block, one of the centers consists of two students listening to audio books on the computer. Today while my teacher and I were teaching a small group reading lesson, suddenly the entire room was disrupted by one of the tiniest girls in our class (the teacher has nicknamed this little girl mini Snookie per Jersey Shore for your mental image) who began to scream...

"OH MY GOSH, OH MY GOSH, OH MY GOSH....Its King Arthur!"

I walked over to see what she was talking about to find that she had found a book about non other than guess who....Martin Luther King Jr.

Were these kids listening at all during that lesson? Poor MLK.

You need a what...you want to go where?

I'll preface this story by saying that the students in my class are currently learning about winter and are studying arctic animals. Our classroom also has a loft built in the back corner almost like a playhouse. To decorate the playhouse, we covered the front and made it look like an igloo and the students are going to put facts and drawings of arctic animals on the igloo. With that in mind, we had the following conversation today:

Girl in class walks up behind me and the teacher and asks something about a glue stick, but we can't really understand her. I say...

"Why do you need a glue stick?"

She replied, "No, I said, can I go in the glue stick?"

My teacher and I looked at each other very confused and realized about the same time that she meant to ask if she could go in the IGLOO not the GLUE STICK.

So you know, Igloo, Glue stick, whatever....apparently they're all the same thing.

What's in a Name?

So, today, we finally had our MLK lesson after the students returned from the holiday. We read a book about MLK and created a picture of him as well. When we were wrapping up the picture activity, one of the kids said...

" Wait! He needs a crown."

The teacher responded, "No, remember, we talked about this. He wasn't a king, that was his last name. Like your last name. So it was like his name was Martin King, and Luther was his middle name."

A little boy beside me said, "Martin (giggles)...that sounds like fartin'....Why would a parent name their kid a name that rhymed with fartin'!?"

Oh dear...what do you even say to that!? From now on as a teacher, whenever teaching about MLK, I think I will unfortunately and fondly think of him as Martin (fartin') Luther King, Jr., thanks to a 5 year old boy!

Some Kind of King Day?

During a time when students were having free play time, I overheard a conversation between two students. It went like this....

Student 1: "So why are we out of school on Monday?"

Student 2: " I don't know...I think it's some kind of king day."

Student 1: "But we don't have a king...we have a president."

Student 2: "I know, but I think we used to and he died or something so that's why we get out of school."

Oh dear...maybe we should have had our MLK lesson BEFORE the holiday instead of after!

A Teacher's Advice

When my teacher was talking about the first two weeks of school, particularly the first two weeks of Kindergarten, she made the statement:

"The first two weeks of kindergarten are like labor...if you ever remembered them, you'd never do it again!"

I thought her words were pretty wise.

He's a feisty one!

During a math lesson, the students were measuring their footprints with locking cubes. One boy was having a trouble locking two of the cubes together and asked me to push on his hand so they would lock together.

I said, "Okay, but I don't want to hurt you or smash your fingers."

His reply, "I might be small, but I'm fierce...and I ain't lyin' lady!"

Well...alrighty then!

I don't wanna grow up....

On my very first day visiting my kindergarten class during student teaching, I had a chance to meet the students. My teacher told me that the mom of one of the boys in her class was also a student at Montevallo. His response:

"Yeah, she is...but she's older than you...you know...she's like a grown up."

So...I guess at 29, I still don't qualify as a grown up in the eyes of a five year old.

Well that sounds tasty!

In my fifth grade class last semester we constructed terrariums as a part of their science lesson plan. We placed crickets in the terrariums and when I asked one of the students about this project he responded by saying this...

"Mrs. Barnett....Have you ever heard of chocolate covered crickets?"

My response: "Umm...I think so, why?"

His reply: "Because I have had them and they are SO GOOD...sweet and just a little crunchy!"

My response: "Umm...okay?"

I wanted to laugh until I realized he was serious. Then all I could think was eww!

Catching Up

I am going to post several posts in a row to catch up on some of the funny quotes that I have heard over the last few months.