"What do you mean, go home?"

"Alright, guys, go ahead and clean up, please." Seemed to me like a simple request at the end of a Friday before a three day weekend.

A student stalks up to me. "What you mean, 'home'?" he said. "I don't go home!"

(knowing that this student's family is intermittently homeless and living with relatives, I was prepared for some sort of worried discussion. Oh, no.)

"I go to the zoo!" he continued. "For dinner!" He rubbed his stomach. "I eat the animals!"

Oh, Tom.

Boom-de-ada, boom-de-ada, boom-de-ada

My students have been working on illustrating a songbook of "I love the mountains", etc. Here's one of the pages that a student came up with. Her interpretation of "the lights are low" cracked me up!

Those lights aren't just low... they're dead!

Mr. Patron comes to school

One of my kids showed up today with a postcard flyer, advertising a series of performances, featuring artists such as "Mr. Patron", and "Mr. Criminal". For reference, here is a picture of Mr. Patron.

Irvin was sharing his flyer around, telling everyone that Mr. Patron is his uncle. "But Mr. Patron is only his name when he's singing", he said (or it might have been "sinning"). "Oh?" I replied. "Yeah", he said. "At our house? We call him George."

Peering over Irvin's shoulder, Tom chimed in. "Mr. Cri-mi-nal. Ooooh, he steals stuff!"

Best.

The perils of reading instruction

I was working with a first grader today, doing a reading assessment. The sentence in the middle of the book was, "A girl asked Kate to sit with her at lunch." She's doing fine at the start, but then trips over "sit" and goes back to sound it out. She starts decoding with a "sh", and my heart drops a little bit. And indeed, she confidently reads through the sentence, "A girl asked Kate to sh** with her at lunch". Phenomenal. Had to keep the giggle inside, though.

"What's the deal with bookstores?"

Overheard observational humor from a 7 year old:

"Barnes and Noble? Seriously? They're a book store. Why are they selling toys?"

"Fifth best? FIFTH best? Oh, okay"

At lunch today, I was informed by a first grader that I was the fifth best kicker at kickball. In my head, I'm getting all riled up. "Fifth best? FIFTH best? I will kick that ball so hard tomorrow, they won't find it until September!"

However, since I am a consummate professional (most of the time), I didn't say that out loud. Instead, I questioned. "Oh, Jaydeen?" I nonchalantly replied. "Fifth?"

"Yes! Well, God is first. And then Mary, Joseph and Jesus."

"And Buddha!" chimed in Tom.

"Right, Buddha! See, Mr. Graham?"

I didn't want to point out that the inclusion of Buddha pushed me down to sixth. Ouch, my pride.

"Hey, everybody! Take five."

I've been reading "Elmer and the Dragon" during read-aloud, and one of the characters in that book is a canary, King Can XI. At one point, he lists all the former kings (King Can I, King Can II, etc, etc) Jaydeen was intensely curious as to why he was called X I, so I told her to talk to me at choosing.

I explained Roman Numerals to her at choosing, and then showed her this video. At the end of it, she exclaimed, "Take five! I get it! Because V is five!"

Yessssssssss.

"Mr. Graham, am I a loser?"

A quote from math time today:

"Mr. Graham, am I a loser...?"

I didn't respond, but just gave him a disparaging look.

"That's right, I'm not!" *flex* "I'm a winner! I'm buff and I'm strong!"

At lunch today:

"Mr. Graham, he called me fat!"

"No, I didn't!" the accused retorted, and then continued very matter-of-factly, "I called you fat the polite way - I called you chubby."

Fair doesn't mean that everyone gets the same thing...

I have a kindergartner in my class who is pretty overweight (like Augustus Gloop-style overweight). He's a sweet kid, but sitting on the rug is a bit of a burden for him, and he gets fidgety and distracting pretty quick. Having him sit by himself, having him sit in a chair, sit someplace that he can lean on a bookshelf/wall - tried all of these things, but there wasn't a long term fix.

Then Rose (genius next-door teacher extraordinaire) ((and also this student's math teacher)) got a couple of camping chairs (like this one, but without the hibiscus pattern)
for our friend to try out. SUCCESS! So, he tried one in math, and I hadn't had a chance to try it out or explain it in the classroom, but I took one along when we went out to the portable for music class. I set it down, and he settled right in to it. Another student (didn't notice which one) started some sort of whine a la, "Mr. Graaaaham, I waant" and that's about as far as they got before Cheyenne landed on them like a ton of bricks. "Fair doesn't mean that everyone gets the same thing, it means that everyone gets what they need!" BOOM!

THAT was an awesome moment, and a proud one, too. That's definitely the classroom culture I've been working towards. Booyah.