If you have six cookies and there are three kids………

Apparently since school is out for the majority of the district (and that’s another whole pet peeve), someone has too much free time.  They have put a filter block on blogs.  I can’t get to my school blog from school anymore.  Oddly, I can still access blogs to read through Google Reader, I just can’t go directly to the blogs proper, and I can’t post.  I guess it’s no surprise, I was a little surprised I could l get to them in the first place.

Today we were doing math and I was trying to get the kids to figure out how to divide up a bunch of Unifix  Cubes into equal piles.  Getting them to problem solve is like pulling teeth.  Actually, I think I’d RATHER pull teeth.  After working at it on the rug for about 45 minutes, and still dealing with a lot of glazed over eyes, I put my head down on the floor and said, “I want my Momma, I think I’m going to cry.”  My new kid (the one driving me crazy) said, “Mr. B’s not going to cry, he’s a MAN.”   Then he nudged me (I had my face down in my hands), “Come on Mr. B. – MAN UP -  be a MAN.”

Where do they get this stuff?

The Earring

One of my boys got an ear pierced and an earring a week or so ago.   Today he lost the earring during lunch recess.  It’s shaped in the shape of a letter S with little fake diamonds on it,  (we HOPE they were fake, if not, someone is an idiot, and I don’t mean the kid).   The shape is odd because it isn’t any of his initials.  Whatever.

He lost it.

After lunch he was pretty upset, he said his mom told him if he lost it, he would get a “whuppin”.  So we took a few minutes and the class all went out and looked for it in the grassy area where he thought he lost it.  No luck.

Awhile later, the class was all excited, one of the kids had apparently stepped on it and the peg had stuck in the bottom of his shoe and he had been walking around on it for awhile.  On concrete part of the time.  It was now bent, and missing about half of the little (we hope) fake diamonds.  I straightened it out, and had him sanitize it with hand sanitizer, then I used an antiseptic wipe on his ear and put it back in.  I keep a bunch of earring backs, hair rubber bands, and assorted other odds and ends that I might need taking care of 5 year olds.

Since technically it is no longer lost, maybe he will be spared the “whuppin”.

One can only hope.

Funny Kids

My kids were laughing the other day so I listened to see what they were laughing about.

One of my boys SINGS to himself, everytime he goes to the bathroom.  I don’t think he thinks about the whole class HEARING him when he does it.

Humm, the non stopping, incessantly talking, jabbermouth of a new kid.

He can’t stop.

Talk, talk, talk, talk talk. interrupt, talk some more, interrupt some more, talk, talk, talk………

I told him the other day,  “I bet you would talk if there was a guy behind you with a sword to chop off your head if you talked.”

He just looked at me and then asked, “What kind of sword?”

He was in timeout for talking and interrupting and after a while I asked him if he was ready to be quiet and rejoin the group, which of course made him think he could talk…………. you know,  about talking and not talking………   So I let him stay there some more……..

What is it about Kindergarten kids……….????

 AT LEAST ONCE every year.    

You might not know it from some of the things i say, but I do love my kids……….

And this one?  Normally can’t keep her shoes tied to save her life.

One of the hazards of living close to your school

It’s not really a hazard, and not a problem, but since I transferred schools last year, the main shopping district, with  Walmart, and Target in it, is now common ground for my shopping and the students from my school.  It’s always funny to run into kids outside of the school context.  They look at you like you are an alien or something.  They just don’t know what to think when they see you someplace else.  Like I live at school or something.  Like teachers don’t have a life…….OK, maybe we don’t, but we are allowed out once in awhile……

Anyway, my granddaughter had her 7th birthday party Saturday at Pistol Pete’s Pizza Parlor.  While there I ran into one of my students.  THE student.  The one that makes my life the most interesting, this year.  You know, the one who’s goal and mission in life seems to be to make me crazy.  Her mom says the same thing, so it’s not just me.  Her little sister is in preschool at our school and I have tried to trade, but the preschool teacher won’t even talk to me about it.  Little sister is NOT like my little darling.  And little sister was having a birthday party too.

So the kid from my class kept swinging by to check me and our party out.  Apparently she didn’t get enough of me last week at school.  After she hit me up for arcade tokens (of which I had none),  I asked her how many kids were at her sister’s party.  She gave it some thought and finally said she didn’t know.  She then looked at our party and said, “I don’t know how many, but they are all black…..”  Because clearly, the kids at my granddaughter’s  party were not.

Kids.

Wonderful Worms………

In our reading series, we are doing a unit on insects and such and today we read this book.  On the way to school this morning I stopped by a fishing supply store and bought some night crawlers.  After we read the story and talked about the book for a bit, I had them go to their tables and I put a paper plate on each table then got the worms out of the fridge and put a couple on each plate.  I’ve done this before, so some of what followed was predictable.

First there were the “eww!! and  icks”  and other noises of disgust, followed quickly by curiosity.   Well, for the most part.  The most “Macho” Hispanic boy was away from his table crying, almost in hysterics, and the most opposite of macho girl, asking matter-of-factly if she could hold one……(turns out SHE has a pet snake, “it doesn’t bite”)  I had laid the ground rules that they could touch, but they were NOT to hurt the worms, they were living creatures too.  What followed was some of the most absorbed, focused investigation that I have seen out of this crew.  Most  at least touched, and some held the worms.  One girl kept saying she wanted to hold one, but every time I would approach her hands with the worm, she would shrink away.  Just couldn’t quite get over the idea of touching that worm.

That was in the morning, later, just before going home, I let them see and touch the worms again, this time, many more actually held the worms.  It was really fun to watch.  City kids don’t get much “Nature”.  I really wanted to be a fly on the wall of that conversation when they went home, “Well, what did you do in school today?”  “Played with worms.”

My Wife the Librarian

My wife is an elementary school librarian, in other lives she’s been a 5th grade teacher, a kindergarten teacher, and a 1st grade teacher.  The other day she had a 5th grade class acting up in the library and she made the comment to them that they were acting like kindergarteners (she seriously maintains that there are a lot of similarities).  One boy replied, ” I’m just a kindergartener in a 5th grade body.”   She about choked.

The Moon

My son posted this image of the Moon and Venus from yesterday.  His three year old was arguing with her older sister (12) about whether or not the solar system had 8 or 9 planets.  The three year old maintained that people had decided that Pluto wasn’t a planet so there were 8 planets not 9.  I want her in my class.  Well, maybe not.  She would probably be correcting me all the time.

Speaking of the Moon, one of my kids mooned the class on Wednesday, so she has been taking a little break from school……..  It’s been peaceful and nice the last few days……….

A Twenty…….

We have a weekly school wide writing prompt.  All classes are supposed to participate.  Naturally the product generated in Kindergarten will be somewhat different than that generated in 5th grade (one would hope).  For my kindergarten kids to do it, most of the basic prompt is copied directly from either the board, or a handout.  Each week, one sample is submitted from each class and posted on the walls in the school.  I would have selected this one, but this kid has been selected a couple of times recently, once just last week.  Last week the writing prompt was “If I were President, I would……..”  This same kid in one draft wrote.  “If I were President, I would lower taxes.”  His second sentence was, “If I were President, I would give more money to the schools.”   I wish I knew who he was listening to, and I wonder if they know he is listening that well……….

Anyway, this one just cracked me up, from the picture right down to the way he said his best present was “a twenty”.  Not $20.00, or twenty dollars, but “a twenty”.