We recently had Open House night at my school… you know, where the kids bring their parents in and drag them around the school to meet their teachers.

As a project for Open House, I recorded my students acting out scenes of a story we had been working on.  Then I used iMovie to put it all together into one little movie.  It was really a hassle, but turned out quite cute.  Anyway… my plans were to show the movie that night right from my laptop with a projector.  Ha… the mac had other ideas, of course.

I checked out the projector from the library, and when I tried to set up the system, I discovered that the cable did not plug into the new laptop.  Grrrrrr.  Of course nobody was around after school to help…
so I came in an hour early for Open House that night and managed to track down our helpful media specialist.  She found the updated adapter for me.  (Apple is really good about making you buy 100 new accessories when you upgrade your computer.)  I set everything up with the new adapter… turned everything on… nothing.  NOTHING!

The media  specialist came down to help me, but couldn’t get the thing to work either.  We WANTED to call the technology dude for help, but he’s one of those people who make you feel like an idiot when something doesn’t work… and then proceeds to tell everyone else what an idiot you are… for years.  And more times than not, he can’t fix it either and then proceeds to blame the problem on something YOU did… not his lack of skill.  Neither one of us really wanted to deal with him, so we continued to tinker on our own.  No luck.  We finally decided to move my movie to an old laptop and try hooking that up.  It worked!  Whew.

The movie was a big hit at Open House.  I even had parents recording it on their cell phones so they could share it with other family members.  One father saw the mess of computers and cords on my desk and said, “Oh, is this your new computer?”  I explained that it was actually an old one and pointed out the new one… then detailed all the trouble we had.  He responded, “Well, I can tell you what your first problem is.”  “Oh?” I asked hopefully.  He laughed, “Yeah, that apple icon on top there.”  Exactly.

My students have been researching an animal of their choice and using the information to plan and write an expository piece.  I have some really great writers who have done a great job with the project.  They’re writing paragraphs and paragraphs for me.  They’ve loved the quest for info and the independence of it all… they feel very “grown up”.  One of my more needy students was very proud of himself when he showed me his first draft today.  And really, he should be… he’s made a lot of progress this year.  (Still a long way to go..)

Anyway… he wrote the following piece entitled “beers”:

beers live in the forest.  beers are brown and white.  beers eat plants.  beers make babies.  i like beers.

Of course, I giggled to myself right at the title.  Clearly this child knows his audience… his teacher really likes beers.  LOL  Anyway… he was actually writing about deer.  He gets his d’s turned around a lot.  So the whole notion of beers living in the forest etc. really cracked me up.  (And LOL @ “i like beers.”)

But the part that has had me laughing allllllllll day is, “beers make babies.”  ROFL  Ain’t that the truth!  A wise warning from an unexpected source!

I took my class on a field trip last week.  One of my all time favorite trips to go on… and the kids always love it too.  Of course, I always allow a few parents to come along.  This is more for the parent/child bonding experience than for help for the teacher.  I think you’ll see why after you hear some of my chaperone stories…

Last week, when we got to the nature center portion of our trip, the guide brought out a bunch of animals that are native to the area.  As soon as the guide mentioned the word snake, I had one mom squealing at the top of her lungs and rushing over to me.  I was sitting on a bench and she came over and cuddled up to me and whimpered constantly throughout the whole snake presentation.  When the guide mentioned bringing the snake around for the kids to touch it, this mom went into absolute hysterics… worked her way BEHIND me and was practically in tears.

I once had a father “screen talk” all the way through a STAGE production to the point where I got in trouble with the ushers.   Then there was a mom who left her group of kids to explore on their own while she took a smoke break at the pumpkin patch.  My favorite was the mom who showed up drunk at 9 in the morning to chaperone.  I had to bring the art teacher with us to chaperone HER.

I could go on and on with scary tales of field trip chaperones.  I’ve had some really great chaperones as well… you just never know what you will get, so I prefer to play it safe.  Needless to say, NOW we only go on trips that keep us together as a class so I can keep an eye on everyone. *winks*

Conversation between my students and I during Social Studies today (we were discussing the job of president… what does the president do, where does the president live, etc.):

Me: Who knows the name of our current president?
Student A: Abraham Lincoln
Me: Good guess! Abraham Lincoln was one of our presidents a long time ago!
Student B: George Washington
Me: Another good guess! He was our very first president, but that was a long time ago, too! Our president’s first name IS George, though. Anyone else have a guess?
Student C: George Clooney
Me: (trying so hard not to giggle) George Clooney! He’s a famous movie star, but not our president.
Student D: I know! I know!
Me: What do you think?
Student D: George Bush!
Me: Good job! Our president’s name is George W. Bush. (writes it on the board) Hmmm… do you know the name of the first lady?
Student E: Martha Washington
Me: She was our FIRST first lady. She was George Washington’s wife.
Student F: Martha Bush?
Me: Her last name is Bush… you’re close!
Student G: Mrs. Bush!

ROFL Kids are hilarious.

At lunchtime on Tuesday, I went to investigate a ruckus in the girls’ washroom across from my classroom. Apparently someone had done their business on the floor… a steaming pile of brownie batter type business. (Hope you weren’t eating! LOL) Now this doesn’t really shock me… nothing shocks me anymore at school… especially in the business department. I could dedicate an entire website to business stories.

Anyway… I locate a custodian and tell him about the mess. Toward the end of the day I went back in to make sure it got cleaned up. It literally looked like someone took a paper towel and scooped the business off the floor… that’s it… just one scoop… leaving a huge smear behind. I was disgusted, but I gave the custodian the benefit of the doubt. Maybe a kid scooped it up, so he didn’t really see the mess in the first place. (Although I don’t know how you wouldn’t see a crap smear on a beige floor.) At this point, the kids were gone for the day and I knew the night custodian would be mopping the floor shortly, so I dropped it.

Cut to Thursday noon. I ran into the girls’ washroom to wash my hands before parent conferences start. Out of the corner of my eye I saw… THE SMEAR! Two days later… the smear was still there. This means that our washroom floors (that are used by 200 students at least 2 times a day) had not been mopped in AT LEAST two days.

I retrieved the same custodian and told him the issue. He grumbled about me interrupting his lunch. I apologized for that, but explained that I didn’t think we wanted parents to find crap smeared on our washroom floor. He mumbled about it being the night custodian’s fault. I agreed that they should have mopped the floors, but pointed out that he was originally notified about the issue as well. He continued to grumble while he waddled down the hall to finally do his job.

I realize that this is probably one of the crappiest (ha ha) jobs in the world… and I wouldn’t fault anyone for forgetting to empty the pencil sharpener or not wiping down the white board or forgetting to replenish the paper towels one day. But to be so lazy and care so little about the health of the children… that I don’t get at all!

(Sidenote: My sister, who also teaches in my building, heard my story and said, “It smelled like crap all day in my room yesterday… I just thought someone had skids.” LOL)

Have I ever mentioned how much I adore recess time? It’s the greatest way to really observe my students and get to know them as people. This year’s students have very unique recess habits! Usually, they split into lots of small groups. This year’s bunch loves to play together… but they tend to split into one big group of girls and one big group of boys.

My girls are highly organized players. They all get together to jumprope (“Ice cream, ice cream, with a cherry on top… how many boyfriends do you got? OR “Barbershop, barbershop, how you like your hair cut? Short, long, medium, bald-headed…”), they act out scenes from High School Musical (complete with choreography), they play the game of the week (a game I teach everyone on Tuesdays), etc. They are very organized and so cute to watch!

The boys, however, just seem to wander about aimlessly chasing each other (or chasing the girls). Sometimes they throw the football around… but they haven’t figured out that someone needs to be on the other side to catch the ball… they just throw it and run after it. They’ve invented their own form of “rock, paper, scissors” by adding the element of fire. Apparently, fire beats all… but they haven’t figured out to throw fire every time to win. Sometimes they play kickball… but there are usually 4 in line to kick and 4 in line to pitch… nobody at the bases on in the field. The ONLY time they’re organized is when the girls grab them by the hand and drag them into whatever they are doing.

(And to clarify… I’m not making generalizations about boys and girls… this is merely how THIS class plays. Every group different.)

Needless to say, I spend our 20 minutes of recess together cracking up! The best time of my whole work day. =)