I took a nature walk with my students yesterday to collect leaves and seeds for science.  We did all kinds of sorting and investigating with our finds.  During recess today some students were looking at our leaves and stuff again.  I overheard one student say (in reference to some berries), “Don’t touch those!  They poison!”  Another student responded (in a very “duh, you’re an idiot” tone), “Ms. Kitten wouldn’t pick them if they poison!”  I had to laugh… it was too cute!

It was also an interesting situation, though.  One student was so rooted in common sense and the other relied completely on trust.  Which one would win out?  Well, the kids all looked at each other… shrugged… and touched the berries.  LOL

Trust is everything… any relationship without it is poison.

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.