Where is Mexico??

Day 34

Student: "I’m mad at my momma, cause she went to the fair and she dropped me off at my grandmother’s house! Then, we went to Mexico and then we got locked out of the house."

Impromptu Geography Lesson: Where is Mexico???

In Reading, we were talking about context clues. I told them that they were going to be word detectives. They would look for clues in the story. They would look at the words around the one they didn't know to try to figure out the meaning of the unknown word. So, then I told my lil' word detectives to get their magnifying glasses ready. We were pretending, but one student really got into character. I heard him quietly inform his friends, “I live in the woods.”

Day 35
Today, we made edible land and water maps..another great idea from Pinterest! My students did a super duper job....better than I had anticipated.

We used graham crackers for the base, blue icing for the rivers and lakes, and green icing for land. Flat areas of land were the plains. Hershey's kisses stood for mountains.  Chocolate chips were hills. Vanilla wafers were used to make islands. Some of the kids made their vanilla wafers blue instead of green, so they turned into lakes instead of islands. Some of them decided to put their mountains in the water, so they turned into volcanoes. Once their sweet little maps were completed, we went around the room, and each child got to show their map and tell about 5 landforms or bodies of water. It was a fun project!

Day 36
I got a new student. Now, I have a Ta'Niyah, a Janiahya, and an Anaiah. Teaching rhyming words is so much more fun when all of your kids rhyme with each other.

And...I got an email telling me I won a contest! Crayola Dream-Makers Activity Centers! Oh how I love free stuff!!

Day 37 

I rearranged seats, so when I was passing out reading packets, I called out their names and had them say "here" so I could find them faster...because if I didn’t do that, I would keep going to the place where they used to sit.  Anyway, you know how when teachers want kids to say “here”, they all try to stand out and say “present” or something different to get attention? Well, I called out one child’s name, and she replied, “President!”

Today, my dear sister sent me an awesome embosser for my birthday. Now all of my little kid books can have my name stamped in them. Wa-hoo!

 

Box Tops for Education. They are surrounded by dotted lines. That is where you cut.

Remember the little girl I told you about? The one who asked how to spell D.S. on the first day of school? Well, apparently, I am not the greatest teacher in the world. Or, she forgot......

During my first year of teaching, I was getting my students to write sentences using their vocabulary words. One student raised his hand and asked, "Miss Harris, how do you spell fintoo?" I asked him to repeat the word because I didn't understand what he was saying. Then, I had him use it in a sentence because I still didn't understand what he was saying. He said, "Like, we fintoo go to Wal-Mart." Fixing to! Got it! We fixin' to go to Wal-Mart. Well, apparently, my students this year think fintoo is a word, too.

Day 31

This is the day we FINALLY received our math packs…Day 31 of school! Math packs are the new math books, so we were without math books for 31 days. When will they start ordering our books before school begins? WHEN? 

Random question of the day: “Miss Harris, how many bananas have you eaten today?”
Ummm….How many bananas should a person eat in one day?
First of all, I hate bananas. They are mushy. Second of all, I’m allergic to fruit. And the only good thing about being allergic to fruit is you always have an excuse not to eat bananas. So, no bananas. I have not eaten any bananas today. I have not eaten any bananas this year. Or last year. Or the year before that.
But I did eat strawberries! And they didn’t kill me! Thank you, Benadryl. I love you.

Student: “Miss Harris, my birthday is coming up."

Me: “When is it?”

Student: “January 2004^th.”

When one student said, “He has luna foil in his mouth,” she pointed to the child who had a whole bag of Hershey’s kisses in his desk yesterday. So, I knew that was where the luna (aluminum) foil came from. From the kisses. So, I checked his desk and told him to pull out his pockets. He then pulled a whole jump rope out of one pocket. No kisses to be found, though. Guess he ate ‘em. I would have, too…but, I just really don’t think a jump rope will fit in my pocket.

Student: "There’s a p on your back"......"It was hair, but you made a p with it."

Yes, I shed. Quite a bit. Blame it on the hypothyroidism.

One student was sitting in her seat with her hand raised. So, I called on her.
Me: Do you have a question?
Student: Yes.
Me: What?
Student: I’m bleedin’.
Me: That’s not a question. Do you have a question?
Student: Yes.
Me: What?
Student: I’m bleedin’.
This continued for a few minutes until the whole class was laughing, and we learned one thing. Well, two.  1. Picking scabs causes bleeding. 2. We must continue studying sentence types.

We were reading "Miss Daisy is Crazy" when we got to my favorite part. It is talking about the school nurse, Mrs. Cooney. "She says she's the school nurse, but personally I think she's a spy."

 

I was standing outside with the tutoring kids when one of them noticed my bird necklace. The top part has a bird. The bottom part has a birdcage. So, the student speculated about the birdcage. "I think a little bitty bird could probably fit in there." So, now I want a pet bird the size of a ladybug.

At our school, we collect Box Tops for Education. This year, we sent home collection sheets so the kids could glue the Box Tops right on the sheet. This is what it is supposed to look like when they turn it in:

Well, one of the parents didn't quite understand what Box Tops for Education were. One of the teachers brought me this, and we had a good laugh. This parent cut out pieces from the tops of the boxes and glued them on the sheet. They are pieces from the brands that actually have Box Tops for Education, too!





At midnight on this night, the Kleenex Field Trips contest ended. The top 100 schools with the most supporters won $5000 for field trips. We were in 55th place, so we were one of the winning schools! Thank you to Elizabeth Jones from http://myteachersmarket.blogspot.com/ for posting this contest. 

Here is the story of how I found it......

On Nightline one night, they had a story about this lady who just entered contests all day everyday. She didn't have a job. She just entered contests. She had won 5 washer and dryer sets and a million dollars in cash and prizes. I decided I would enter contests. Maybe I could quit my job as a teacher and just enter contests. ;0) Well, maybe. So, I got online and searched for contests. Then, I thought...hey, if I enter teacher contests, I'll have a better chance at winning. Why? Because, what teachers have time to enter contests? We are too busy doing other things. So, if I make time to do it, I will be one of the few. So, I searched for teacher contests. I found this Kleenex contest and I thought we might actually have a chance at winning since 100 schools would win, not just one or five or ten. And so, we began to beg and plead and annoy people for a few weeks...and it paid off! We won!

Day 32

Day after we won the Kleenex Field Trips contest:
Student entering classroom: I’m glad this mornin’!
Me: Why?

Student: Because we goin’ on a field trip today!

Me: Not today!

Another student: We wonnn! Are we goin’ today or tomorrow??

(Yes. If only we didn't have to plan ahead and get permission and send notes home and hire a bus driver. We could just hop on the bus and go. That would be wonderful.)

Day 33

I had a student who was acting up, so I filled out a referral form and wrote him up. I told our guidance counselor all about it and handed her the referral form. She then said, "Okay, well, next time, don’t write yourself up." I was very confused....until she pointed to the form. Instead of putting the child's name, I had written my name. It appears that I display inappropriate behavior and use inappropriate language. Whoops.

My students are creative. They use keychains to make their earrings more classy. When I'm not looking.

My new addiction.

Please let me tell you about Pinterest.com. If you have never been there, go! It is full of amazing ideas for teachers! I just discovered it a few weeks ago, and I have already done quite a few classroom activities that I found on there. We made a 'parts of the plant' picture, some "Me on the Map" circles for Social Studies, and a cool landform and water map....that was edible! I am kind of addicted to Pinterest now. It is pretty much the coolest thing ever. So, go look at it. Now!

I will show you the plant pictures and the "Me on the Map" circles now. I'll add pictures of the edible physical maps a little later.

Parts of a Plant:

A straw for the stem and sunflower seeds in the middle of a cupcake liner flower

"Me on the Map" Activity:

MY CROOKED PLANET.

I guess they remembered that Earth is tilted on its axis..haha.

Next, I need someone to tell me how I can get this awesome necklace for less than $10,605. If you know someone who knows how to make cool globe necklaces, I will gladly substitute fake diamonds on the places I have been. I just love it....

                          heathermoorejewelry.com

Day 27
Quote of the Day: "Miss Harris, can I have a Band-aid?...because I don't want my finger to get disinfected."

Day 28
In our Reading story, the little Korean girl, Yoon, finds out that her name still has the same meaning in English. It looks different from how she wrote it in Korean, but it still means "Shining Wisdom". My kiddos wanted to know what their names meant, so I looked up the meanings and created a "Class Name Book".

I told Kamaria that her name meant "bright as the moon" or "like the moon". A few minutes later, she got super excited and said, "Now I know why the moon is always followin' me around when I go outside!"

You know I had to give it a little educational value...moon phases, continents, oceans, other bodies of water, sun rising and setting, other languages...the kids LOVE reading this book, so maybe I can trick 'em into learnin'.

Day 29
This is the day my classroom smelled like a rotting corpse. And I kept spraying air freshener all day long. As much as I love cinnamon apple febreze, when mixed with this horrid smell, it doesn’t quite do the trick. I kept looking all around, trying to figure out where it was coming from. I was scared I was going to find a dead animal or rotten food in some random place. I couldn’t figure out what it was! But whatever it was, I needed to find it. Because, if I didn’t, tomorrow would be worse. And then….when I sent my students to get their backpacks at the end of the day, a funny thing happened. One of my girls came up to me and said, “Miss Harris, my locker is making my backpack smell gross. Smell!” (..and she held it up to me. How kind!) It did smell gross. Very gross. So, I looked in her locker first. And. Nothing. So, I was a brave little teacher and unzipped the backpack, unsure of what was awaiting me. Let me interrupt myself to tell you another funny story that explains my fear at this very moment. You see, when I was student teaching, there was this little girl who was so excited to tell all of her friends what she had discovered that morning at the bus stop. She took out her backpack, reached in, and pulled out two birds. Baby birds. Dead, baby birds. Smelly, dead, baby birds. And I stood there in shock. See…teaching is never boring! Children are so unpredictable. So funny. So crazy. So odd. Well, anyway, back to my story….I reached in, pulled everything out, and…nothing! So I was so confused. Until! I noticed a sneaky side pocket. Which is where I found it…the mushy, smellyyyyy cauliflower that spent 5 whole days in a backpack. She had decided to take it home with her on the day of our veggie snack…which was Wednesday of the previous week. And, of course, she forgot about it. How her mother did not find it is beyond me. I was about to go mad sniffing around all day. Well, anyway, I put it in the trash can, the custodian emptied my trash can into a larger trash can that she rolls down the hall, and then the whole hallway smelled of nastiness.

The prior week was Labor Day week, the 4-day work week that somehow lasts longer than the 5-day work week. Every single time.
Me: "We got a little behind last week because we weren't here on Monday, so we're playing catch-up today."
Student: "Uhhhhhhh!!! Ketchup is sweet!"
I guess they have never heard about playin' catch-up before.

Student in the hallway: "Those lil' white girls in that line--are they from another country?"
Wait a minute. I'm white! Do they think I came from another country, too? Haha...probably so....nothing would surprise me now.

Student 1: "Miss Harris, he keeps sayin' the 'w' word."
Student 2: "I just said 'white'."
WHAT!??...My kids are crazyyyyyy.

On the news, I heard....researchers say watching Sponge Bob Square Pants is bad for your child’s brain. They say it poses a threat to your child’s attention span. Yes, that is why we have a bunch of A.D.D. children running around. Thank you, Sponge Bob. Silly little porous ocean-dweller who has an annoying voice and doesn’t know he is the wrong kind of sponge to live in salt water.

Now that all the children (and teachers like me) are A.D.D., we need yoga ball chairs. I heard a long time ago on the news that some schools were using yoga balls as chairs. It is supposed to help students with A.D.D. because they can bounce to get their energy out...instead of tapping pencils, kicking chairs, cutting erasers, and talking. So...I would like to do a pilot study to see if it really works. Who wants to donate 20 yoga balls to my classroom? No, wait...21! I want one, too!!


Funny integrated Social Studies and English:
Me: "Please make sure you capitalize Pacific Ocean because Pacific Ocean is the name of a specific ocean." haha...yeah, sometimes I crack myself up.

Day 30
Random Quote of the Day: "Miss Harris look like she's calm. And violent."

Get the urn.

Day 25
Our Reading story this week was "My Name is Yoon", a story about a little girl who moved to America and had to learn a new language. We had a discussion about America and how blessed our country is.

Question: Why do people move to America?
Answer: 'Cause we have toilets.
Random comment: We saw this boy with a box on the side of the road. He had a sign that said, "I'm hongry." My momma gave him a dollar and some chips. But he only had one tooth, so he couldn't even eat the chips.

Vocabulary word: wrinkled
Question: What is something you do to fix clothes that are wrinkled?
Answer: Get the urn.

In After-school tutoring:
Student: I might ride home with her today.
Me: Oh, are y'all related?
Student: Yes
Me: How are you related?
Student: But, not in real life. We are just play cousins.

Day 26
On this day, in English, I let my kiddos write a letter to me. I was trying to test their sentence-writin' skills, and I told them they could tell me anything they wanted me to know. Here are some examples of what I got:

 Favorite parts: "I do not hate you....I will never hate you. Never in my life I would not say I hate you." "I will never give up. I will never give up on learning."

"I like to play. Do you like to play? But not in grass. I am allergic to grass."

 "You are fun and sunny and funny." "And you like math just like us."

 "I love you. I do not like math." "I love dog and tree with apple on it."

 "You are as sweet as shugr." "Your pridey too you are the best and people love you and very hair is pridey your eye and your heart is pridy too and I love the way you dress."

"I will love to be your best student." "I will not be bad no more."



"I keyr about you like you keyr about me." "My mom love you and my dad love you too do you like ice cream?

RANDOM

Another random note said, "My mom have 3 boyfriend and some is in jell."

Miss Harris. The great roaster and sign language master.

Day 21
Okay, this may only be funny to my fellow Lincoln people (a.k.a the lovely people who work with me).

Quote: "Mr Tutsman erased my check mark." (The music teacher is Mr. Stutzman. Not Tutsman. But now I kinda wanna call him King Tut. Shhh....don't tell.)

After they finish their breakfast, my students are supposed to get their writing notebooks and start on their Morning Work. I usually have a writing prompt on the board for them to write about. Then, after they have had time to write at least 5 sentences, I let some of them share their answers aloud. This is what my smart little crazy boy said.....

I have a 100,000 dollar bill my friend is mexican his name is ernesto my girlfriend name is Sally a wite girl. (Wow. And now I am wondering what in the world the writing prompt could have been. Can we say random?)

The same kid found a Levi's zipper outside in the car rider line. He picked it up and said, "Uhhhhhh!!! It says loves!" No, not loves. Levi's.

Speaking of zippers, did you know that YKK on your zipper stands for Yoshida Kogyo Kabushibibaisha?..the world's largest zipper manufacturer. Bigger than Levi's. That's my favorite random fact. Okay, back to school....

Day 22
"Miss Harris, I studied my flash cards all night last night. In my bed." (My kids are like me. They don't sleep. How 'bout that!)

After breakfast....."Miss Harris, we gonna have cereals again this year?? Because those cereals were goooood!!"

"Miss Harris, she said her sister's in the 16th grade. Is that in high school or college?"

Day 23
"Guess what my brother said I kept sayin' in my sleep."
"What?"
"I can't wait to go to school."
(I am glad...makes me feel good, but I can assure you I don't say the same thing in my sleep.)

"Miss Harris, is my momma gonna go to jail?...cause she gotta take me to the dentist tomorrow."
(I'm thinking maybe her mom has gone to court for truancy before. Maybe??)

In Reading, we were reading a poem. Their worksheet said...'We are different, you and I. I like peanuts in my pie. You like cake. You love to bake. We are special, you and I.' So, their job was to write another verse to the poem. They had to write 'We are different, you and I. I like ____________ in my pie.' (They came up with something different that they liked in their pie. Of course, I said, "I like chocolate in my pie." Then, they had to write 'You like _______. I love to ________. We are special, you and I.' And the words in the blanks were supposed to rhyme. So, they came up with..'You like meat. I love to eat.' I was walking around looking at what they had written, when I saw this lovely poem: I DON'T LIKE PIE. (She was mad because she had to pull a card...haha.)

Day 24
My lil' funny boy who wants to make a comment every time somebody else gets in trouble--"Ohhhh, she got roasted!!!!" (Yes, that's right...I am the great roaster. Needless to say, he got roasted, too...because he knows he is not supposed to say things like that. Not in my room.)

In Science, we are doing a little experiment with Plant A and Plant B. Plant A gets sunlight. Plant B is covered with a black box and far away from all windows. No sunlight in sight. So, they had to make their predictions about what they thought would happen to Plant B, the lonely sunless plant. Then, each week, they get to look at Plant B and record their observations. So, I wrote on the board..'Observe and write what Plant B looks like on Week 3.' I showed them how Plant B had a little spot on the end of a leaf that was changing colors. One student said, "It looks like it's gettin' burnt."

Yes. It kinda does. So, the leaves, they get burnt when they are too far away from the sun? Ummmmm, no.

And now, on to Reading....Our Reading story this week was "Meet Rosina". It's about a little girl who is deaf. It tells how she uses sign language to communicate. So...I printed off the American Sign Language Finger Spelling sheet and taught them the sign language alphabet. Afterward, we were walking down the hall to go to the bathroom when I heard, "Miss Harris, are you a sign language master?" Yes!! Not only am I the great roaster. I am also a sign language master.

So. Apparently everything in my room is hot. Leaves get burnt. People get roasted. And then, well, there's me. hahaha

A Different Toothbrush___////

Day 20

On this day, we discussed new vocabulary words and watched a slideshow with lots of questions to get everybody thinkin'.

Vocabulary word: 'cultures'
Cultures are people's way of life, the way they live, including their ideas, customs, and traditions. We talked about how people in different countries have different cultures because they eat different types of foods, they can wear different types of clothes and celebrate different holidays, etc., etc.

Question: "How can cultures be alike and different?"
Student 1: "They can wear different clothes."
Student 2: "In Jamaica, they wear these brown towel things around their waist." 
Student 3: "They have a different toothbrush."
(Yes, our cultures are different because we have different toothbrushes.)

Vocabulary word: 'talents'
Question: "What kind of talents do you have?"
Student 1: "I can beat a video game in 2 days I'm not lyin'."
Student 2: "I can drive a Nascar by myself, without nobody."
Student 3: "I can arrest robbers all by myself."
Student 4: "Cheerleading."
Student 5: "Driving (I drive my momma car). My momma put me in her lap and let me drive."
(Looks like I have a lot of talented kiddos.)

Question: "What kind of instrument do you want to play?"
Student 1: "tuba"
Student 2: "piano"
Student 3: "trombone"
Student 4: "guitar"
Student 5: "microphone"
(No, not saxophone. I want ta play the microphone.)

Question: "What kind of science fair project would you like to do?"
Student 1: "Make pudding into somebody's face."
Student 2: "I would like to make a taser."
Student 3: "Spring shoes that make me jump to the moon."
Student 4: "I would like to cut open a frog and play with its guts and stuff."
(Yes, my kids are sweet and lovely. Not violent and gross. Not at all.)

Today in Math, I let them use part-part-whole mats and dry erase markers. I had collected all of the dry erase markers at the beginning of the year so we would have them when we needed them, and they would still work. So, I was about to pass out the markers, and I saw one student take 2 out of her desk. I said, "I should already have all dry erase markers." Then, I started to take hers up, and she said, "No, Miss Harris!!! They're not dry!"
(:0) hahaha...she was right.)

In my class, we use privacy folders during tests. So, they put 2 folders on the corners of their desk to prevent lil' curious eyes from awanderin'. No cheating allowed! But...they are not supposed to write on the privacy folders. Ever. But. 2nd graders sometimes do things they aren't supposed to. Yes they do. And this is what I found on a folder....

I thought it said, "Miss Harris thin." But, if you look closely, there's a k, too, so I don't know if they're telling me I'm thin or telling me to think. Hmm...well, they got me to think. But...don't think I'm going to keep being thin if I keep eating this rainbow chip icing. It is amazing!!! By the spoonfuls.....

Where does all my time go? Lesson plans and grading papers. And as I was grading papers, this is what I found. They were supposed to just rewrite the sentences with a capital letter at the beginning and a punctuation mark at the end. Instead, I had a couple of people who decided to have a conversation with their worksheet. Cracked me up..... 

worksheet: my lunch is in my backpack

girl: what else is in your backpack

worksheet: what did you bring for lunch

girl: chicken

worksheet: do you want to sit with me at lunchtime

girl: yes teacher

worksheet: my new teacher is nice

girl: yep girl

worksheet: what did you bring for lunch

girl: A apple?

worksheet: do you want to sit with me at lunchtime

girl: Yes i do?

worksheet: my new teacher is nice

girl: She is nice?

(I like how she capitalized and used her punctuation marks. And I like how every sentence is a question. Yeah...she's not sure what she brought for lunch, not sure if she wants to sit with me, and not sure if I'm nice. Is she nice? Really? She is nice?????)



K...one more thing. I am not a morning person. Night owl? Yes. I could stay up as late as a 'possum. But...I need help waking up in the morning. I always hit the snooze button and don't get up 'til 7:00. Which is not good. Anyway, I have decided I think I need to make an investment in this wonderful contraption............

Clocky,

the alarm clock that runs away after you hit the snooze button. It jumps off your nightstand, rolls around your room and finds a place to hide before it goes off again. So you HAVE to get up to turn it off. I think I need this.