This Year's Journeys

It's that time of year again: Time for Imagination Journeys! I thought this one was interesting.

Heather wrote:

...and then you find yourself as a baby and a young beautiful woman is looking down at you. You are on an airplane and you feel your ears popping but then you forget about the noise. You look back at the woman and you recognize her. She is your mom but in her younger days. You smell her perfume, you recognize it. Then, she picks you up. You feel her warm hands, she starts to sing very softly to you. You barely hear her and you fall asleep in her arms. You wake up and you are a grown 30 year old lying on a river bank. You get up and you are surrounded by dead trees everywhere. There's an old man sitting next to a tree and he looks cold but your hands are warm so you put your hand on his shoulder--you have the magic touch--he stands up and slowly becomes young again. He's in neat clothes. He thanks you. He gives you an apple as a thank you gift. You bite it then all of a sudden you're a baby again. You wake up in your mom's arms again. She kisses you and you feel home again.

Walk Through

One of the movement activities that I do with the 2nd graders is called "TheWalk Through Game" where kids will immitate how it would be to walk through certain environments and the audience will try to guess what they are walking through.

Today, I had a group of kids pretending to walk into the ocean from the beach and the waves were knocking them around and they were stumbling and falling all over the place.

The audience was raising their hands to guess and I called on Bralio to answer:

BRALIO: They're all drunk!

I'm Startin' to Think This Kid's Just Goofy

I was once again tutoring Oswaldo (first grade)and this time we were working on identifying the letters of the alphabet. We were working on the letter "T" and I was pretending that it was a cup of tea and drinking the little tiny letter "T". Later when I asked him to identify the letter, I was again drinking the letter.

MR. BOWERS: Ok, now Oswaldo, which letter is this one?
OSWALDO: Coffee!
MR. BOWERS: (sigh)

To Serve

Charles (kindergarten) raised his hand right in the middle of one of my "everybody needs to be quiet" speeches and asks me, "Why are you teachers always tellin us to be quiet?"

Here's pretty much what came out of my mouth:

Well, uh, it's because we are trying to serve y'all.  You know, like when you go to get some Mc Donalds, you know, and you order a hamburger?  Those people working there are going to serve you.  It's like the guy is trying to fix you a hamburger and y'all  are all like, "HEY! WHAT'S GOING ON?  WHY YOU COOKIN THAT BURGER?   WHY DON'T YOU PUT SOME MORE KATSUP ON THAT BURGER? DO I GET A BURGER? CAN I HAVE ONE? CAN I? CAN I? CAN I?!!!!!" and y'all are driving him crazy and he can't even serve you any food!  

Well, you're here at school, and you're supposed to be ordering an education and the teachers are only trying to serve you. 

Of course, I lost them as soon as I mentioned Mickey D's.

Shocked!

We were getting ready to do the activity called, "Tell Me About The Time You..." where the kids tell fictional tales about themselves, like: Tell me about the time you fell into a pool filled with sharks.

I was trying to give an example so I needed one of the kids to give me one to do. I asked Ish (pronounced like ice but with the "sh" sound--she happens to be part of the St. Paul family) to give me an example:

MR. BOWERS: OK, Ish, ask me to tell you about something that you know I have never done...come on, look at me and think of something that you know I have never done before...come on, give me one--
ISH: Exercise.

I talked to her later and let her know that I appreciated her sense of humor, but that she needs to be careful not to be disrespectful. She apologized. She burned me fo sho!

Responsibility

Here's part of my lesson on Responsibility:

OK, let's say that your mom is in your room putting up some of your clothes and she accidentally knocks over your favorite "whatever" and breaks it.

Should she walk away and not do anything about it?...Should she hide it from you and hope that you never find out about it?...OR...Should she stop you at the door when you get home from school and tell you, "Sweetie, before you go in your room, there's something you should know--I accidentally broke your favorite 'whatever', and I'm sorry."?

Yeah, she should do number three, right? Well, that's the way most people feel. We all know that people make mistakes; the important thing is that you take responsibility for your actions!

Of course, the kids will accept the moms apology as long as she buys them another "whatever".

Criss Cross Applesauce

MRS. COLEMAN: All right class, everyone sit down Indian Style on the carpet.
MR. BOWERS: Excuse me, she means sit Native American Style--sorry y'all, Mrs. Coleman's Old School.

Poor Seiei

MR. BOWERS: Enrique, in your opinion, who is the weakest person in your class?
ENRIQUE: I think it's Seiei.
MR. BOWERS: Then WHY are you bothering Seiei so much? Come on, you're better than that! That is classic bully behavior.
ENRIQUE: At least I'm classic.