Thanks.

Chris is a tall, skinny 5th grader. He is leaving the school without all 4 of his little brothers and his little sister, head hanging, frowning--foot draggin'.

MR. BOWERS: Whoa! Chris, what's up? You can't leave without all your brothers and sister--what's wrong, dude?

Chris just stops and stares at the ground. Some of his classmates and friends are walking by, heading home.

MR. BOWERS: Hey, y'all, what's up with Chris? Why's he all draggin' and stuff?
KAMAAL (Chris' kindergarten brother, who just ran up): Some fat, white kid is botherin' him!
MR. BOWERS: It's not me, is it?
KAMAAL: No, Mr. Bowers, you're an adult!

That's Some Spider!

MR. BOWERS: How do spiders feed themselves?

SEFIAT (kindergarden): By catching frogs in their webs.

The Mad Mouse

We were doing our emotion puppet game again today.

Ashton chose "mad" and "mouse".

He gets up there and starts making his mouse act like its throwing up and starts yelling, "I can't take this any more--stop the pain!" Then more throwing up and yelling.

It was really good--like the mouse was really going "mad".

Cookies!

Our school is doing "The Biggest Loser" and I am, of course, participating.

Yesterday, one of the Girl Scouts came to deliver a box of cookies to me while I was on duty after school. (My duty consists of me telling the kids to sit down while they wait for their ride. Now it's the same kids everyday, so they should know to sit when they come out, but they are not willing to do this until I tell them to--EVERYDAY!)

I opened the box and said, "Let's just see who remembered to sit down when they came out today," and started passing out the cookies. Of course, they all sat down quickly.

I had half a cookie left for myself so I did good on my diet, I got them all to sit down and I supported the Girl Scouts!

Now what will I bribe them with today?

The Sad Zebra

We were doing a 3rd grade activity with the puppets where the kids had to come up with a monologue for one of their puppets based on an emotion that they were given. Callum chose "sad" and the Zebra puppet.

He Starts with the Zebra talking about how he has no money and how he never finds any money on the ground. Then, out of nowhere, he starts dropping dollars from behind the puppet stage and his zebra starts getting all excited and stuff! It was hilarious.

Brendergartener

The kinder kid named Bren is pretty funny. This morning, she says:

I'm tired of sleeping--it gives me a headache.

Prince and Prince

There are two brothers at our school and they are both named Prince. When I ask them why, they say that their dad is a king in their country. I can't get them to tell me any more than that so I'm guessing it is kind of a secret.

At Least He's Polite

So, I had a little problem with Gregorio (4th grade) in my Drama class. He was supposed to write a prepositional phrase for his partner to act out. He wrote, "Blah, blah, blah".

I told him, "Even though yours is very funny, you still have to write the sentence for me so your partner can get a turn to act it out." He refused. This is not a case of him not knowing what a prepositional phrase is, he is just being stubborn.

As I was walking him back to his class, I tried to talk some sense into him. His response:

"Please be quiet."

I tried talking some more. He refused to look at me. I tried calling his mom. She doesn't speak English. I told his teacher everything and she is going to talk to his mom.

This is the part of teaching that is so frustrating.

Maybe I need to take some more psychology classes.