proposal

connor got down on one knee and asked me to marry him. he even had a heart shaped ring. how could i say no? so i said yes.

he is very excited to move in because he gets his own room AND he says that because he's my fiance he is half in charge of our class. marriage does have its perks.

writing

from the students' autobiographies and biographies:

i was born in 2001 when i was biger than i should ov been. -michael

my greatest accomplishment is being on time for school, i like to have a snack after school when i get home. -jazman

i like fish tuna. i love cows. my girlfreind is beatiful. i have 2 girlfriends. -carson

i am at the age of 9 years old. -savanah

i, hannah, was born in the magnificent salt lake city. that place is in utah. it is like a bright light to me. -hannah

i'm still a child age. when my gerbils die, i'm going to get new one's. -dante

i was born in oragan. it was a normal berth. -blake

mikaela is a very nice friend. she cares for everyone in the world except strangers probably because they are mean. -fiona

she is good at complaining. -teyanna

indignant

my class was divided over the outcome of the big rivalry game (college football). i told them that if they wanted to talk about it, they had to do it in their notebooks. being the good teacher i am, i reminded them to use good word choice instead of the word "sucks". here's what jesse wrote:

u is better than y. i think they're the better team. u would've CRUSHED y if their offense of cordinator wasn't being so disreputable. they just got caught off by troublesome penelties.

thankful

dear miss a,

thank you for teaching me at this very cheap school...


love, hannah

elvis

write a story problem for the number sentence 7-1=6.

hannah's answer:

elvis had 7 pelvises. he gave 1 pelvis to the garbage man. how many pelvises does elvis now?

spy

after reading the word spy in our reading text...

connor: YOU'RE a spy.

me: how do you know?

connor: (with a disgusted look) because you went to russia...and you LIKED it.


if those are the only qualifications for a career in espionage, then i guess he's right.

tickles

"i'm ticklish in places you don't even want to know about."

-michael to porter

snake

jaxon: (worried): tyler just told me that people who were born in 2001 will be half snake and half human when they're older.

me: what year were you born?

jaxon: 2001

me: (thinking he was joking) uh oh, jaxon.

jaxon: (expression changing from worry to panic)

me: are you worried about this?

jaxon: a little. i don't want to be a snake.

shower

upon completion of our skeletal system unit, i got this note:

dear miss a,

yesterday when i took a shower i was naming all the bones i was washing.

love,
savanah

name

dominick: i know your real name.

me: that's nice.

dominick: but i'm not allowed to say it here, because that's disrespectful.
BUT!
(with a sly look and a conspiratorial whisper) when i get home...i'm going to say it...a lot...very loud...in my backyard...with my brother

and at that he sat back, with a triumphant look on his face, and continued working on his math, while i was left with the image of dominick and christian in their backyard shouting my first name over and over at the top of their lungs.

i hope he did it.

skeleton

i had a life-sized skeleton hanging in the front of the room for our unit on the skeletal system. emily walked in and said loudly, "oh my gosh, miss a, i LOVE your body! it is awesome!" forgetting that the skeleton was behind me, i was flattered that she noticed i'd been working out.

invertebrates

the students were trying to name kinds of invertebrates and had already successfully guessed insects and arachnids, but were stumped by crustaceans. i gave a clue, "some examples are crabs, crayfish, lobsters, and shrimp" sommer's hand shot up and she triumphantly announced, "seafood!"

charades

i watched as connor lightly touched his forehead and then nodded his head vigorously a few times (picture it.) after he did it the second time i asked if everything was ok. he smiled at me sheepishly and said, "i'm a bobblehead."

vote

we were getting ready to play a game about hannibal and the second punic war and each group was in charge of choosing which player went first. most groups argued a bit before settling on a player, but one group, being the diplomatic kidlets they are, decided to vote. in our class, some things are decided by vote and it's always a secret vote. they followed our usual voting procedure and all 4 students put their heads down. dante, with his head down, led the vote and called out the players' names. each player dutifully voted and did not cheat by looking up during the vote. when the vote was over, they all lifted their heads and said, "who won?" this was met with few shrugs and some confusion. in their excitement to vote, they hadn't designated a counter and so the results were secret even from them.

spelling

we were reviewing spelling concepts and i asked the group what they remembered about cvc (consonant vowel consonant).

i got 27 blank stares. so i tried again.

"does anybody know what cvc stands for?"

joey ventured his best guess: "professional wrestling?"

wasted

this conversation was generously shared by a teacher friend:

student: i think my dad is quitting his job.

teacher: why's that?

student: i actually think he's getting fired.

teacher: laid off, maybe?

student: no, i think he's getting fired. it's for a dui.

teacher: really?

student: yeah, but I don't think he was drunk. he said his level was like 1 point something, and i don't think that's bad. i think he was just drowsy driving. he's always tired.

fairy

mollie wrote me this note:

i got a cute little tooth box from the tooth fairy. i think she likes to recycle. she gave me a colorful pill bottle.

vision

jazman asked why i was moving desks around and i said, "oh there are lots of reasons: so you don't talk to your friends, so some kids can see the board better, things like that." she responded, "well, you can move me to the back {by her friend}, because i can see the board just fine from there." i laughed and said, "i'm glad to hear that you have good vision." "yeah, i do" she said. "it's because i ate a whole bag of carrots once."

question

a good question for the first day of school:

"miss a, will you teach us how to transmission from reading to spelling?" -jesse

excitement

yesterday was the "meet your teacher" extravaganza at our school. malia came in to see her former teacher and fill her in on the summer happenings:

me: so did you have a good summer?

malia: yeah! lots of exciting stuff happened!

me: really? like what?

malia: well, my mom had her baby 6 weeks early! (she proceeds to tell the entire story of her sister's birth)

me: wow! that does sound like a lot of excitement at your house.

malia: but that's not all!!!

me: what else happened?

malia: i found a canadian penny!

tickets

our school has an annual carnival fundraiser and marcus' mom is in charge of the carnival, so he is privy to carnival information. throughout the day marcus had shared with us the people who he knew were buying tickets for the carnival. during class i happened to mention a student i had last year and upon hearing her name, marcus announced, "she's buying tickets, too...do you want to know how i always know who's buying tickets? 'cause i'm a creep."

secrets

malia and lucy were giggling to themselves after school and i asked what was so funny. malia said, "i was just telling lucy about my first dire. when i was young (last year) i wanted a diary so bad that i asked my mom to give me one. she gave me a notebook and i wrote on the front 'malia's dire' because i was too young to spell diary." "so what deep, dark secrets did you need to record so badly?" i asked her. "well, i only wrote in it once and i wrote: jupute is the largest planet. my mom is having a baby."

colors

we just finished reading sarah, plain and tall and it talks about sarah and papa's wedding at the end. malia told us that her wedding colors were going to be purple and white. marcus said, "guys never get to pick out wedding colors." i replied to marcus, "well, if you want to help when you get married just say, 'wifey, i want to help pick out colors'" he countered, "i will NOT call her wifey, that is the stupidest name. i will call her honey." then lucy said, "not me. i will say, 'for our wedding, baby maker, i want blue and yellow.'"

biography

excerpts from the biographies and autobiographies the students wrote:

"oh and i never broke a single bone. imagen that of my 206 bones not a single one is broken and none have been broken. plus add this to the paragraph. i've been in the hospital 4 times (of course not for a broken bone)." -mac

"hope is a good good good runner. hope is a very good finder person. she finds anything that we lost." -kami

"sierra's mom is very tallented. she works as a hair salon person. sierra's mom was the person who cut alyssa's brother's hair. exsept alyssa's family got mad because sierra's mom wouldn't let alyssa's mom pay full price. so alyssa promises that someday they will pay full price. and sierra promises two things: one alyssa's family will not pay full price and two that she will pay alyssa back for buying ice cream." -alyssa (the biography was about her best friend, sierra)

"she is now a teacher. dosn't want to be married (ore dose she?)"
-davon (this one was about yours truly)

bryson included a table of contents in his biography:

contents:
beginning
body
end

fiesta

the class wanted to put one more stamp in their geography passports before the end of the year, so we decided to have a cinco de mayo fiesta at lunch. they were very excited and actively participated in the planning:

marcus: i'll bring the sombreros!!!

sydney: i'll bring the maracas!!!

carter: i'll bring the swine flu!!!

flirt

dominick: miss a, you were flirting with me today.

me: oh, really? how?

dominick: well, when i was staring at you, you started to laugh.

me: wait, let's go back to that, why were you staring at me?

dominick: i was lonely.

simple

our school's 5th and 6th graders participate in the d.a.r.e. (drug abuse resistance education) program. at the end of the day an announcement was made for the d.a.r.e. students to report to their classroom and maria asked me what d.a.r.e. was. i told her it was a class to teach kids that drugs are bad and how to stay away from them. she was incredulous, "there's a CLASS for that? i could teach that class: drugs are bad, don't do them. if someone wants you to do drugs, tell them no and walk away. class dismissed." satisfied with her lesson, she went back to her writing.

***

sometimes these kids say the most bizarre, off-the-wall things and sometimes i think they have things figured out better than anyone else. class dismissed.

south

madeline: when i went to new york, i met people from all over the world!

me: really? from where?

madeline: sweden...denmark...louisiana.

trip

so we didn't take our field trip to the dump, instead we found a life science museum. field trip days are, of course, days of unending excitement and as the 2 third grade classes boarded the bus, they discovered that the best way to express their excitement was bouncing on their seats. however, after the requisite safety lecture that informed them there was to be no bouncing on the seats (which they took very seriously), the only way to release the energy was in the form of chanting. our driver told them his name was bubba and within a few minutes 50 third graders were chanting very enthusiastically, "BUBBA! BUBBA! BUBBA!" a few minutes later we passed an lds temple, which prompted "TEMPLE! TEMPLE! TEMPLE!" (these kids will make outstanding protesters one day) despite my pounding headache, i had to smile when the field of grazing horses did not fail to impress the chanters: "PONIES! PONIES! PONIES!"

star

i had sprained my ankle and standing on it all day wasn't working out too well. by the afternoon i was unsuccessfully hiding a limp and i mentioned to the class that i probably looked so silly limping around all day. bryson reassured me when he said, "don't worry, miss a, your greatest fans are in here!"

pictures

we had just received our group class picture and cayden's mom saw him looking at the picture and giggling to himself.

mom: what's so funny, cayden?

cayden (still giggling and shaking his head): i'm the fattest kid in my class!

mom (panicking): who told you that?!?

cayden (nonchalantly): nobody. i figured it out myself.

mom: well, did you tell anybody else?

cayden: just davon.

mom: and what did he say?

cayden: he said i should go on a diet.

wedding

recently i got to meet an actor from my favorite tv show and i told my students about how exciting it was. of course, they asked if i was going to marry him and if so, would i invite them? i promised them that if this actor and i ever got married they would be the first people on the invitation list. this was very exciting to them and the class erupted with chatter. ready to move on i told the class to get ready for history. they were still buzzing about my upcoming, imaginary nuptials so they ignored me. i casually said, "if you don't get ready for history, i won't invite you to our wedding." this silenced most of them, except for marcus, who exclaimed, "even if you don't invite me i'll still come." "you can't, marcus, you won't know where or when it will be, " i countered. marcus was ready with his secret weapon, "so? i'll just look it up in the phone book. you can find out everything in the phone book!"

trees

the question said to underline the 5 things that were not invented by anybody and ryan underlined buses. while checking his work he noticed his mistake and told us, "oops, i thought it said bushes. i got it wrong." i teased him saying, "no, ryan, it's right. didn't you know that buses grow on trees?" "yeah, right," he replied. everybody laughed and jacob said very seriously, "money does, too." forrest piped up, "yeah, that's true! in california!" and hope thoughtfully asked, "is that why everyone in california's so rich?" and jacob, apparently the money tree expert, said, "yes, most money trees grow in beverly hills."

geography

conversation between a fifth grade former student and me...

carli: i'm going to switzerland next week!

me: cool! where is switzerland?

carli: well, at first i thought it was in florida but i found out it's across the ocean.

me: what continent is it on?

carli: paris?

random third grader: paris is not a continent!

carli: france?

same random third grader: france is a country!

me: it's in europe.

carli: oh yeah, but first we're going to paris to get translated.

idaho

malia's report was entitled: idaho: a glittering white land. here are some excerpts from the report:

it snows so much during winter that it is almost half the size of a regular 6 or 7 year old.

in idaho, they use the following as decorations: hanged pictures, tiny statues (like is stuffed,) and little porcelin dolls. My grandpa and grandma lives in idaho and their house is full of hanged pictures, tiny statues, and little porcelin dolls. my mom grew up in idaho and knows a lot about idaho.

business

i was getting ready to start my reading group but noticed that one student was missing. I asked the kids from his homeroom if he was here today. jacob said, "yeah, he just went to the bathroom." to which ryan responded, "he must be doing his duty."

speecher

during lunchtime the kids were quietly eating their lunch and i was returning a phone call. the person i called told me i was assigned to give a speech. my class could tell i wasn't thrilled about this and when i got off the phone they asked what was wrong. i told them i had to give a speech and that i'm not good at giving speeches. sierra said,"yeah, but you're a really good talker."

huh?

on dominick's birthday i continued our tradition of giving a great big hug to the birthday boy. while i was hugging him, dominick exclaimed, "ugh!! i'm being sabitized by miss a!"

neither dominick nor i know what it means either.

old

i turned 29 over christmas break and my class knew that i was not very excited about it. as i was saying goodbye to them and wishing them a merry christmas i told them that the next time they saw me i'd be old. they laughed and said things like "you're not old, my dad's old." but sweet alexsis, trying to comfort me by using her kindest, gentlest voice, said "don't worry, miss a, you're not old til you're 30."

wait

"my mom said i can't have a girlfriend until i'm married!"

-allan

(i wonder what his wife will think of that)