Tales from Teaching Feb. 1 Edition

Here are three stories that have made me giggle and love my little second graders even more.

1. I have a boy in my class who is basically a nice kid, but he can be off task and chatty from time to time. He told me yesterday while we were in small groups that if I say his name in a certain voice I send shivers down his spine. Ha! Guess my teacher voice is effective.

2. I have another boy in my class who has profound hearing loss, and although he wears hearing aides, his speech is affected by his hearing loss and he does a lot of lip reading. He is also an English as a Second Language student, and incredibly bright. And like the other boy, he is basically a nice kid, but has his moments.

Anyway, for like two weeks I could have sworn he was saying, "what the hell?" For example, I hand out a long assignment and his response would sound like, "what the hell?" But none of the kids told on him, and his speech can be hard to understand, so I figured he must be saying, "what the heck?" Yesterday, he was working with a group of kids and they all came to tell me he was repeatedly saying, "what the hell?" So I call him over. There is no whispering when talking to this kid and you have to look at him. So, I asked him directly and kind of loudly, "have you been saying what the hell?" He proudly said, "yep!" I then had to explain that was not appropriate. And ask him to use a different word. Ha, ha!

3. I had another boy walk in this morning and ask if I wanted to see his necklace. I said sure. And he proceeds to show me the air freshener he has hanging around his neck. Ha, ha! Then I kind of forgot about it. Throughout the morning the room smelled like cinnamon and the kids were saying it was making them hungry and what not. My aide came in at recess and commented how nice and cinnamony the room smelled. Then we started math, and this student needed help. I went over to him, and was basically knocked out my the overwhelming smell of cinnamon. I have no idea how he could stand it around his neck. Ha, ha, ha! I died. It was so funny.

In unrelated news, Happy 60th Birthday to my dad!!! We love you!!! And are so excited to celebrate this important milestone!!!!!