Some stories that make my job all worth it.

Mr. H reminds me of Mr. T last year. He is a ball of energy and he always has a lot to say. Plus he has a mischievous look on his face and flaming red hair. So, naturally I love the kid. He is however, a toned down version and doesn't cause me near as much grief as T did last year. But, he still makes me laugh quite often. Just today he came up to me in the morning and asked, "Miss Collett do you ever have bad dreams, because I had one last night. I had a dream that I wrote my story on the wrong paper and so I had to re-write the whole thing again and my hand was hurting. It was a very bad dream." Ahh, the things 3rd graders stress over. It made me laugh a lot though. He was dead serious and he had such a funny expression on his face as he told me about his dream.

The other day I had a girl in my class ask me if I was a "tom boy or a girlie girl." I laughed and asked her what she thought. She responded with quite a surety, "a tom boy, because you like to be outdoors and you like sports." I think she knows me pretty well. :)

It made me so happy the other day when a student in my class came up to me and said, "Miss Collett, I used the word "stunned" in my story, because oh it was just the perfect word." Haha. To give you some background I put up vocabulary words on my whiteboard that come from the book I am reading to the class. I encourage them to use those words in their writing and to also look for the words when they read. He was so excited about it and I was so proud.

There is a girl in my class who struggles in math quite a bit, but sometimes it is hard for me to know, because she doesn't ask for help. Well I talked to her about it at parent/teacher conferences and she told me she would ask me more questions when she was confused. Well the other day she did asked me a question and I helped her. I didn't think anything of it, but then about 5 minutes later she came up to me and said, "You are right Miss Collett, it is really helpful to ask questions. It is so much easier." I was glad that she felt comfortable to ask me a question and I thought it was funny she wanted to tell me about it. I must be doing something right.

And finally, it is not just the kids that keep me smiling throughout the day. Now, you can't judge me for this, because it was a mixture of things. I was tired, when I am not suppose to laugh something inside of me can't stop, when others laugh I laugh, and when things are too cheesy I think they are funny. At our school we have a "anti-bully" program and my assistant principal sent us a link to a video we needed to show our students. I really had no idea what it was about. But I put it up on the projector for the students to watch. It ended up being a slide show of pictures and short video clips of people with disabilities along with a song "Don't Laugh at Me". I know it sounds awful, but about half way through the song I looked over at my amazing aid, Britteni and she had turned toward the wall because she was laughing and didn't want the kids to see. So, as soon as I saw her I couldn't stop myself from laughing either. I had been trying so hard to keep it in, but after I saw her it was over. Am I a terrible teacher or what!? But after the kids were all asking us why we were laughing and so I told them Britteni had told a funny joke. I think they bought it. I am evil.


Well life is moving right along!

Suck up?

My students write in their journals everyday after lunch. Then I collect 5 a day and read them to make sure they are writing and it helps me get to know them a little bit better. Plus it is often hysterical. So the other day I was reading one of the journals and this is what it said, “Today is Miss Collett's birthday. I think she’s having the worst one yet. Today is probly (his spelling) my worst day too. Well I hope you read this on Monday but I'm sorry for what hapened today. I'm sure you had a bad day. I hope tomorrow's better. It's just I think your the best teacher I ever had.” Come on! I about died. He is one of my favorites, can you tell? The best thing is that he is totally sincere. I have a few who try and let’s say “butter me up”, but it doesn’t fly with me. M here though is just so sweet it is hard not to love him. Also, I honestly have no idea what he is referring to.

I am excited for the school year to end. The kids are getting wild, so my patience is running thin. I will miss them I am sure, but right about now I want to hurt a few.:) Testing is next week so we will find out if I taught anyone anything. I am crossing my fingers!

So Proud!

The other day we put together "skimmers" which are boats made out of card stock. The idea was they had to make their own sail and then they would race them by blowing them across the gym floor. We decided to make it a contest within the entire 3rd grade. I jokingly told my kids that they had better win the race or else! However, they really did awesome. We split the grade into 5 rounds and 4 of my kids won out of the 5! Then we had a final race and the first, second, and third places went to kids in my class! Those of you who know me well enough know I can be competitive and apparently it has transferred a little bit. :) It made me love my class even more though!

I made it through parent teacher conferences! All I have to say is I am glad they are only twice a year!

Stories...

At my school we have Spanish everyday for 30 minutes. I don't teach it, but I have to be in the room while the Spanish teacher is teaching to help manage the students. I often bring in a book to read for guided reading. So the other day S came up to me and asked, "Miss Collett do you always have your nose in a book?" She had a goofy smile on her face and I just smiled and said that I do love to read. It is nice to know that they notice I read, because I want to encourage that of course.

Speaking of Spanish. Every single day without fail I came down the stairs and into my dark, completely silent classroom. I have no idea when this came about, but everyday my students all rush into the room before I get there and then turn off the lights and pretend to be sleeping. I think they hope I will let them take a nap, which I have done before. :) It makes me smile everyday though, because it is just a random personality thing that my class does and I will always remember them for it.

It never falters; I always have a story about Mr. T. This week we were working on vocabulary which I just take out of the read-a-loud book I am reading at the time. I came across the word boisterous, which means lively, energetic, or active, so I made that a vocabulary word and we were talking about the definition and ways to use it. I mentioned that a person with a lot of energy could be boisterous. A girl, A, raised her hand and said, "T is boisterous!" I smiled and agreed with her. It sure made me laugh; I mean even the students know it! Haha!

Another story with Mr T. literally made me leave the room because I was laughing so hard. Every 6 weeks every grade has a week of extra art. Monday is the assembly day when the who 3rd grade gets together and learns about a new artist. Right now they are studying Mary Cassatt. The art teacher was pointing out how she uses lines to point to the more important parts of the painting. The art teacher asked the kids what the woman's shirt in the picture was pointing towards. The answer she was looking for was toward the little girl's face below the woman. Well T says out loud, but more to himself "It is pointing towards the wiener" I about died when I heard him. I looked at him and he immediately regretted saying it, but he was dead serious. I pulled him over and told him that was inappropriate. He said, "But Miss Collett (with a downward motion) it is pointing to the wiener. I said "you can think it, but it is inappropriate to say in school. Then I ran out of the assembly and busted out laughing. The kid never fails to put a smile on my face.

Last T story. I was talking to my principal and somehow T came up. My principal asked me if I had seen the tiger claw T had brought to school. The principal said that T was showing it to people at lunch and the principal actually thought it was really cool. I told him that T had probably not shown me, because he knew I would take it away. I am constantly taking things away from the kid, because everything distracts him. Anyway, after lunch I asked T about it. He looked at me surprised and asked how I knew he had a tiger claw. I of course told him I knew everything and asked to see it. He told me he didn't want to show me because I would take it. I laughed because I was totally spot on when I told the principal why I thought I had not seen it. I love that T knows I will take something away from him if I see him playing with it. I did not take it away from him though, because he had never become a distraction. I just told him as long as I didn't see it I wouldn't take it.

Well that is all for now!

Some fun stories

So in science we are teaching about living vs. non-living, which seems like kindergarten stuff, but it has created some funny comments. One in particular has to do with the fact that for something to be living it has to reproduce. Now we thought about the best way to approach this and decided to say that the living thing needs to be able to create more of itself. This definition satisfied everyone when we were introducing the topic. However, a little later my students were sorting a list of things into "living" and "non-living" and they came across "school teacher". At first one of my students, T, was just joking around and saying "oh Miss Collett I think you are under "non-living". But then a few other kids starting thinking about it. One girl asked, "Miss Collett you can reproduce?" I said that I could have a baby and that satisfied her concern. However, this had now become a classroom discussion and one student asked, "But then how are men living?" I about died laughing. How do I respond to that? I mean they can't have babies. :) So I said, "Well they help" and then I said, "You know what... ask your mom." I got a few funny looks, but they finally let it go. It still makes me laugh out loud though.

We have art every Friday afternoon and this week we did hand prints with paint onto a big canvas. Well of course paint is messy and so I had them go to the bathroom to wash their hands. Then a little later one girl came up to me and said, "Miss Collett there is paint all over the bathroom. I did NOT know how disgusting girls could be." They way she said it killed me. I went into the bathroom and sure enough there was paint all over the walls, sink, and floor. I promptly had everyone take a few paper towels and clean up.

Finally, I thought of another story that happened a little while ago. T came walking into class one morning very quiet, which never happens. He is usually causing a commotion 5 minutes after he has walked through my door. I swear the kid is friends with everyone and anyone, which makes it hard to sit him anywhere. Anyways, after a little bit he came up to me holding his sweater zipper and asked me if he could use my tape. I could tell he was embarrassed. I asked him why he needed tape and he said that his zipper was broken and he wanted to tape his sweater. I asked him what was underneath his sweater thinking he could just take it off, but he simply replied, "skin". I laughed at his response and realizing why he was embarrassed found a safety pin to pin it closed. This kid always keeps me laughing and on my toes.

Hope you have a good week!