Favorite Moments...

from my first week of school.

~I had duty Monday morning and was talking to a group of kids outside. One of my students (whom I'd met at open-house the week before) walked right up to me and stood there for a minute. Then he looked at me and said, "You look like you're a nice teacher," and smiled. What a sweetheart!

~When we were sharing things about ourselves, one of my kids told me his nickname is Bacon. "Cause I got so dark this summer." Huh??? This kid is a trip! But so funny!

~We do a Bell Ringer after the kids come in from lunch...something for them to work on right when they come in so they don't wreak havoc before the tardy bell rings. I had previously called it "Bell Work", but this period I called it a Bell Ringer. One of my girls said, "Huh? What's that?" After I told her, she gave me this funny look and said, "6th grade teachers sure do have some odd vocabulary, Mrs. James."

~Yesterday while having a discussion about whether or not newspapers have become obselete in our internet/radio/tv-infused society (to my students, this reads, "should we read newspapers or not?") one of my kids (the Bacon one) said, very seriously, "Well, I'm not trying to be funny or anything, but they come in handy when you're on the throne. I mean, sometimes you get bored."

~ Today we were doing a map activity. I was giving the kids instructions orally, only saying each instruction ONCE, (this was SO hard for some of them!) and they had to place the things where I told them to on the map. Ex: Draw a river from the north end of the paper to the south end. Draw a tree east of the river. Draw a school north of the tree and west of the river. Etc... Anyway, my last instruction was for them to draw Mrs. James anywhere on the map. Oh, man! Did I get some laughs out of this one. Here is where I showed up...hanging from a tree in a tire swing, lounging in the hot tub in the house, laying out tanning on a boat in the river, in the fish's mouth, and many more! What a sense of humor these kids have!

~ This morning I had my kids write a response to something I'd read aloud to them. I asked for half a page and was walking around observing while they were writing. This one kid (Whom people have told me was a terror last year...cussed out his teacher, etc) hadn't written ANYTHING, and about the 4th time I walked by him, I tried to get him thinking of what to write and said, "When I walk back over here, I want you to have at least one sentence, okay?" Well, I walked over, and he had 1/2 a sentence. Instead of getting on to him, I decided, hey, I'll encourage the kid. So I said, "You're almost there! That's a great start!" The next time I walked back, he had a few sentences! Again, I encouraged him. "You're almost at a half a page! Great!" Finally, he reached his goal. He raised his hand to call me over to look at it. I read it and told him great job, he was done now. He looked at me, smiling, and said, "Can I write some more?"

This has been a great week!