R is for Reality

Last week's reading focus was Reality and Fantasy. It apparently carried over to this week.

As I've said before, one of my favorite things about second graders are the conversations they have when they don't think we're listening.

We had a P.E. field trip to the bowling alley today. (Mr. Random: Don't let me leave here without maple syrup.) That meant we had to eat our lunches in the classrooms. While some were finished up their ravioli, others were drawing pictures.

This was an overheard conversation:

Mr. Man: Have you ever seen a ghost?

Mumble-ina: No. You can't always see them.

Mr. Man: Yeah, 'cause they are made of clear stuff.

Mum: Nuh uh. Some are made of spirits and dust.

Mr. Man: Oh! Like vampires?

Mum: (outraged!) No! Vampires are made of real things! And they sparkle so you can see them.

Mr. Man: Ms. Buckler? Are unicorns real?

Me: (confused) I thought you were talking about ghosts an vampires?

Mr. Man: (whispering to Mum) She's listening to us!

I felt this was a good time to casually walk by and observe what kind of pictures were being created.

This was Mumble-ina's:

**I would like to apologize for the poor quality of this photo. Our school's tech specialist (Hi, Mrs. H!) and I both know I could have scanned it, but I'm too lazy.**

 Me: Mumble-ina! Who is in this picture?

Mum: That's me. And that's Robert Pattinson.

I must have made a "teacher face" because she said, "oh fine!" She then added some words and gave it back.

Now it is clearly labeled as myself with my favorite baseball player.

Me: Um, I have brown hair and so does Mr. Longoria.

Mum: Well...Sassy taught me how to draw it!

Me: Oh, Sassy made you draw a picture of smooching? Let me see hers.

Peer pressure is so tough.

C is for Crat-er

One Line Wonder was at it again today.

Three times a year we give the FAIR test. This assesses students' fluency, reading accuracy/comprehension, spelling, etc.

One of the sub tests consists of a list of multisyllabic words. My students were NOT good at this at the beginning of the year. Since then we have learned a lot of spelling and vowel rules. They've all done much better.

I gave the FAIR test to OLW today. She got about 90% of the words correct. Since this is the last time they take the test, I wanted to use it as a teaching tool.

I pointed to a word she missed.

Me: What was this word? We just learned about it in Science.

Her: Crat-er.

Me: No...What were those holes on the moon called?

Her: Craters...

Me: Doesn't this look like it could be 'crater'? Haven't we learned the sneaky 'e' makes 'a' say it's name?

Her: Yeah, but it could also be crat-er.

Me: Does that make sense?! Have you ever heard of a crat-er?!

Her: Of course!

Me: When?!

Her: My baby sister says crat-er when she wants a cracker because she's only three!

Me: Oh good gravy! Thanks, OLW, we're done here.

Her: You got it, Dude!

S is for Spectacular

It's FCAT week. All week. ALL week. I'm cracking up a little because our schedules are rearranged to accommodate testing times. I don't do schedule changes well. It leaves us a lot of time after lunch to enjoys each other's company. If I didn't occasionally have adult contact, I'd probably crack all the way.

I have a 5th grade buddy that's been visiting because he get's special FCAT treatment. He's been entertaining our class for 3 mornings now. (FYI: He's the one that reminded me to Bring Whales.)

Yesterday, Buddy drew on the board while waiting for a student to finish morning work so he could read a Dr. Seuss book to them. I had to take a picture before I HAD to erase it.

Mr Fact Man: Wow. Buddy is wonderful at drawing.

Buddy: (in his own monotone Buddy-ish way) I think you mean spectacular.

He got a little bit of cabin fever during our reading centers today. The whole rotation through centers thing was a little too much for him.

He decided to amuse himself by drawing on my whiteboard AGAIN.

 

Buddy was not a fan of the timer. He informed me time goes faster when you aren't watching it.

Me: How am I supposed to know how long the kids have to be in my group?

Him: Guess-timate. It's ridiculous.

Me: What does THAT mean?

Then the timer rang. He was ready to go to Music.

I hated to tell him we had one more rotation. He did not take this well. I asked him not to stand in front of the projector, because I do like to watch the timer. I'm weird like that.

Him: Are you happy now? Voila (pronounced VELLA)!

Me: Thanks, Buddy. It's almost over.

Him: ...

Then the timer came to life and caught some food.

 And that dinner turned and tried to catch the flying roasted turkey (by the ladybug).

And then the dinner's dinner got away. "Just in the nick of time."

And then the timer beeped and the Schedule Keeper turned it off. Before Buddy was ready. She picked it up, stopped it, and put it back down. In the WRONG spot. So he fixed it.

Me: Hey Buddy! It's time to go!

Him: I've been TRYING to TELL you that.

One Line Wonder: Wow, he has a very creative brain. He just gave me an idea. I need a new sheet of paper.

Him: I think you mean spectacular brain.

B is for Birthday Suit and Babies

**I am NOT saying that birthday suits lead to babies...I just so happens those two things start with the same letter.**

The Setting: Math

The Characters: Me, Spacey's younger brother, Mr. Random.

Action!

Me: Good job, Mr. Random. Your math is all correct. Please go to your math center.

Him: Ms. Bucklewr, do you know what a birthday suit is? (turns pink)

Me: Yes, I do. Isn't that what you're supposed to wear on your birthday?

Him: No!

Me: I bet you wore it on your BIRTH day. The day you were born.

Him: Nuh-uh! (turns tomato red)

Me: What? Do you think your mom put clothes on you in her tummy?

Him: No! I'm gonna go do math now...

Later, I had to retell this story to Mrs. W. She asked him if he wore his birthday suit when he was a baby.

Him: I can't remember.

Cut! Cut! Cut!

It was almost as scary as that story Sassy wrote about her "Best Day Ever" being the day she was born.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This morning Mr. Fact Man asked if I know what a liger is. Duh! Of course I do!

Then another dude asked what a horse mixed with a zebra would be called. A Zorse? A Hebra? He decided to ask our 5th grade visitor, "When a horse and a zebra fall in love, get married, and have a baby, what do they call their baby?" Our fifth grade visitor replied, "Mixed."

I really don't mean to talk about where babies come from, but sometimes it comes up. I heard Mr. T.V. asked one of my teammates if "she done got herself pregnant" and when she confirmed she really does have a baby in her belly he said, "That is NOT your stomach."

I SWEAR I don't know where they get this stuff! I blame it on Nickelodeon.

O is for Old-Timey

This post is all about one hilarious little darling. I will call her "One-Line Wonder" because she keeps us laughing daily with her humor.

She doesn't even know she is so funny. In fact, her normal facial expression makes her look like she's mad about something. She often says her one-liners in such a dead-pan way that it makes it 100 times funnier. She look around and say, "What?! What's so funny?"

One-Line Wonder was asked by a classmate why she gets to go to a reading group everyday and she informed him, "It's cause they think that if I can read better I can spell better and it ain't working yet..."

In my reading group a few weeks ago, we had a 'loss of sanity' moment. We were learning about lost cities and we read that the ancient city of Tikal was buried under trees and vegetation. I asked how archeologists found it. One-Line Wonder says, "with chainsaws! R-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r!" and shook the entire table and portable floor with her spastic, dead-pan enactment.

My whole group lost it. Our laughter was so distracting that all the other kids were interrupted and had to know what was so funny. We were all clutching our stomachs while she looked around saying, "What?! What' so funny?"

The green reading group now has an inside joke. Anytime there is a word with an "r" they have to make the chainsaw sound.

For example:

"The moon goes around the Ear-r-r-r-r-r-th!"

"A tomato is a fr-r-r-r-r-r-uit!"

"It's your turn to r-r-r-r-r-read Ms. Buckler-r-r-r-r-r-r!"

Our fifteen minutes of group time is quite enter-r-r-r-r-taining.

Today, One-Line wonder and I were working one-on-one for math. She comes back from her reading group when the rest of the kids are working on math centers.

Curly-Top walks over to our table and asks, "Ms. Buck-wer, where are those thing-a-ma-jigs?"

Me: (knowing exactly what he was looking for) They are in the box with the "watcha-ma-call-its".

One-Line Wonder: (muttering to herself) People these days...they go around saying things like "thing-a-ma-jig" and "wacha-ma-call-it". It's a shame.

Me: (snorting with laughter) OLW, how did you get to be so funny?!

OLW: Well, I watch this old-timey show called "Full House" and they say lots of funny stuff.

Me: (outraged!) That show is not old-timey! It was around when I was a kid!

OLW: My point exactly.

Me: Alright, go get Sassy to help you with your math...

OLW: You got it, Dude! (Michelle Tanner style)

Me: Cut. It. Out. (Uncle Joey style)

Her: (rolling eyes) I'm funnier-r-r-r-r-r-r-r.

P is for Parking

So sometime back in 2010, I became the TEACHER OF THE YEAR (I haven't mentioned that before, have I?) and there was one VERY exciting perk. In January, I got to take over the TOY parking spot.

It was exciting. It is at LEAST 10 feet closer!

So I took a picture of it.

And for perspective, I took a picture of the rest of the parking lot where I USED to have to park. You know, with the "regular" people.

And then came Relay for Life fund-raising time. You know, the Relay for Life where we had this site:

 

 And we won these trophies:

Anyway...As a fund-raiser, I decided to raffle off my parking spot. For $2 a ticket, teachers could get the chance to park 10 FEET CLOSER everyday for A MONTH!

The teacher who won got to start parking there today. And this is what it now looks like for me:

 Yep, that's my black car waaaaaaaaaaaaay back there. 

And I forgot my classroom keys in there this morning. And it was such a loooooong walk to get them.

At least she feels guilty about it.

At least "Jeans Month" was also a fund-raiser so I'm not wearing heels.

At least I may get a little more cardio in.

At least April is only 30 days. 

I think I'll get over it.