Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Phonetically-Spelled Apology Letters

A majority of my students got in trouble and/or were being disrespectful during P.E. time. The coach was baffled by their behavior because they are not usually the troublesome class. I told the students how sad I was that they would disrespect another teacher so I had them write apology letters to the coach. I read through them and found some of their spellings to be quite humorous. Here are just a few (I'll let you try and figure out the words):

Dear Mrs. N,
I love you.
I am sore.
I am gunu chrigh my best.
I will never be bad.
I will olwast love you.
I will never tok back.
I will owas git in lin.
I will not make a mab fas.
I will not poosh.
I will not act crase.


I am sorry.
I will be good nexst PE. I promis to never be bae.
I will dowene thang to get jor chrust beck.
I will never de bae a gen. I am sory for being bae.


I am soure for bisobating.
I am soure for playing in line.
I am soure for enoring.
I am soure for playing when I dot spostow.


I'm sore Mrs. N. I will be good nack time.
I wont to do good. I will not dispact.


I am sorry. I will be good. I will never be bad again.
I will try not to bring flip flops again.


OK, I know I said to figure out the words on your own, but just incase you had a little trouble, here's some translations of a few of the more challenging ones:

sore, soure = sorry
gunu = "gunna"
chrigh = try
olwast, owas = always
crase = crazy
bae = bad
chrust = trust
dowene thang = do anything
bisobating = disobeying
enoring = ignoring
dot spostow = not supposed to
dispact = disrespect

recent quotes

D: Mrs Vining, C is tickling me in the ear pick.
Me: Where is she tickling you?
D: In my ear pick! (as he points to his arm pit)


Me: Alright, let's use our slinkies to stretch out this word...
Students: bbbb-rrrr--aawww-lllll
Me: What's the word?
Students: BRAWL!
C: Yea, women wear bras!
Me: brawlllll....not bra.

Saturday, April 24, 2010

secrets, secrets....

Each Friday we have Friday Art Club. A parent will come in and teach the lesson and lead the children in an activity. I try to keep it a secret the whole week so that the parent can have the privilege of unveiling the activity for the week. One student was trying to get the secret out of me.

D: Mrs. Vining, what are we doing with the recycled stuff.
Me: I don't know....
D: C'mon, tell meeee
Me: Sorry, can't tell you.
D: Please, just tell me.
Me: You can just wait a couple more hours. I don't want you telling everyone else.
D: I don't have a good memory anyway, so you could tell me and I'll just forget later.

simple machines

This past week, we were learning about simple machines and how they only have a few parts. I was asking questions about the story of the week during one of my small groups. Here's how one conversation went with a student:

Me: C, what is an example of a simple machine?
C: An electric......eel.
Me: No, that's an animal.
C: An electric......power bill.
Me: Simple machines don't have to be electric. And a power bill is not a machine. :)


Tuesday, April 13, 2010

"but...."

One of my students was telling me something that I quite honestly wasn't giving 100% of my attention to. I'm sure my mind was in 5 different places at that moment. I heard her pause in what she was telling me so I assumed she was finished. I responded with a universal response of "wow, that's great." I focused my attention elsewhere for a few minutes only to find the student trying to get my attention again. She said to me, "Mrs. Vining, you did not let me tell you the BUT part of my story!" Oops..

Saturday, April 10, 2010

look at all of these Bibles!

More towards the beginning of the year, my students were having trouble keeping the library center clean. Books would be all over the place. I gave up trying to reorganize it and started telling the students that they would clean it up or it would stay messy. My thoughtful students decided that they would organize it for me during center time. While I was back with my small group, a student came running to me with a stack of chapter books exclaiming, "Ms. Ellis! Look at all of these Bibles I found!" I guess in his mind every thick book must be a Bible.

Thursday, April 8, 2010

knock knock...

Today, part of our reading included knock-knock jokes. I have to admit, regardless of how corny the jokes might be, it's refreshing to get to just laugh with the kids instead of sticking to a strict curriculum.
After reading some of the knock-knock jokes, I said another one to the kids. I'm sure you've heard it...it's the one where you keep saying "banana" when they ask who's there; then finally you answer "orange" and proceed to say "orange you glad I didn't say banana?" Well, the kids loved that one and decided they wanted to make up their own. Here are just a few:

Knock, knock...
Who's there?
Book..
Book who?
Book head!!
(they thought adding the word 'head' to any word was hilarious...the humor obviously goes over my head)

Knock, knock...
Who's there?
Banana...
Banana who?
Banana, orange you glad I didn't say orange?!
(But you did say orange....)

Knock, knock...
Who's there?
Violet...
Violet who?
Violet, sparkly, purple!
(..........)



That's all of the jokes I can remember off the top of my head. It's somewhat hard to remember jokes that have no punch line whatsoever. Anyway, I figured I would end this post with a couple of quotes that involved mix-ups on words:

Me: Alright L, which joke was your favorite?
J: I bet I know what you're going to pick!
Me: J, just let L pick on her own...
L: Yea J, you're not a sign-kick!
Me: You mean...psychic?

(The following dialogue was during science when we were talking about how matter can change)
Me: Alright, when I ask you how matter can change, I'm not talking about it changing length or breaking. I mean, if I broke a pencil in half it doesn't change into something different, like a flower. It's still a pencil.
L: Yea, if it changed into a flower, then you'd be a musician!
Me: Magician...

Monday, April 5, 2010

babies...

I was explaining how mommy birds feed their babies...
Me: Now this might sound gross, but mom's eat and digest their food and then spit it back up into their babies mouth.
Class: Ewwwww!!!
Me: But think about it, you couldn't chew food on your own either when you were a baby, you had to drink liquids and eat mushy baby food...
Student 1: And you had to drink breast milk

(conversation was quickly diverted back to mommy birds throwing up their food...didn't want to explain the whole milking process to the class).


Later that day....
(on a side note, I was wearing a dress that was kinda puffy around the stomach)

L: Mrs. Vining, you look like you're going to have a baby!
:: I give the student a blank stare...letting her know that I was definitely not::
L: Well....a cute baby!
Me: Why..because you think the dress is cute?
L: Well J said it first!!
:: I look at J::
J: A said it to me!
A: Well, you do look like you're going to have a baby!
Me: I'm glad you're all talking about how fat I look.


Friday, April 2, 2010

Ruby's Wish...peanut butter

I was reading Ruby's Wish to the class one day. It's about a young Chinese girl who wants so badly to go to "the University". Later in the story, she's at a Chinese celebration where everyone gets a red envelope that is usually filled with money. Ruby's envelope was thicker than usual. I asked the students to predict what was in the envelope.

Student 1: I think that it's a big wad of money.
Student 2: It's probably confetti.
Student 3: Maybe it's money to go to the University.
Student 4: I think that there is peanut butter inside.

....On that note, I continued reading the story....
"It wasn't money...", I read.
All of the students who guessed money said "Aw, man!"
Student 4 responded, "It must be peanut butter."
Quotes for the day:

J: Mrs. Vining, you look tired.
A: Yea, you've got bags.



Me: Does anyone know what "wise" means?
C: It's like, when the sun wises.


Me: M, what does the word "advice" mean?
M: It means I'm handsome.
(He just so happened to be dressed very nicely that day...I think he was looking for compliments).

Me: What animals are nocturnal?
Student 1: Raccoons!
Student 2: Bats!
Student 3: Cats!
Student 4: Werewolves!