Kids say the darnest things

There were some pictures of signs in the text and I was asking my students to tell me what they thought each one meant. Well, we came across the handicap parking sign and I asked for someone to explain it. What does one girl say? She says, "Oh, that's a parking spot for only grandmas and grandpas!" It was so cute and I couldn't help myself but snicker a bit. But I did explain to them that handicap doesn't go hand in hand with being old. There was also a railroad crossing sign and one of the boys started to tell a story about it being against the law to play on railroad tracks. I thought that his whole point was that his parent's friend got in trouble with the police for playing on them (since this was how he started the story). How did his story end? He said, "My dad's friend was playing on the railroad tracks. It's against the law to play in those areas. Well, a train started coming, and he didn't see it, so he died." I realized where he was going with his story but it was too late to try and stop it.

I had forgotten about this but last week one of the girls was so funny. We now have tadpoles in our room and we started with 7 but 3 of them didn't make it. Strangely, the 3 that died were all brought in by the same girl. She's really smart and I love her to pieces. So she realized that they were the ones she brought in because her 3 were much fatter than the other 4. What does she say to me after she found out they died? She goes, "My mother wasted $15 for nothing!!" Haha, but I explained to her that we got a chance to observe them and that it just taught us that nothing is guaranteed in life.

I was teaching about rules and laws for social studies today. To begin the lesson, I thought of a really good introduction. I told them that we would start with a game first. I knew I had to pick a student that would be cooperative but also not flip out on me once they realized what I was doing. I had one of the boys come up to the board to play tic-tac-toe with me. I told him he could go first but as he was starting, I started marking as well. Then I would take two turns in a row, I would erase his marks, I would change his marks to my marks, I would be the X's and the O's, etc. As we were doing this, the whole class was flipping out screaming, "You're cheating!! You can't do that! That's not fair! No one will like you or play with you if you cheat!" Luckily, the boy I picked out to help reacted how I thought he would. He wasn't happy about it but he kept on playing. I was so pleased how it all worked out because it got them to really understand the importance of rules. (Yes, I'm giving myself a pat on the shoulder).