Ahh, the reasons to have children...

When trying to hook up a 9V battery in my room, I touched it to my tongue to see if it still had juice. One student said, “My dad does that. It shocks him.” A second student said, “My dad makes me do that for him.”

Sweet Coaching

From Mr. Heitschmidt's 7th Grade A Squad Basketball team. While watching one of our girls on a fast break, dribbling with her head down, us coaches yelled “Look up!” referencing the open girl down by the hoop. She immediately looked straight up at the roof, as if a tile was falling down on her.

The World According to S and A

This morning students were talking about the places of the world that they would like to live when I heard Sam announce, "Alaska doesn't have any people!"
Andre said he definitely couldn't live in Sweden because he doesn't know "Swedenese" and when asked if he could move to Tokyo he responded, "No way, I don't know Chinese!"

Right in the Middle

We were scoring Six Trait writing and the students had to score a paper using a 5-3-1 rubric. O decided that the rubric wasn’t quite fitting and gave the student a 2.5 in Voice. I told the class I was rounding her score up to a 3 for the class total sheet. M announces, “How can it be rounded to a 3? 2.5 is right in the middle of 3 AND 1…”

Note to Self

Why you should never ask a student to hold the work sample while you take a picture...

The Dream

Last week our leadership class provided messages and activities relating to Civil Rights in honor of Martin Luther King Day and the "I have a dream," speech.
On Friday darling Sadrac turned to me and said: Mrs. Walker, I don't get it. Why was that guy telling everyone about happened when he was sleeping?
Me (trying to cover my smile): What do you mean?
Student: Martin Luther King, I mean, did he actually give a speech, or was he just talking about what he dreams about at night?
Me: Oh honey, it's the other kind of dream he was talking about, not the dreams you have when you sleep.
Student: Oh, are you serious?!?

State spelling-Middle School Style

Last Friday I had a few extra minutes of class remaining so I gave the last class of the day a blank map of the United States and asked them to fill in the states. Now I'm not even going to speak to the incorrect placement and lack of knowledge they had and instead choose to examine the "creative" spelling of the places we hold so dear.
Ariazona
Calinfornia/Calafonia
Colorodo
Geirga
Flordia
Hawiawa
Idoh (Homer Simpson version perhaps?)
Illonious
Iwoa
Luisianna/Louziana
Kanases/Canzes
Kentuky
Main
Missiuri/Missourie
Nabraska
Navata
New Hamsher
North Ciarliana/N. Caroliana
North Duckota
Orgeon/Organ
Pesvinna
Shouth Dacota
Tenese
Texax/Texes/Texal
Uhta
Vigiana
Wahinton/Whashiton (My personal favorite as these were students who have lived here their ENTIRE lives.)
Whyoming/Whyoming

Benjamin Franklin-That traitor!

From Mr. Appelgate's Social Studies:
I mentioned somebody being a traitor. A student exclaimed, “Like Benjamin Franklin!”

Labor Day

Courtesy of R, “What does labor mean, like when you have babies?”
Me, “Yes, but it also means work.”

R, “Oh so when we are celebrating Labor Day we are celebrating working, not people having babies???”

Words, words, words

D’s use of our vocab word:

“I have no apathy of this assignment.”


He followed this by holding a thesaurus and asking, “Is this a dictionary?”

The Soviet Union's Arc

In Mr. Appelgate's history class students were discussing the use of atomic weapons:

Student: When doing tests, didn’t the Soviet Union put a bunch of animals on ships?
Second student: That was Noah.

Epic Failure

In Mr. Heitschmidt's math class:
Student 1: What's the difference between an F and an F-?

Student 2: An F is just a failure, an F- is an EPIC Failure.

Blackjack

I use hand-numbered playing cards to call on students in class and when I said, "Twenty-one," D yelled, "BLACKJACK!" 

Fierce Wonderings of Middle School Students

Student: Mrs. Walker?
Me: Yes, James?
Student: If a robot does the robot, is it doing the robot, or is it just dancing?

Hilter's Daughter

Student: I didn't know that Hilter had kids!
Me: Ok... Who's Hilter?
Student rolls his eyes: Gees, Mrs. Walker your the one who taught us about him!
Me: Hmm, could you possibly mean Hitler? Hey, you got all the letters right, just not in the correct order, right? But, no, honey, HITLER did not have any children.
Student: Uh-huh it says it right here!!!
(Holds up the fictional book, Hitler's Daughter)
Me: Which section of the library did you get that book from?
Student: The fiction side.
Me:............
Student: What?
Me:...........
Student: Oh, I get it!

Follow-up:
Upon telling this story to another Language Arts teacher, I was outdone when he said that a former student used that book as the basis for her RESEARCH paper, "Hitler's daughter."

New Rug?

My classroom rug was folding up at the corners so I decided to turn it over and use my dictionaries to weigh it down. ELEVEN students walked in that day and said, "Oh!!! Mrs. Walker, did you buy a new rug?"

Attention and Detail in the middle school...

Assignment Objective: Students must pay attention and analyze detail in a photograph to create a narrative story about the picture.
15 of 29 students responded, “I didn’t know there was a back side to the assignment!”

Hmm...Objective...failed

A picture is worth...1,000 words

Writing assignment today where students had to write a story after viewing a Norman Rockwell picture, so the assignment is called, “A picture is worth 1,000 words.” I explained the assignment, took them through the pre-writing activity and then they draft a story. The directions say: Create a narrative story based upon what you think is happening in the story. I provide them with 1 page to write.


N walks up and says, “So this has to be 1,000 words???”
Teacher: Where does it say that?
N: Looks at paper, then back at me. “1,000. Wow, ok, I guess I can do it. Really, 1,000 words?”
Teacher: “Again, Nathan does it say anywhere on there that it has to be 1,000 words?”
N: “Alright, yeah I get it, 1,000 words, that’s long, but yeah I can do it.”
And… he walks away....

The wormologist

B: Lines go 2 directions. Like worms.
Mr. H: Like worms?
B: There was this chick who came to school in 4th grade...
Mr. H: this chick? Girls have names, B...
B: I don't know her name, but she was a wormologist. And if you cut a worm in half, it dies. Like a line.

Oh thank God for aspirin!

Greatest comments from the White Elephant...

Student who received the box of corn flakes, "Perfect, I'm lactose intolerant..."

Boy who received a can of dog food labeled for weight management, "That's messed up, I'm a fat dog?"
 
When students tried to convince other students to choose their wrapped presents, "Peer pressure! Peer pressure!"

H regarding her white elephant entry, "It's my brother's soul, (a note taped on an empty box) he just had it lying around so he didn't mind."

The boy who received H's brother's soul, "Please don't take my soul, please don't take my soul!"


The boy who received two small oranges, "Great, stale oranges."

Upon stealing a pet rock S exclaimed, "Sweet, I can feed it the dirt on my shoe!"

Shiny Objects

During our white elephant gift exchange, she was in awe upon opening a Christmas ornament. Her friend laughed at S's bewildered amusement and then proclaimed, "It's shiny, S could stare at that for hours..."