my failed attempt at "teaching" humor...

so today . . . it occurs to me that five year olds just can't tell jokes...

"if april showers are may flowers, then what is it?"

"pilgrims. AHAHAHAHAHA!"

yes, the "hilarity" continues. i heard various versions of that joke all. day. long. i kept trying to correct them, and they kept mangling it. and it didn't matter how they told it, they always ended it with a big, fake laugh. and then i heard more "jokes," all of which also ended with big fake laughs. apparently they think a joke is just a question with an answer that is totally unrelated and is followed by a big fake laugh. i think the laugh is to indicate that they have just told you a joke... you know, in case you can't tell by how funny it is. or isn't.

and then it happened. nicholas told a real joke. correctly.

"knock! knock!"

"who's there?"

"orange."

"orange who?"

you know how it goes. he continued.

"knock! knock!"

"who's there?"

"orange."

"orange who?"

the little girl he had chosen as the victim for his joke was confused, and starting to lose interest. i was pulling for him, and hoping he would see he was losing her and just jump to the punchline. but he is five. he doesn't know how to read those social cues and respond yet. and whoever had taught him the joke had probably said to use "orange" three times. so he did.

"knock! knock!"

"who's there?"

"orange."

"orange WHO?"

"JUST TELL HER THE PUNCHLINE," i was thinking!! "QUICKLY BEFORE SHE RUINS YOUR PERFECTLY RECITED JOKE!!!" he continued.

"knock! knock!"

"who's there?"

"banana."

wait a minute. that's not right. banana doesn't make any sense.

oh shoot. i am telling it wrong...

AHAHAHAHAHA!

(note: this is a true story. i did not realize i had messed up the joke until the end of the blog. i thought about going back to correct it, so that it would be told the way it actually happened, but i decided my mistake was funnier than the story i was trying to tell, so i left it. nicholas, however, did tell the joke correctly. sadly, the little girl did not "get" it. maybe that's why five year olds don't waste any brain cells trying to remember jokes correctly...)

there is listening, and then there is listening and thinking...

so today . . . i was once again surprised by the five year old mind.

we have been learning about different countries in our social studies curriculum. this week we are learning about china. i always find this a little bit ironic, considering the majority of my students are chinese by heritage. and although many of them were born here in the united states, their parents were not. so i am sure they know waaaay more about china than i do. and really, what we learn about each country is kind of superficial--climate, exports, location, stuff like that. but when i am teaching them what our curriculum says about china, i always expect one of them to say, "that's not right!" it is compounded this year, because my assistant is chinese--really chinese! she has only been here for a few years. i was reading about chinese new year last week, and i kept expecting her to say, "that's not true!" but she didn't. it probably helped that the book i was reading was written by a chinese lady, but still...

i don't know why i expect that the books will get it wrong. it is just that sometimes the generalizations that are made seem kind of simplified--like saying chinese children like to jump rope and play ping pong! really?? that is kind of like saying american children like to play jacks and baseball. i was an american child. and let me just say, baseball was my worst nightmare when i was in school! so when i am teaching the curriculum, i pick and choose what i tell the kids.

today, their paper had the chinese character for "big" printed with red ink. their task was to copy it. but the really cool thing that happend, was that when i showed them the paper, one little girl's face lit up and she said, "oh, oh, i know what that says! that says BIG!" she was so excited! and so was i, because this little girl isn't chinese--she is philipino, but she takes chinese class in the afternoon. and she knew how to read the chinese character for BIG.

i am amazed by this. when i first started working at this school, i thought i would stay late in the afternoons and learn chinese with the kids. it sounded like a great idea, but i quickly gave it up. there was no way i was going to learn chinese. it is way too hard!!

but apparently it isn't too hard if you are five years old...

so anyway, i explained the paper and what they were supposed to do. this was a task that should have taken them all of 30 seconds to complete, so i was kind of surprised to see kevin still working on it ten minutes later. when he finally brought me his paper, this is what i saw.i really like kevin, but like several of the boys in my class this year, he doesn't always listen to my directions. and clearly he hadn't listened to them this time. "kevin," i said, "this is a very cool picture, but you were supposed to draw the character for BIG." he looked up at me and very seriously said, "but i drew God. he was the biggest character i could think of!"

i laughed. it was just too cute! clearly he had been listening, his brain had just tweaked my words a bit. and the really funny thing? kevin is chinese! he should have known what i was talking about, even if i hadn't taken the time to thoroughly explain it.

we sing a song in music time called, "my God is so big!" and i guess kevin got that message. because in his picture, God is definitely the biggest one. he is huge! but the thing that makes me smile, is all the tiny little people crawling all over God, standing on his foot, even balancing on the top of a cloud. i love it!

kevin just kept saying, "what?!" as i laughed. i'm sure he couldn't figure out what i thought was so funny. but i loved it! i loved that God was the biggest thing kevin could think of. i love that the people are all over God. but mostly, i love that kevin has learned that God is big! and we can crawl all over him, and he doesn't mind--he still smiles.

i guess he was listening after all... kind of...

or maybe just deerskin pants?

so today . . . we started talking about thanksgiving at school.

it is a little hard to get into the spirit of the holiday when it is so warm outside, but temperatures have cooled slightly, so we are making the best of it...

i always start the discussion about thanksgiving by talking about native americans. four- and five-year olds tend to think of american indians as loin-cloth wearing men with feathered headbands whose only mode of communication is that sound they can make by fluttering their hands over their mouths (a sound, btw, that drives me CRAZY when my kids do it!) while riding really fast horses... so i always start out by discussing what native american life was like, and how the tribes were different.

i was explaining that where they lived determined their lifestyle--what kind of homes they had, what they ate, what they wore, how they lived. we had discussed housing (wood in the pacific northwest, adobe in the south,) food (fish and seafood for those tribes on the ocean, wild animals and crops for those who didn't live near the water,) and finally got to clothing. i said, "the people who lived where it was cold needed warmer clothes, so they would leave the fur on the animal skins they used for their clothes." we talked about that for a while, and then i asked, "so what do you think the tribes who lived where it was hot wore."

and one precious child raised his hand and said, "sunglasses!"

california kids... :)

am i not speaking clearly enough?!?!?

so today . . . it has been a long and difficult day. so was yesterday. and monday was no picnic either. some days are like that--very busy and full of stuff that i either can't, or won't, blog.

one of my rules--don't write anything mean about anybody. ever. sometimes, that is a challenge :)

which means that today i have very little material for a blog. but i don't want to fall into the habit of only blogging a couple of times a week--i prefer to blog every day. so i am going to repost one of my old myspace blogs. i haven't done that in a while, but i remembered this one earlier in the week when i was writing about periods and commas. don't expect to laugh out loud, but i think you will at least smile...

this was originally posted on monday, november 12, 2007. that was almost three years ago. this was before i was blogging all the time. you may notice, my early blogs were much more concise :)

today was a rough day at school--wild, yappy kids all day long! but i did laugh twice and thought i would share why before i forget.

first, i was getting ready to read a thanksgiving story, so i was reviewing what we had read about last week--you know, the pilgrims leaving england, the journey across the ocean, and building a new life in america. when i asked, "and who remembers the name of the ship they sailed on?" one little girl raised her and exclaimed "the cauliflower!"

then later i was introducing the concept of a sentence during phonics instruction. i was showing them that a sentence begins with an upper case letter and ends with a punctuation mark--either a period or exclamation point or question mark. the examples i had written on the board all ended with periods, since that is the one most commonly used. so when we were reviewing, i would ask, "how do we know this is a sentence?" and they responded that it began with an upper case letter. then i said, "and what else?" and the response i heard from more than one child was, "and it ends with a pyramid!"

kids are still funny. we have been talking about christopher columbus this week, and for some reason my kids cannot say his name correctly. so while i say we have been talking about christopher columbus, the truth is that in my classroom this year, he is more commonly referred to as christopher coLUMPus.

:)

sharing? or just showing . . .

so today . . . was my last day of substituting at summer camp. i say last day, because it is the last day i have agreed to, and i do not plan to set foot over there ever again! but i've learned never to say never, so we will see what the rest of the summer brings. (although, after the last couple of days, i'm pretty sure the rest of the summer brings no more summer camp for me . . .)

in celebration of my last day of subbing, i am going to finally post the story from last friday. i think.

since it was friday, the kids were apparently allowed to bring a toy to school--you know, for "sharing time." really, if you are going to let kids bring a toy from home at least be honest enough to call it what it is--"show and tell." because that is what is going to happen. kids do not bring a toy from home to share it. they bring it to show everyone else what cool stuff they have, and no one else had better even think about touching it. other children are only allowed to look at it longingly. on rare occasions a child will agree to trade their most precious possession for temporary custody of someone else's most precious possession, but even that exchange usually ends badly . . .

i've often wondered why teachers even do this--i find that it brings nothing but problems into my classroom. i know that "sharing time" can be used to develop language and social skills, but it seems that those goals are rarely accomplished, because it takes a chunk of time out of the day to do sharing time right. here's what typically happens instead--kids bring a toy from home, kids play with their toy, kids do not want to share their toy with the other kids--they just want to taunt the other kids with what they've got, whining ensues, tattling runs rampant, teachers have to take the toys away. everyone is unhappy.

there is a good way to incorporate sharing into a learning environment, but i just don't have time to do it--especially on fridays. so in my class, they are not allowed to bring toys from home. not ever. and after we get past one or two fridays of me sending home the toys they insist on bringing, it isn't a big deal anymore. they leave their toys at home, and we have a good day at school.

call me mean if you want to--i can take it. all i know is, i have a lot less problems on fridays than anyone else . . .

but today i was subbing. that means that i wasn't really in charge. i was there to implement someone else's plan and follow someone else's rules. and those rules apparently allow kids to bring a toy to school on fridays. and for school age kids, that means they bring their nintendo ds. but not everyone brought their nintendo ds today. so the result was that the kids who had theirs played the games, while the kids who didn't have theirs watched. because if a nintendo ds is in the room, no one is going to pick up a book or put legos together--at least not on planet earth. on a normal school day this would make me crazy, but hey, it is summer. i was just glad they were quiet and occupied so that i could play on my computer . . .

joshua did not bring his nintendo ds, so he came over to see what i was doing. i tried to load my facebook farm to show him, because i thought he would be interested to see how it had progressed since he was in my class. but the internet connection was giving me grief and wouldn't load the whole farm. while he was standing there, he said, "i have a nintendo ds, but i didn't bring it today." i made non-commital interested sounds, because while i was listening to him, i was really trying to get my farm to load! he continued, "yeah, and i have a wii and a playstation too." (he might have meant playstation 2, i'm not really sure . . . )
"wow," i said, "that is a lot of electronic games."
"what do you have?" he asked.
"i don't have any of those things." i paused and then said, "maybe you should give me one of yours."
"i can't," he said. "i need them all."
"but you can only play one at a time!" i reasoned.
"yes but i need my nintendo ds for when i go places," he said.
"ok, well what about the wii? i don't have one of those."
"no," he replied, "i need the wii for exercise." yes, because who would ever think to go outside and run around!
"then how about the playstation. you don't really need both a wii and a playstation," i reasoned.
"yes i do," he said.

apparently that one needed no explanation.

one of the older girls overheard this conversation and then she said, "you don't have a wii? what do you have?"
"well," i said, "i have a phone that has games--that's kind of like a nintendo. and i have my teeny tiny computer . . . "
she was not impressed. "then what do you do when you get home from school?"

oh, just let me tell you . . . "some days i go to the grocery store and some days i do laundry and sometimes i have vacuuming and dusting and picking up to do and errands to run and i have two dogs who need to be walked and sometimes i do computer stuff or read or listen to my ipod or watch tv."

i think i was sort of expecting her to be impressed by all the things an adult woman has to do--kind of like "enjoy your youth. someday you will be all grown up and have no time to play!"

but all she said was, "oh, you have an ipod . . . "

so i guess i am not hopeless. after all, i have an ipod.

when i finally got to come home, i felt sort of cranky. it had been a long morning of whiny, restless kids.

and then the doorbell rang . . .

rollie had been expecting a package, and as luck would have it, today was the day it arrived. normally this would have made me feel even more cranky--i like the packages that come to the house to be for me. but as it turns out, this one was!

"here," he said, "i got you something to enjoy this summer."

i thought i recognized the box. it was from amazon. it looked suspiciously like the box that came for rollie at christmas. but i have been fooled by boxes before. so before getting too excited, i opened it up.

and there, in all it's electronic glory, was a kindle. for me.

so today i took it to school with me. because i am the teacher-- i can take my toys to school on any day i want to.

and i don't have to share either :)

a baseball cap

so today . . . is the first day of my last week of school for this year.

i cannot even tell you how ready i am for summer vacation! because our school also provides daycare services, it is open all year. i am the only teacher on staff who gets the summers off--yes, i am special. the other day the kids were questioning me as to why i don't work in the summer. i told them it is so i don't get grouchy. i said if i had to work through the summer, i might be mean teacher ms. julie all the time instead of just once in a while. they smiled and said, "nuh uh!"

but it is true.

i honestly don't know how all the other teachers do it! i don't know how they come to school day after day after day and deal with a whole classroom full of other people's children with only a two week vacation! i need a beginning and an end to my school year, and a weekend is not enough! i get cranky just thinking about it!!

so in celebration of my upcoming summer vacation, i thought it would be fun to post funny kid stories all week. the only problem is, i don't have a funny kid story for today! we spent most of today in dress rehearsal for our graduation program. you know how i feel about preschool and kindergarten graduation, and yet still i am forced to participate every year. so the day of dress rehearsal is one of my least favorite days--let's just say i have the expression of a teen-aged girl most of the day. seriously, my eyes get tired of rolling . . .

but, lucky for you, i still have a few blogs from my days on myspace that i haven't shared yet. this one is from last year. it was originally posted on monday, december 15, 2008.

i am sharing a classroom with another teacher this year, which has it's challenges. one of those is that i can hear her when she is teaching (i'm sure she can hear me too.) sometimes the things i hear from the other side of the divider make me laugh out loud!

a few days ago she was teaching a lesson to her four year olds, and part of it required the children to identify some pictures. there was a picture of a baseball cap, but try as she might, she could not get anyone to say the word "cap." they just kept saying "hat," even though she had repeatedly said, "well, it is a hat, but it is a special kind of hat and has it's own name." most of our children speak a different language at home, so it is completely possible that they have never heard the word cap. finally, in desperation, she said, (in a somewhat commanding voice) "this is called a what!?!?" hoping they would say "a cap." one little girl, looking puzzled, said, "i didn't know that was called a what!!!"

dealing with language issues is one of the things i find both frustrating and fascinating about my current job. most of the children in my classroom speak mandarin chinese, tagalog, korean, vietnamese, or spanish at home. it always sort of jolts me when they speak to me in english and their parents in another language at the same time! i am stunned at their ability to process and think in two different languages at once. i occasionally have to correct their vocabulary or grammar, but they have amazing skills for bilingual five year olds!

one day i was talking to a parent, and he gave me some valuable information. he said that in mandarin, they do not have words for she or her--it is always he or his regardless of whether they are referring to a girl or a boy. this explains a lot to me. now instead of just correcting their vocabulary, i teach them the words she and her and when to use them. there are also no chinese words for turning something on or off--they say open or closed. so they don't turn the lights on, they open them. they don't turn the lights off, they close them. i no longer find it odd to hear someone say, "open the lights!" and yet, i have to be aware of it so i can teach them on and off.

but for this year, i am pretty much done teaching. we have graduation tomorrow night, our end of the year field trip on wednesday, and classroom clean-up for summer on thursday and friday. it is going to be a busy week. so now, i am going to "close" my brain and go to bed, because it isn't summer vacation yet. and i need to keep mean teacher ms. julie at bay for four more days . . .

what do i look like? wikipedia??

so today . . . one of my students asked me, "what color is lizard's pee?"

how do they think of these things? do they lie awake at night trying to think of questions i can't answer?? because it is not all that hard to stump me. but lizard pee?!?!?!

there they stood, looking at me expectantly, waiting for an answer.

"i don't know," i said. "i don't think i've ever seen a lizard go to the bathroom."

and then i realize how funny that sounds--because "go to the bathroom" is a polite euphemism for, you know, eliminating waste from the body.

i hate the word "pee."

"is it green?" one little dumpling asks.

how the heck do i know? but inquiring minds are waiting . . .

"i don't think it is green," i say. although the truth is, it could be rainbow colored for all the factual information i have in my head about lizard urine. "it is probably pretty clear, just like ours."

"oh," they say with sudden understanding, "then it is yellow."

"or peach," another one volunteers.

peach?!?!?! i don't think i even want to know . . .

"mine is clear," one little girl says. finally i see a way out. "clear is good," i say. "that means you are drinking enough water. our bodies need water to be healthy, so clear is good."

next question-- "what's for snack today?"

maybe i need a refresher course ... or maybe just new glasses.

so today . . . elvis wore this shirt to school.usually i don't take that much note of what the kids are wearing, but sometimes they are more stylish than me--even the boys! (i think that is because their mother's dress them.) sometimes i can look at a tiny little tot dressed head to toe from the gap, and i think, "did their mom realize those cute clothes would only fit them for a couple of months as she was signing a second mortgage to pay for them?" it seems like such a waste, because most of the time, the boys don't even care what they are wearing. as long as there is an action figure on the front of their shirt, they are happy.

but little girls are a different story. they care. they have opinions. (i know this, because i raised a little girl.) i can usually tell which little girls choose their own outfits and which ones have moms who are still making those clothing choices for them. (ok, maybe this little girl had some say in her ensemble--even i admit that is an awful lot of sparkles!)(and you may have your doubts about that last one, but trust me, i am pretty sure that was mom's idea.)

but i digress. back to elvis and his shirt.

so today . . . elvis came to me and said, "look at my shirt! do you know how many eyes are on it?" i was sorting papers at my desk, so i quickly glanced at the eyes, mentally grouped and added them, and said, "eight."

"no," he said, "there are seven."

"no," i said, "i just counted them, there are eight." and i was thinking to myself two on top, three in the middle, two on the bottom--eight. two groups of two, one group of three--eight. you do the math . . .

. . . yeah, i was wrong. because while my eyes were seeing 2-3-2, my brain was thinking 3-2-3.

i have no explanation for why my brain lies to me sometimes, but it does. it tells me brownies are good for me. it tells me i can stay up until midnight on a school night. it tells me i can never have too many shoes. (oh wait, that last one is true.)

but i'm the teacher. i've been counting for a long, long time. and usually they believe whatever i tell them. but clearly elvis had counted those eyes more than once. he knew how many there were. "no," he said for the third time, "there are seven. look."

and then he made my kindergarten teacher's heart do a little dance, because he looked at his shirt, and he counted, "two, four, six, seven!"

yessss!!! the boy counted by twos!! without being prompted or convinced that it would save him time. he counted by twos, and then added the odd one!!! it was all i could do to keep from leaping up and squeezing him to death!

and so, it is clear to me that my work here is done. these kindergarteners are ready to move on to first grade. they can count by twos. they don't need me anymore.

(except to tie their highly fasionable shoes . . .
. . . in double knots.)

a few funny stories

so today . . . i want to share some funny kid stories with you.

this morning i had been at school for about half an hour, when rollie appeared in my doorway with a diet lemon cokesi! i did not expect it at all, but i was feeling the need for one, so i was very excited. i jumped up from my desk, took the soda from him, hugged him and kissed him quick, and said thank you. this is not the first time this has happened, so it shouldn't have been a big deal. but one little girl was just speechless, so i jumped into my explanation of kissing being for our families, and as i always do, i said, "doesn't your mommy kiss your daddy sometimes?" which usually gets a positive response. but she said, "no, my daddy was really mean to my mommy." then she paused, while i was standing there thinking, "uh oh, now what do i say?" and then she said, "but now she has a boyfriend!"

suddenly i was the one who was speechless.

it is funny how kids make the connection between home and school. if parents only knew the stuff their precious darling children tell us! one day for handwriting, the kindergarteners were given a list of "special sounds," and their job was to complete the words. but to do it, they had to think of words that began with combinations like ch, th, sh, and fr. i explained how to do it, and then sat down at my desk while they worked. a few minutes passed, when i looked up and saw elvis standing next to me. "teacher," he whispered, "i shouldn't write sh** should i? because that is a bad word!" "um, no elvis, it is probably not a good idea to write that particular word--even if it does start with sh," i replied. clearly he had heard it somewhere, but at least he knew he shouldn't say it at school . . .

it was soon time for music, and i was sitting with two of the challenging dumplings next to me. there are days when they want to sing, and there are days when they don't. and on the days that they don't want to sing? well, we have found the best solution is if they come and sit by me. otherwise they create chaos all around them. so we were sitting there listening to the other kids sing, when luke said, "teacher, come here. i have to tell you a secret!" so i leaned toward him, and he whispered into my ear, "i love you."

yeah, go ahead and say it, "awwwwww."

sarah, who was on the other side of me, didn't want to be left out. so she said, "i have a secret too!" and then she said, "do you want to come to my house?" she did not whisper, so her voice was audible. but luke, who was standing on the other side of my head, looked amazed. and said, "teacher! i can hear her!!"

yes, apparently my brain had gone awol, and my head was just one big empty megaphone--at least according to luke!

sarah is a funny girl. a few weeks ago one of the little girls in her class was telling one of the teachers about how her grandma had taken her to chinatown over the weekend. sarah was listening. and not one to be outdone, she said, "oh yeah? well, over the weekend MY grandma took me to spanish world!"

spanish world. really.

not the expected response . . .

so today . . . i had a terrible headache.

i used to get headaches quite often, but now i only get them occasionally. this one was a doozy! i was going to try to go home early, but there were staffing issues, so i decided to stay and tough it out.

i was seriously, truly, dreading recess. we are still confined to the gym, because of the construction on the new building, and when you let those kids loose after a morning of sitting and listening and working, they really know how to release all that pent-up energy! generally there is a lot of running, chasing, bike riding, and laughing, but it is LOUD running, chasing, bike riding, and laughing. and it isn't out of the ordinary to also hear some screaming (sometimes accompanied by smiles and sometimes not,) and crying. i did not know how my headache and i were going to cope . . .

i stationed myself by the sunny window, and prepared to manage my pain. all i wanted was for calm to reign, which of course was not going to happen. but i would have settled for just being left alone--no fights to break up, no arguments to referee, no bandaids to apply--just peaceful playing. and as luck would have it, things seemed to be progressing fairly smoothly . . .

. . . and then, a small body with two long brown braids came running across the room toward me. usually when this particular little body comes running toward me, it is to tattle on someone or complain about something. usually. but today, susannah* just sort of stood next to me and played with my chain belt.

i love the difficult kids. i can't explain it. they make my job harder, but i love them. i spend more one on one time with them, because i have to. we can have several days filled with turmoil and conflict (which can make me think one or the other of us needs drugs!) and then have a day where they are calm and kind and loving and helpful. of course that never lasts, but it is so sweet, because it is so rare. and yet those days happen often enough to remind me that beneath their difficult behavior is someone's precious, darling child.

susannah* is one of those kids. she likes to push the boundaries. she likes to ignore her teachers. she likes to do what she wants, when she wants, in the way she wants. but she also likes to straighten things up, and help her teachers, and wishes desperately that the other kids liked to play with her. today as she was standing next to me playing with my chain belt while i was trying to keep my head from popping off my body, i said to her, "i am really going to miss you when you go to another school next year." i was feeling all warm and fuzzy--headaches do that to me sometimes. i was kind of expecting a hug and an "i'll miss you too." but what she said was, "yeah, i'll really miss this belt."

what?!?

"and," she continued, "the chain watch." (the chain watch is a watch locket that a student gave me. i've worn it the last couple of days, and she is fascinated by the way it opens and closes.) "won't you miss me?" i asked. (i know it is kind of pathetic, but as i said, i was feeling all warm and fuzzy.) "no," she said, "just this belt."

ok, well, maybe my love for difficult kids is unrequited. maybe they just love my accessories. i guess my impact isn't nearly as important as i thought it was.

because apparently i am expendable, but my chain belt? apparently it is unforgettable!
*i changed the name. i don't always do that, but just in case a parent happens to stumble across this blog . . . although, the truth is, any parent who reads this is going to know exactly who i am talking about. but still . . .

maybe the boy has a dog . . .

so today . . . i handed out the seatwork to my kindergarten students, and then went back to my desk to give them time to do a little bit of work before we started reading groups. soon eugene was standing in front of me with one of his papers. "yes?" i asked him. "can i help you?"

"this is weird," he said. "why is he wearing shoes in the house?"

huh? "i don't understand. what do you mean? who?"

"look! he is wearing shoes in the house!" so i looked at the paper he was holding, and sure enough, the little boy was wearing shoes. in the house.

this is the seventh year i have taught kindergarten at my current school using this particular curriculum, and this is the first time anyone has noticed that the boy is wearing shoes in the house--probably because that really isn't the focus of the picture. we have had discussions about his choice of toys, we have had discussions about him smiling while picking up his toys, we have even had discussions about if they should use crayons or markers to color it. but no one has ever noticed the shoe thing before.

"yes he is," i said. "some people do."

eugene persisted--"but why?" so i replied with the only logical answer i could think of. "to keep their feet warm," i said. eugene thought for a minute and then told me, "we don't--do you?"

now i am not quite sure what to say. because we do wear our shoes in the house, but clearly at eugene's house they don't, and that seems normal to him. if i tell him that i keep my shoes on when i am inside, will it be the beginning of a rebellion in his five year old mind? will he go home and refuse to remove his shoes, because "teacher ms. julie wears her shoes in the house."

(you may think i have a somewhat inflated view of my importance, but trust me, i don't. it is almost scary how these kids remember things that i have said, and then act on them. i try to use my powers only for good--like telling them that i don't watch scary movies and that peas are delicious and that i always feel better after i take a nap--implying that they should avoid scary movies, eat their peas, and sleep during naptime. but they seem to be more influenced by the fact that my favorite color changes every day, and that i like taylor swift songs, and that i wear skechers.)

so i sort of hedge my bets--"yes, i wear shoes in my house, but i have dogs."

eugene has fish, not dogs, so he accepts that explanation and heads back to his seat.

the truth is, we tried the shoes off thing after we had our carpets cleaned last time. we have really light cream colored carpeting in our house, and when they were done cleaning it, it looked so good! so we decided that if we would just take off our shoes in the house, it would stay nice looking longer. which may be true, but we didn't find out. because it wasn't long until we were back to wearing our shoes again. for us, it was just too much of a hassle. it seemed like usually when we came into the house, we were carrying books or computers or food. and that made it hard to stop and take off our shoes. and if we did, then we had to carry them upstairs to put them away, and then carry them back downstairs to put them on. and then we realized that the dogs weren't wiping their feet before they came in. and while their feet are small, between the two of them they have eight--and yes, there are more dog feet than people feet here!! so eventually we just stopped doing it.

i think if you have dogs, you have to wear your shoes in the house--especially if you also have a doggie door--because you never know what surprises may be lurking just around the corner. and there are some things you just don't want to find with your bare foot--even if it is wearing a sock! there are sticks. and leaves. and the water splashes from their water bowl. and milk bone crumbs. and bits of chewed up toilet paper tube. and plastic eyeballs they have removed from their stuffed animals. and the stuffing from the stuffed animals. and the occasional, but inevitable result of eating grass. and sometimes, when milo is really stressed, we will even find a dirty sock that he has liberated through the mesh of the laundry basket.

and then, of course, there is the dog hair.
times two!!

i am guessing that if you have fish, you do not have these issues. and so at eugene's house, they don't wear their shoes inside.

but i do. because unexpectedly stepping on a soggy chewed up toilet paper tube in your bare feet is not something you want to experience more than once. or ever!

trust me.

what's in a name?

so today . . . i was talking to kenneth. he is five. and he was telling me about his fish.

"i have three fish," he said. "a black one, a gold one, and a blue one."

"oh," i said. "what are their names." because, you know, just like the color of the car is the important thing about any vehicle, your pet's name is all i care about.

"well," he said, "the black one is named blackie, and the gold one is named goldie, and the blue one is named kevin."

blackie, goldie, and kevin?!?!?

names are important, even pet names (at least to me.) when rollie and i got our first dog, i thought she was never going to have a name. we just couldn't decide. and then one day i was driving to work and barry manilow's voice came out of my radio with the perfect name for her . . .

and oh my goodness, you should see what we went through choosing a name for our child! i was seriously afraid she was going to be sent home with a birth certificate that said "baby girl ******." (occasionally when i am blogging i think about security and how much information i put on the world wide web, and then i think maybe i should be more careful--thus asterisks instead of a last name. this time.) but the good thing was that after diandra was born, we were free to use all the other good names for our pets.

i tend to prefer people names for my pets--except for milo. i call him bubba. maybe because we let diandra name him, which meant i didn't have any input. i like to have input. (actually, i just like people to do what i want them to do, but sometimes it doesn't happen that way . . . ) diandra, however, apparently does not prefer people names for her pets--except for milo.

she has had these two turtles for a couple of months. she didn't know what to call them, so she posted them on her blog and let people make suggestions. as a result, i thought there were some very cute ideas for names. but she ended up choosing her own--they are named chicken and pig. yes, turtles named chicken and pig. pig eats all the food and is not above stealing. pig will even take food out of diandra's hand--so far without taking any of her hand with it! chicken is afraid--afraid of pig, afraid of diandra, afraid of anyone who walks into the office, and even a little bit afraid of the food, i think.

when ms. martha bought birds for her classroom, she let her students name them--she wanted the whole classroom pet thing to be a learning experience and choosing names was part of that experience. (ms. martha is young and idealistic--she will learn :-) so what names do those poor birds have to live with for the rest of their lives? flickie and ping. apparently they had just read the story about ping, although in the book ping is a duck. i'm not sure how they came up with the name flickie. martha even asked me, "how do we spell it?!?" yeah, because it isn't a real word! and sometimes they said flickie, but sometimes they said fleecky. this is why i do not let my students name the pets.

although, usually the kids do have input. i always let them suggest names, and then i choose one. the fish didn't get named right away, because he came into our classroom at a busy time. i guess i could have just named him fred or something, but i didn't have time to think about it. then one day megan said, "i'm going to call our fish scott." i was pretty sure his name was not going be scott. "well megan," i said, "i'm not sure that is the best name for him. what if we get a new student and his name is scott--wouldn't that be confusing? if i said it was time to feed scott, you wouldn't know if i was talking about the boy or the fish." she thought for a minute and then said, "ok, i'll just call him scott until he gets another name."

every day the kids would come up with choices, but nothing seemed just right--until the afternoon when they were just coming up with a bunch of goofy ideas. one of them would make a suggestion, and then they would all laugh. they were having a good time. and while i was aware of this going on, i wasn't really listening. until i heard the perfect name. i knew it was perfect, because it made me laugh.

so now he has a name. we call him sushi :-)

megan, however, still calls him scott.

hmmm . . .

so today . . . i am soooo tired! i hate springing forward . . .

i really need sleep, and yet i also want to blog. so my solution is to write a short blog. at least that is my plan, but you never know . . . sometimes my fingers don't know when to stop!

it was hot here today--80 degrees! just a few days ago it was down into the high 60s and i was freezing, so this felt really good. i decided it was a good day to break out something just a little bit springy, so i wore a short-sleeved black dress with tiny white polka dots. i don't remember where i got this dress--i've had it a long time--but the fabric is wonderful! it is some sort of jersey knit but with enough weight that it hangs really nicely and is soooo comfortable. it is one of those dresses that feels so good when you are wearing it, it is almost like wearing pajamas all day.

anyway, this morning when kenneth came in and noticed my dress, he said, "hey, my mom has a dress just like that. except hers are pajamas. and the spots are all different colors."

uh huh . . . so the 'just like that' part would be the color black??

it is so funny how kid's minds work. last week christopher was looking at the dinosaur cards--again. he seems almost obsessed with these cards. each one has a picture of a dinosaur on the front and lots of information on the back. i've taught him how to decode the pronounciation spelling, so he can read all the names and much of the information. he sorts these cards in many different ways--by the size of the dinosaur, by the era in which it lived, by where it lived. one day he was sorting them into two groups--plant eaters and meat eaters. we were discussing how the meat eating dinosaurs were different physically from the plant eating ones, and why. then we moved into what the meat eaters ate. and then all of a sudden, michelle said, "wait a minute! we're meat!!"

i guess it is a good thing that dinosaurs are extinct . . .

surprises

so today . . . i was greeted with a lovely surprise when i walked back into the germ incubator everyone else calls my classroom. a gift from a student--for no particular reason . . .

i'm not really a fan of surprises, because i like to be prepared. when diandra was a baby, rollie decided to surprise me for my birthday. he had arranged for my parents to come (which required a seven hour drive) to watch diandra while we had a weekend away. he packed for me and did a great job, but he didn't tell me any of this. he just said, "don't plan anything for this weekend." (he didn't actually need to tell me that, because we lived in a very small town, and i had a tiny baby to take care of--what kind of plans was i going to make?!?!) my parents arrived, and i was so excited! and then he said, "come on, let's go!" and i said, "what?!?!?!?!" and off we went.

i would like to say we had a great time, but we didn't. and even now when i think about it, it makes me sad. because my wonderful husband was trying to do something nice for me, to give me a break, and i couldn't relax and enjoy it. because i was mentally unprepared. (ok, i was also young and a new mom leaving my baby for the first time, so there were extenuating circumstances . . . )

i admit it--i am not the most spontaneous flower in the bunch. i'm not crazy about being surprised. i like to be prepared.

but surprise presents are a whole different story! i love presents, especially surprise presents that aren't "required" by any special holiday. so when i walked in today after spending yesterday dealing with second-hand germs and saw this lovely gift, i smiled.

the kids i start out with in the early morning are not the kids in my class, and so they had not seen it yet either, and they were enthralled! thank goodness there were only four of them to begin with, because otherwise i'm afraid a fight might have broken out. they all wanted the best view of the fish, and the fish kept moving! it was funny to listen to them. because the fish lives in a curved vase full of water, it looks bigger when it is further away, and they kept saying, "oh look! it got bigger! no, now it is small again!!" i thought about explaining the science of it, but decided to go with the magic . . .

then we had this conversation:

"are you going to take him home?"

"i'll take him home for the summer."

"why?"

"well, i don't come to school in the summer, so who would take care of him?"

"Jesus will take care of him."

"no he won't," said another child.

"yes. Jesus is real, but you can't see his body--only his face."

i'm kind of wondering how Jesus is going to take care of this fish with just his face . . .

and as for my thoughtful husband . . . he has never again attempted to whisk me off without giving me time to mentally prepare. i think i would handle it better now--being older and no longer responsible for our precious only child--but it is still probably better that i know . . .

he has, however, become a master at the surprise, for no reason at all gift. :)

reality?!?!?

so today . . . it once again became clear to me that five year olds have a very tenuous grasp on reality.

it was calendar time. this is something i try to do every day, but some days we get to it a little late and have to hurry. this was one of those days.

we came back to our class from music, i grabbed my pointer and said, "ok, let's say the months of the year." and so we all chanted the months of the year. then i said, "and what month are we in?" and they all answered "february." i was ready to move onto the days of the week, but megan was not.

"wait," she said. "what is that holiday in the next month?"

"next month?" i said. really??? we are going to talk about next month right now, this morning?? although megan is a very smart girl, sometimes her train of thought can be a little tricky to follow. and i didn't really think we had time for me to figure out what she was talking about. so instead of being the awesome teacher who would say, "why, i don't know megan--why don't you explain what you mean, and then i will try and answer your very clever question in words you can understand . . . " yeah. instead of that, i said, "i don't know. we will talk about it later." and proceeded to sing a song about the days of the week.

but megan would not be dissuaded. once she gets an idea in her head, she needs an answer. and clearly i had not given that to her.

"no," she continued, "in march. is that a real holiday?"

i knew she must be talking about st. patrick's day. and while you could probably make a pretty good argument against it being a real holiday, it is on the calendar and we will wear green. so, giving up, i said, "do you mean st. patrick's day?"

her face lit up. "yes," she said. "is it a real person?"

wait. is who a real person? i thought we were talking about the holiday. isn't st. patrick's day the day we do green activities? and eat green eggs and ham? and paint rainbows with leprechaun gold at the ends? who is she talking about?

i realized she must be talking about st. patrick. and the truth is, i know almost nothing about him. ok, i know nothing about him, except he was apparently a saint. usually i don't need to know about him. my kindergarteners usually have their hands full wrapping their brains around george washington and abraham lincoln. but, as i said, megan is smart, and i think she must have heard something about it on tv. so i give her what i've got.

"yes," i say. "st. patrick was a real person. but i'm not sure why there is a holiday about him. i will have to find out."

"ok," she said. "but you are saying he is real. like sponge bob and patrick . . . "

wait a minute.

you mean, sponge bob and patrick are real?!?!?!

the influence of a guinea pig spy

so today . . . my school kids were on a roll. some days their conversation centers on toys and characters that i have no idea how to spell--bakugon? i'm sure that isn't right, but whatever it is, their tiny little lives seem to revolve around it and it's exploits. maybe i need cable tv.

but today they seemed to have guinea pigs on their mind--super spy guinea pigs.

if you haven't seen "g-force," go to your nearest video store and rent it some night when you just want some cute, fun entertainment. we saw it in 3-d, which is what i recommend (although i don't know if the dvd comes in 3-d.)

anyway, at one point in the movie one of the guinea pigs says, "we may be small, but we're mighty!" and my kindergarteners find this line fascinating. they will sit around their table repeating it over and over to each other in tiny little guinea pig voices. it drives me crazy!

but today there was a new twist. i don't know who started it, but this is what i heard . . .

"we may be teachers, but we're kids!"
"we may be carrots, but we burp a lot!"
"we may be small, but we're elvis!" (ok, i know i said i was going to change the names of the kids when i blogged this year, but i can't change this one. this name belongs to one of the nicest, happiest, most pleasant little boys i have ever had in any of my classes. i love him!!)

"we may be green broccoli, but we're polka dots!" (this is starting to remind me of when diandra's sense of humor was developing at this very same age. her humor form of choice was knock knock jokes. they would go something like this--knock knock-who's there?-car-car who?-our car is in the garage! and then she would laugh hysterically. we, of course, would laugh too, because even though the joke was totally meaningless, she was so funny laughing at her own joke!)

"we may be groundhogs, but we are groundhog kids."
"we may be princesses, but we are kings."

does any of this make sense to any of you? does it make you laugh?? me either. but let me tell you, they were cracking each other up!

and then in the midst of all the laughter, one of the boys said, "we may be carrots, but we're mighty carrots." and all the kids laughed except for one little girl, who stopped, looked at him and said, "no, that doesn't make sense."

are you kidding me?!? that doesn't make sense?!?!?!? this is where she draws the line????? none of it made any sense! and she happened to be the one whose contribution to the conversation was "we may be princesses, but we're kings!" tell me that makes sense! sheesh!

while the kindergarteners were having this riveting conversation, the pre-k kids were talking about their dads. since i was busy listening and writing down what the kindergarteners were saying, (on the back of this paper i found . . . i'm sure this isn't a picture of me!) i wasn't paying that much attention to the other conversation. until i heard one little boy say, "yeah? well, my dad can take off his head and juggle it!"

after i got done laughing, i thought, "yesss! i have my blog for today!"

and then at the end of the day as we were cleaning up our last activity, i was making sure their names were on the three-cornered hats we had made. michelle said, "can i put my last name on mine? because there are two michelles in after school care, and the other one might take my hat."

i said, "sure, put your last name on it, because someone might take it--it is pretty cool."

"yeah, and she might kiss it." michelle said.

"oh, i don't think she will kiss it," i said.

"she might," michelle insisted. "i saw her kiss a book once."

"but that's not what i meant . . . "

so today . . . finally one of the kids at school learned the lesson i was trying to teach him. of course, he applied it in a totally inappropriate way, but still . . .

this year we have quite a crop of rowdy, unruly little boys. generally i am drawn to the difficult children, but these boys are about to drive me to drink!! thankfully, most of them are not in my class. but during music and recess, those combinations that we worked so hard to separate when making classroom assignments are drawn to each other like magnets! they hit. they shove. they wrestle. they tattle. they retaliate. they drive me crazy!!!!!

but, part of my job is to try to teach them social skills, so i can't just hide in the corner hoping a wine cooler will fall out of the sky (not that i would drink it, i'm just saying . . . )

today was a typical monday, and by 8:40 i had a room full of children who are not my students. these are the early arrivals and today this included four of the rowdy boys. my room is small, which makes it hard to hit, shove, wrestle, or retaliate without being seen and consequently, ending up in trouble. so they are pretty well behaved when they are in my room. but then at 9:00 we go next door for music, which is where things started going south . . .

for some reason, when we go into that room those boys seem to think they have to immediately jump on each other and roll around on the rug. almost every day! and today was no exception. i walked in just in time to see adam shove mitchell. of course i went over to sort it out, and this is what ensued--

me: "what is going on here?"
silence. i looked at adam and said, "adam, i saw you shove mitchell."

you all know what adam said. "well, he shoved me first!"

yes, that is their answer for everything. it isn't my fault. he started it. but he (fill in the blank.) for some unexplainable reason they seem to think that the no hitting, shoving, wrestling rule applies only if they are the first one to do it. actually, i don't think any of them actually think the rule applies to them at all! i don't even think they think about the rule. it is like their bodies are not even connected to their brains. or else their brains are already thinking about lunch while their bodies are getting them into trouble . . .

so i gave adam my standard speech. "so, does that make it ok for you to shove him back?" and they always reply with a no, but i think that is just because they know that is what i want to hear. even while their mouth is saying no, their brain is screaming, "YES, OF COURSE IT DOES!! WHAT DO YOU THINK?? I AM JUST GOING TO STAND HERE AND LET HIM GET AWAY WITH THAT?!?! NO WAY! HE IS GOING TO PAY!! OH YES, WHEN I GET DONE HE IS NEVER EVEN GOING TO THINK ABOUT SHOVING ME AGAIN!!!"

but he said no, and so i continued, "when someone is mean to you, just walk away."

(this is my standard response this year, because the tattling is getting out of control! so we are trying to teach them that instead of engaging and escalating a situation, they can just turn around, walk away, and play with someone else.)

i sent adam to the other side of the room turned to mitchell. mitchell had already heard my interaction with adam. sadly, this is not the first time mitchell has heard my little speech--he is often on one side or the other of the hitting, shoving, wrestling continuum. so when i turned to him to address his role in the scuffle, he didn't get the "just walk away" speech, because he had apparently started it. he got the "shoving is not ok. ever. no matter what" speech.

i was hoping this would be the end of it. after all, i had stopped them, talked to them, and sent them to opposite sides of the room. surely peace would ensue.

yeah. not in the middle east, and not during music time either. i walked to the back of the room and turned around just in time to see mitchell shove john. i couldn't believe it! it hadn't even been 30 seconds!! hadn't he heard anything i had said?!?!

i started toward the boys when i saw mitchell put both his hands on john's shoulders, look him straight in the eyes, and in his high pitched four year old voice say, "just walk away. just walk away."

i guess he had heard me--at least when i was talking to adam . . .

psychic kindergarteners???

so today . . . there were apparently supernatural powers at work in my classroom . . .

i am still playing catch up from being gone on friday. we are in that time of year when the curriculum gets very busy. so even though i stretched their little brains a bit yesterday, we had to press on today. and today's new concept was--dun, dun, duuuunnnn--"the missing addend."

i hate teaching this. i think it is the dumbest thing to try to teach to five year olds! they have just started adding and are up to sums of 5, and then suddenly we ask them to figure out what you have to add to a given number to get a certain sum? really??

in the past, i have explained this word for word out of the curriculum teaching guide. i have explained it using my own words. i have explained it using math manipulatives and felt cut-outs and cookies. real ones. we have practiced using the pictures provided on their worksheets (which, btw, if you have to give them pictures to help them figure it out, maybe it is too hard for them!!!!!) and have even resorted to having them use their fingers. every year about half the kids figure out how to get the right answer, a few more will get really good at copying the right answer from whoever is sitting next to them, and some kids will try really, really hard and still not have a clue . . .

i would just skip it if i could, but it keeps showing up on their math papers, so their parents kind of expect me to teach it. although why kindergarteners need to know 2 + ? = 5 is beyond me.

but today was the day. and it was a busy one, so i only had about 10 minutes to introduce them to this "important" concept. i got out some math manipulatives and sat down at their table. i handed out the math papers and explained what we were going to learn. before i could even get my manipulatives arranged, edward had his fingers out and was saying the right answer to the first problem. ok, well, that was nice, but i was skeptical. and i was right--it was beginner's luck. so i plowed on through the rest of the lesson, with one eye on the clock. because recess was fast approaching . . .

as we practiced, two of the kids were starting to get it and one was probably thinking about lunch! but i could tell that edward really wanted to give me the right answer! he was working hard each time i gave them a new problem, but he was just enough slower than the others that he could never be the one to give the answer. he was getting a little bit frustrated, and we were running out of time. finally, i told them we were on the last problem. i gave it to them and waited, watching edward and hoping he would be the one to get it this time. they were all working it out in their own way, and when one of the other kids said the right answer first, edward just looked at him.

then he looked at me, shook his head, and said, "he just read my mind!"

:)

when five year olds start thinking . . .

so today . . . i had a speechless moment at school.

i am not usually speechless. i can almost always think of something to say. but today, for just a moment, my mouth opened, but no words came out.

i missed school on friday, and through a set of unfortunate circumstances, the sub for my class didn't make it. so friday's lessons didn't get taught--the result being, i had a lot to teach today.

we started off with some handwriting, just to sort of put some structure into our morning. then i went to the board and taught the "two vowel rule"--you know, "when two vowels go walking, the first one does the talking . . . " we have spent the last several months working with short vowel sounds, but today we added the long vowel sounds to our repertoire--well, sort of added. i introduced it, and they seemed to understand it, but i have every confidence that tomorrow at least half of them will be going "huh?" when we review . . .

that was friday's phonics lesson. but i had to teach it today, because tomorrow it will be incorporated into their seat work. and i also had to squeeze in today's phonics lesson--the sight word "I." and i had to do it fast, because it was almost time for recess. their eyes were already beginning to glaze over, but usually this is a fairly easy lesson--usually they have already figured this out on their own by looking at books. so i wrote the word on the board, explained how sometimes "I" is a word and not just a part of a word, and how you can tell the difference, and that it is a rule-breaker, and so on.

and they just looked at me blankly. so i used it in some sentences, and they started to catch on a bit. then i got the brilliant idea to stand straight and tall with my arms stiffly at my sides so that i looked like the letter "I" and use that as a visual. and that is where the trouble began . . .

. . . because you see, they immediately noticed that while i was straight and tall, i did not have anything across the top or the bottom of my straight, tall body like the letter did. so i tried to use one arm to go across the top of my head and sort of crossed one leg at the knee like the bottom of the upper case I. but that wasn't good enough, because the bottom of my other leg was sticking out past the crossed leg like a flamingo . . .

and then one little boy excitedly raised his hand and said, "if you cut off your head," (making chopping motions with his hand,) "then you would look like a lower case i."

"yeah," another little boy said, "and your floating head could be the dot."

"AND," said a little girl, "you would have to be like this," (and she knelt down on the floor) "so that you would be shorter than the upper case I."

what do you say to that? who even thinks of stuff like that?!? i just stood there, straight and tall, with my head firmly attached, my brain thinking of and eliminating several responses.

"time for recess!" is what finally came out of my mouth.

sigh. tomorrow is another day . . .

the snow pea ruse*

*a trick, stratagem, or artifice.

so today . . . i bamboozled my students into eating peas.

i am constantly amazed by what my little darlings will eat. they will eat broccoli, cucumbers, cooked tomatoes, and even spinach. they will eat cold corn. but they won't eat baby carrots unless they can smother them in ranch dressing. they will eat plain rice, fried noodles and any kind of pasta, but they don't like sandwiches.

or peas.

i gave up long ago on fighting food wars. if a child really, really doesn't want to eat something, there is nothing i can do to force them to eat it. and being something of a picky eater myself, i admit that i feel their pain. i have had a few close calls with international cuisine in the last few years that gives me empathy when a child says, "but i don't like that."

however, for some reason, today i decided that they were going to at least try some peas. i have had good results in the past with the "snow pea ruse."

we were having macaroni and cheese--a food that everyone likes. usually we get broccoli with it, or sometimes green beans (which i NEVER make them eat, because i don't like them either--at least not the way they "cook" them at school.) but today it was peas. as soon as i saw it, i activated the snow pea ruse.

"oooo, look!" i exclaimed. "snow peas."

"i don't like peas!" this was said by about half of my small class.

"oh, but these aren't regular ordinary peas. these are snow peas. we are sooo lucky!"

"but i don't like peas."

"you will like these. they are sweet, like sweet corn. remember when we had sweet corn last week? you guys liked that. snow peas are kind of the same--really sweet."

the pea haters were still looking skeptically at me, but i am the teacher--would i lie? ;)

as i started dishing up the mac & cheese and "snow peas," the kids who liked peas were saying, "yeah! give me lots and lots of peas!!" the pea haters were still saying no. so i just announced that today we were all going to try the very special snow peas, because they were so sweet that i just knew that everyone would love them. i encouraged them to mix the peas in with the mac & cheese because, i said, they were especially delicious with cheese sauce on them.

the pea haters were not thrilled. i just gave them a few peas, and continued to talk about how delicious they were. then i asked the pea lovers, "aren't they good?" and they all said, "yeah!!" of course, they like peas, snow or not.

(every time i put this operation into effect, i am surprised that no one asks me why they are called "snow peas." of course, kids here are somewhat unfamiliar with the cold, wet, white, fluffy stuff.)

now the pea haters were a little bit curious. the teacher said the special snow peas were good. some of their friends seemed to really like them. maybe they wouldn't be so bad. i could see the little wheels turning in their tiny heads. so i pushed my advantage. i found one pea hater who was mixing her peas around in the mac & cheese. "so," i said, "did you eat some snow peas? weren't they delicious??" she just looked at me and said, "uh huh." i moved on to the most notorious pea hater. "oh, you haven't tried yours yet. you'd better hurry or there might not be any left for seconds." he immediately loaded up his spoon and popped them into his mouth. "aren't those yummy?" i said, and he nodded, mouth full of "snow peas."

and then it was time for me to leave for my lunch hour. i don't know what happened after i left, but while i was there, every child was eating "snow peas." and at least pretending to like them.

some days, i rock!!