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Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Witty Visms (guaranteed to make you giggle or your money back!)

My sweet V. How she loves to talk! If it were an Olympic sport, she would have more medals than Michael Phelps. However, as much as she likes to talk, she pronounces certain words so hilariously that you cannot help but laugh at her. She also comes up with the wackiest things! Let me share some of my favorites from the long weekend...

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Me: (Friday afternoon on the way to the dentist) How was school today?

V: Good. We have this new girl and she's from another state and she had a fit at school today.

Me: Oh, my! What happened?

V: She got mad and said she hated our school and she hated our TEACHERS (said very dramatically because that's the worst thing you can say in 3rd grade, I believe) and that she was going to call her dad and tell him to move her back where she moved from because people in the South are just ig-nore-ment.

Me: Did she mean ignorant? (snickering under my breath)

V: Yeah. I just couldn't remember how to say that word she said when she was being so mean to us.

Well, if this kid thinks the South is ignorant, at least V is doing all she can to change her mind. HAHA!

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Tim, V and I were watching the Today show on Saturday morning and the reporter was interviewing people about how they are cutting their budgets this summer. All of the people were in New York City and were talking about how they were going to this state and that state for vacation. Tim and I were amazed because hello! You live in New York. You have tons of places to go and do things without even leaving your city. We started talking about our ideal dream vacation. V jumped in...

V: If I could go anywhere, I want to go to China.

Tim: Why would you want to go there?

V: So I could see where all my toys are made. Every single toy I have says on the bottom "Made in China." I bet they have really cool toy making places there.

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Monday morning...

V: So Mommy, what are you remembering today?

Me: Huh? What do you mean?

V: Well, today is Mem-oral Day...you have to reMEMber something.



Hope everyone had a great Mem-oral Day weekend! :)

Sunday, May 24, 2009

Top 10 ways to know you are ready for school to end...

I hope those of you who teach will enjoy this! :)

10. You are so tired, you now want to answer students' questions with "Shut up!"
9. Your friends call to ask how you've been and you immediately scream "Stop asking me all these questions."
8. Your garbage can is now your "INBOX"
7. The next kid who asks you for a pencil is going to hear "Don't you ever have anything? Do you see Wal-Mart tattooed on my forehead?"
6. You fantasize about how relaxing it would be if you were in jail right now!
5. Your recess jumps from 15 minutes to 45 minutes.
4. The only thing in your classroom to eat is chocolate with a soda chaser.
3. Math lesson consists of "calculate how many days we have left, hours, minutes, no wait, seconds..."
2. You find yourself saying "This is May, you should know the rules by now" way too many times a day.
1. You start turning the teachers of the next grade level into big scary monsters who "will NOT accept this kind of behavior at all next year!"

7 days left....can you tell I am getting excited?

Sunday, May 10, 2009

5 Reasons I'm Thankful to be a Mom...

1. Unlimited hugs...at any time. God gave me a huggy little girl!
2. An awesome husband who is the best dad in the world. Even when things are going horribly, he can always find a way to make me laugh!
3. I get a whole day off where I don't have to cook (not that I do that a whole lot anyway) or clean (ditto). I sure enjoyed eating out TWICE today :)
4. Sweet homemade gifts - V worked ALL day yesterday on bead crafts. :) I now have a beaded cat magnet and a beaded portrait magnet. You gotta admit, it's got to be hard to make beads look like your mommy!
5. Cards...I am such a Hallmark target. I love getting sappy and funny cards - and Tim and V did a great job with both!

Hope everyone had a great Mother's Day!!!!

Monday, May 4, 2009

It's Diffendoofer Day

If you have ever read "Hooray for Diffendoofer Day" by Dr. Seuss, you know exactly what my title means. Here's a brief recap of the book...

Diffendoofer School teaches what it wants. The teachers teach frogs to dance and pigs to put on underpants! However, they soon learn that all students have to take a standardized test to prove the worth of the school or it will be shut down. The teachers, who obviously take such a different approach to learning, get nervous. Will their students do well? Will they "make the grade"? Miss Bonkers, the main teacher in the story isn't worried. She says, "We've taught you that the earth is round, That red and white make pink, And something else that matters more- We've taught you how to think."

In this testing era, I feel sometimes that we test kids to death. There are times of the year where we literally spend more time on testing than teaching. Standardized testing for my 2nd grade babies starts tomorrow. And I start questioning myself....have I done all I can do to prepare them? Are they really ready for this? And - most importantly - have I taught them the things that matter? Have I taught them how to think?

I pray that I have. I pray that my students do well. It's easy to let an end of the year assessment overshadow the day to day learning that I have helped facilitate all year.

Friday, May 1, 2009

A day that will live in teaching infamy

Well, Tim got home safely and we were both so glad to see him! I think we almost knocked him over with hugs. :) However, I didn't sleep well the night he was gone. I never sleep well when he's not home. So....it may explain for what happened at school the next day.

My kids officially have spring fever. They are counting down the days and when I told them I knew they were going to read this summer since they weren't going to be in school, I got a verbal list of 38 things they could do instead of read. Well. It's obvious I have done my job well.

During writing Tuesday afternoon, we were talking about dictionary skills. We have been reviewing guide words (the key words at the top of the dictionary page) and how to sound out words to find them in the dictionary to make sure they are spelled correctly. We even play this game called "Dictionary Detective" where I challenge them to find something in the dictionary and whoever finds it first gets a jellybean. The power of sugar... Anyway, I was chiding them about being lazy during writing and just writing a few letters for a big word instead of writing all the sounds they hear. I told them, "You guys know the word favorite. Well, what sounds do you hear in favorite?" They sounded it out with an f - a - v- o- r- i - t. Pretty decent for 2nd grade. Next, I said, "But guess what? That's not what I see you write when you are drafting a story. You just sound out some of the letters like f - a - r - t." The ENTIRE room immediately burst out into the loudest laughter I had ever heard in my classroom. That's right...the teacher wrote fart on the board. I looked at them and said, "What? You guys write it! Any time I see favorite on your papers it looks like fart!" to which I got louder laughing and one child actually fell out of his chair.

Great. I have busted my tail all year long, shared classic literature, heard struggling readers sound out words, watched lightbulbs go off above heads during a difficult math concept....and probably the most vivid thing they are going to remember about 2nd grade is the day they got to go home and tell their parents Mrs. P wrote fart on the board. Let's just hope the lazy spellers don't tell the principal.