another free day!?!

It's amazing how behavior instantly improves when rewarding students with a movie after 10 classes of good behavior. Not that I am upset at these behavioral improvements...it is just that I am bored...hence the blogging. While watching Wall-E for the umpteenth time, it is in my best interest to journal then record my findings. Here they are...


smack that-or-not quite christmas


I was reminded while listening to a light music station the other day about a kid story from my first year at the WB.


Kindergarten student, Justin, called me over and motioned for me to lean in so that he could whisper his favorite Christmas song to me. Silly of me to expect something like Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer or I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas, even something a little more on the serious side of things like Silent Night, etc. Nope. All expectations flew out the window when I heard Justin whisper


smack that, all on the floor
smack that, give me some more
smack that, 'til you get sore
smack that, oh ooh


A little disturbed that a kindergartener just whispered these lyrics into my ear, I quickly explained that this was definitely not a Christmas song. Justin replied with but Ms. Bell, it's on the radio all the time and it's Christmas. Makes sense...I guess.


bc and ad for 2nd grade


Wednesday classes are my days to teach art history to 2nd, 4th, and 6th grades. Yesterday in 2nd grade, I read aloud an artist biography of Pablo Picasso in preparation of making our Picasso people. While discussing the important and interesting information about Picasso, one student asked about the difference between BC and AD. Since I have been teaching cave art to 1st graders, I have a pretty politically correct way to explain the difference and felt comfortable doing so. For the life of me, I cannot recall how this topic even got brought up.


Upon hearing the BC and AD terms, more students became interested in what each meant and with 5 minutes left in class...we discussed. Ms. Bell is a real person...right? Ok, now some people might believe that Ms. Bell has magical powers while some people don't. Either way, Ms. Bell is still a person. Ok now some of us may have heard of this guy called Jesus Christ. Whether you believe in his stories or not, he was still a real person. He is actually a person that our calendar years are based upon...

After that riveting discussion we began to do math to figure out how old Picasso would be if he were still alive today 128. We also did the math to figure out how many years Picasso died before Ms. Bell was born 8. Anytime a year was mentioned, Carl would shout out either BC or AD with his newfound knowledge. When he saw how old Picasso would be if he were still living, he exclaimed Wow! He has got to be dead! then he looked at me and said You're not dead...I can tell.


Just another day at the WB.