I'm sure the pilgrims wore these....

You know what's great about being a kindergarten teacher?

You can make your kids wear funny hats...

and they think it's the greatest thing ever.

Nothing says "Thanksgiving" like a giant, construction paper turkey hat.

Happy Turkey Day, y'all.

Good thing these kids can't read minds....

It's Monday. And it happens to be an especially Mondayish kind of Monday. As my assistant would say, these kids are wilder than 15 bucks. I love my job. I really do. But there are times where I am feeling less than patient with these children. These sweet, innocent, adorable children. Shocking, I know. However, I try to keep a calm exterior and only say what I'm REALLY thinking to myself. So here's a post I'll call WHAT I SAY/WHAT I THINK....

WHAT I SAY....
Remember, raise your hand when you need something.

WHAT I THINK.....
If you say my name one more time, I'm changing it and not telling you what it is.

WHAT I SAY....
Eyes on me when I'm talking...

WHAT I THINK.....
Oh my LANTA, can you focus for 15 consecutive seconds?!?!?!?

WHAT I SAY....
Cover your mouth when you cough.

WHAT I THINK....
AGGGGHHHHHHHH! I spend half my pay check on antibiotics, now quit getting your germs on me!!!

WHAT I SAY.....
Let's get quiet.

WHAT I THINK.....
Oh my LORD, do you ever shut up?!?!?!?

and finally,

WHAT I SAY....
Please go sit down.

WHAT I THINK....
Poke me one more time and see what happens...

Happy Monday!

How to Eat A Peanut Butter Sandwich

Have you ever seen a kindergartner eat a peanut butter sandwich?
They don't eat from one side to the other.

They eat straight into it. And the peanut butter makes big swirls on their cheeks.

This is what it looks like when they're done.And this is what they look like.

They'll stay like this until you say, "You need to wash your face."

This supports my theory that their nerve endings don't go to the surface of their skin...

One of these things is not like the others...

We made skeletons this week.


I counted out all the Q-tips and gave each kid some in a little cup.


I showed them how to arrange the Q-tips. Didn't they do a good job?

Wait a minute....that first one looks a little different...

Looks like someone got an extra Q-tip.

Oh well. Happy Halloween(er).

Strange Phenomena

As a long-(way too long)-time kindergarten teacher, I have seen many strange things that seem to occur all the time. In fact, if I had a nickel for every time they happened, well, I'd have a lot of nickels. What's even stranger is that I have learned to observe these odd events without laughing. Not always easy, my friends. Anyway, here's a random sampling:

• If you ask a bunch of kindergartners a question with the words "should" or "rules" in it (as in, what should we do about this? or what is the sorting rule here?) invariably, someone will say, "Don't hit nobody and don't push nobody."
• Relatedly, if you ask kindergartners if they have any questions, they will say, "My mom say we goin' to Chuck E. Cheese tomorrow" or "One time my brother got a whoopin' cause he be gettin' in my mom's room" and no, it doesn't matter what you're talking about.
• Sometimes when the children are working quietly at their tables, one of them will inexplicably fall out of his or her chair, scramble back into it, and no one will bat an eye.
• If you show a kindergartner a picture of any member of the big cat family (lion, leopard, cougar, etc.), he or she will tell you it's a tiger. Even if you've just shown them what a tiger looks like. I don't know why.
• Even if it's the 121st day of school, and you've gone to lunch every single one of the previous 120 days, someone will ask, "Is we goin' to lunch today?"
• After you have explained what an author does and what an illustrator does numerous times, if you ask "What does the author do?" someone will say, "Writes the pictures."

Now aren't you even more impressed that I can witness this without laughing?

Hani...?????

I bet you think this is hand sanitizer. Wrong. In my room, we call this.....

• hand sanitires
• hand sizer
• hanitizer
• hand-zer

Seriously. Every kid. All the time.

Out of The Mouths of Babes...

Here are some random things that my kids have said:

• When I asked one of my students why he ran on all FOURS...like a GORILLA...he said, "My mom say, 'If you love lions, act like one.'"
• On a cloudy Friday, one of my students said (by the way, you have to picture this with a lisp)"uh, Miss Qualls, is it gonna rain today?...I didn't watch the news. I haven't watched the news in a hundred years, and I've only been alive for five..."
• One day when I dismissed the kids to go write in their journals, this same student said, "Well, you know, professional baseball players CAN be eaten by bears, too." We hadn't been talking about bears. Or baseball players.
• We've been writing about each person in our class during journal time. We write, I see ____. He/she is my friend. One of my kids had only written the first sentence. When asked why, he said, "Weellll, when we're on the playground, she never plays with me, so she's not really my friend..."
• On the way in from the playground--"Hey, I been to the mountains. I played with my grandpa when I was there. I beat him 80 buhcent." (That's 80 percent.)
• We've been learning about nursery rhymes. So here's the question I got this week--"Is we gonna do Honky Donky again?" Yes, that's Humpty Dumpty.

And no, I can't always keep a straight face.