Miss Sullivan's Class Still Says The Darndest Things...

I have been saving these up for a while. This class I have is full of mischief, sneakiness, and questions. It makes for some great material.

• Coming up at the beginning of February we are having a Chinese New Year parade. We have been working on making dragon masks, fish lanterns, dragon puppets, etc. The students wear a big dragon costume and parade around for all of the school and parents to see. (I hate some of the traditions I have stumbled into at this school.) My class is extremely excited about this activity and we have been talking about it a lot. Yesterday a little girl comes up to my crying really hard. This is the conversation that followed... Me: "What is wrong sweetheart?" Student: "I CAN'T BE IN THE PARADE!!" Me: "What do you mean? Everyone gets to be in the parade." Student: "No, I can't be! I'M NOT CHINESE!" What else was there for me to do in this situation but smile.
• During football season the rivalry between Utah and BYU filtered into my classroom. It came through in everything we did for a few days. On the last day of school before the game, the class was writing in their journals. I walked past one of my students and started laughing out loud. For his picture he had drawn BYU in big blue letters. He had then taken a red crayon, crossed out the BYU and wrote UTAH RULES over the top. I told him I thought it was funny and I liked it. He then looked up at me and said very seriously, "Miss Sullivan, football is not a funny thing. Football is VERY important." I wonder where he learned that?
• I started a new management program in January. During the day my class is trying to earn different pieces of a Mr. Potato Head to get fun rewards. One day I was getting a piece out of the back flap of the potato. As I was doing this I knocked the whole back flap off. When I drop something in class it is kind of a stampede of 20 kids trying to be the first to help me. They just love me that much. (Yeah right.) So they all come rushing toward me and one boy grabs it and hands it to me. He then proudly said, "Here Miss Sullivan! You dropped Mr. Potato Head's butt and everyone really wanted to get it but I grabbed it first!" This put me into hysterics, which put my class into hysterics, and they didn't even know why we were laughing.
• Warning: Don't be offended, I just thought this was cute. Last week we were talking about Martin Luther King, Jr. We had been discussing him and the Civil Rights Movement all week long. My class got really into it and liked learning about Dr. King. At the end of the week a little girl said to me, "I am thankful for Martin Luther King because we don't have school on Monday." The girl sitting next to her looked at her funny and then responded by saying, "Well, I'm thankful for Martin Luther King because now we have black people!"
• We do this thing in class called snap and clap. When we are practicing spelling words or something we snap the vowels and clap the consonants as we say them. At the beginning of the year most of my students couldn't snap. I took a lot of time teaching them how to snap and some of them I just taught how to pretend to snap by making the motion. Last week one of my parent helpers said, "My son tells me that you are a rapper." I am sure I looked at her totally confused because she laughed and said, "He told me last week that you are a rapper and you are teaching them how to be a rappers. I asked him why he thinks you rap and he said because you are the best finger snapper he had ever met." We had a good laugh about this. I always knew I had a snapping talent I just didn't realize it could take me far.

That is all I have for now. Writing this has been good for me though because it helps me remember sometimes the little devils are cute, funny, and lovable. For past funny moments from my wonderful first graders, click here.