quotable plebians

Our lessons on Ancient Rome continue... today we had some UVA students teach a lesson so I had the chance to observe and write down these little tidbits...

Teacher: The Roman soldiers put their shiels over their heads to protect themselves.
M: Like a hermit crab!

Teacher: What might the Romans do to people they conquered?
W: They might make them scrub their bathtubs.

Teacher: An empire is a group of countries under one ruler?
S: Does that mean that one ruler is a REALLY big person!?
(We clarified that as our President Obama is over us but is not in fact sitting on us.)

ancient rome

Me: Would you be able to vote in Ancient Rome?

Kids: No!

Me: Why not?

J: Because it's really far away!

"You in third grade is like Michael Jordan playing baseball. You have the skills, but its just not your game."
-- Matthew on me teaching 3rd grade

distractions, distractions

I have discovered that 3rd graders are masters of distraction! Just in watching them for one period here are the ways I saw them creatively distract themselves and each other:

folding tinfoil from lunch into the shape of a cell phone
erasing writing on a desk
writing on a desk
sharpening a pencil
asking to sharpen a pencil
talking about monday night football
realizing someone shouldn't be sharping a pencil and telling the teacher
cutting a piece of paper
tearing cut pieces of paper into smaller pieces
throwing a pencil
dropping a pencil
picking up a pencil
arguing about whether your neighbor's arm is actually in your personal space
asking a friend to sharpen your pencil
sharpening a pencil

mercy.

SL (looking me up and down): You are SMALL!
Me: And today you are my favorite child.

ancient greece, meet modern woman

I was reading some "Greek Times" newspapers with my 3rd graders the other morning and included was a place for the kids to vote for the next official in the government. A bright little girl, H, was choosing her vote and I mentioned to her that if we were actually in Ancient Greece she wouldn't be able to vote because she's a girl.

Her prompt response:

Well, if I had a husband I would just lock him out of the house until he agreed to vote the way I wanted him to.


Look out ancient world, here she comes.

3rd grade

Yesterday I left behind the world of A for apple, what number is this?, go wipe your nose, share the playdough, is it nap time yet?

to walk
upstairs
for the first time

to meet 3rd graders... who are legitimately as tall as I am.

Here is a snippet of conversations from the morning:

"I spent most of the weekend watching horror movies and my mom was like, 'Uh, that's going to rot your brain.' And I was like 'UH! Is your brain rotting?? NO!' Then I did some work on my lap top because I'm publishing a book. I don't know how much money I'm going to get from that. We'll see." -- lil miss m.

"In exciting news I found my yellow droid I had been looking for. A funny thing about that droid finding-- it was in my sister's lego box. I'm not sure at all how it got there." -- s.

SL: "What's your first name?"
Me: "Shannon."
SL: "Lemme get a handshake."

Did you do your homework?

Yesterday Miss M. marches into my class and announces in her sweet Southern accent, "Miss Shannon! I did my homework!" (The word homework has about 5 syllables for this child.)

Her "homework" involves a book she chooses to take home that goes home with a one-page activity sheet for her to do with her parents/guardians if she chooses. Sidenote: these activities and books are actually really awesome because they were developed and paid for by the Curry School making it really easy for us to provide children with books every night and to connect parents to the child's learning and literacy. The activities are usually questions or pictures kids can draw and sometimes cut and paste.

Miss M had one such cut and paste activity, which when I pulled it out of the bag was curiously covered in blue spots. Miss M. explained, "I used grease."

Me: Um... excuse me?

Miss M: I used grease! We don't got no glue.

Me: You used hair grease??

Miss M: YEAAAAH.

She had cleverly glued little pieces of her homework together with blue grease. We actually decided not to send home a glue stick for future assignments for her because she was so proud of her innovative solution. We're going to let grease-glue be a part of her culture.