Cutting outside the lines

I was crafting on Tuesday night with my friend Joy and ran across this beautiful add with a picture of a bride.  It's hard to see it but the paper is all beautiful and shimmery, I couldn't resist cutting her out.  The only problem is that across her shoulders and around her face there were no actual lines to cut out so I had to make a guess.  Thinking that she was surely going to end up with the world's weirdest nose, I decided that it was nothing ventured nothing gained.  Wonder of wonders, she actually looks like a normal human being.  I added the ribbon around her waist because I couldn't resist!

In Which Tom Learns that I Have Eyes in the Back of My Head

Friday, I was writing something on the board and happened to turn around while Tom was sitting at his desk with his hand up in the air and his head turned away from me.  I could tell that he was finished with his work and wanted to get it checked.  Turning back to the board, I called back to him, "Tom, you can put your hand down.  I'll be with you in a minute!"  It would have been interesting to see his face at that time because he had no clue that I had been looking at him. 

"Miss Botheras, do you have eyes in the back of your head?" he asked.

I can neither confirm nor deny that fact.  Ahh, what am I saying?  Of course, I confirmed it! :)

Rover Takes on Calculus

Apparently even Rover, the school tortoise, wants to get in on the learning.  Tuesday night he made his way through the under-construction admin building and into the secondary math room where he spent the night, trusting that his perseverance would win him the best seat for Mr. Rupnow's math class.

It's All New When You're In First Grade

August 17th...the official first day of school.  Though I'm not teaching first grade this year, I did enjoy a funny first grade moment.  For Sahel Academy First Graders it's their first year of staying all day and eating lunch.  There's a novelty to getting to use the microwave for the first time on your own.  One of the first graders saw everyone warming up their lunches and decided he'd like to try that too.  So he brought me his carefully selected item - a package of cheese & peanut butter crackers.

"Will you help me warm these up Miss Botheras?"

I tried not to laugh as I said, "No, I'm sorry, buddy, they don't need to be warmed up." 

"But I like them warm," he said earnestly.

Oh my!

A Little Italian, A Whole Lot of Canadian

I have some friends who are staying cool by watching the 2010 Winter Olympics and that means a whole lot of Virtue & Moir.  I love their 2011 exhibition program.  Simply AMAZING!

Tall Tales & Other Occurances in the 1st & 2nd Grade

Wagons, Ho!  We've been studying the pioneers for the last month or so. I thought that it would be fun to read some tall tales at the same time so we put our desks into a circle of wagons which technically looked a little like a square but it was the only way to make it work.  Anyway, during our reading time we met in the middle of our circle for a campfire and a Paul Bunyan story.  Yes, we did have a campfire!  I put sticks in a box with construction paper flames coming out of it.  What I love about first & second graders is that they dug it and they were falling all over themselves to light the fire (i.e. bring the box of sticks to the middle of the circle and make the flames stick up like a proper fire).  Now, J who cleans my classroom had a good laugh over my "fire".  I told him that he could go home and tell his family about the crazy white woman's version of a fire.

Anyway, I think the whole tall tale thing may have rubbed off a little too well on one of my friends who told some whoppers this week.  They were working on their handwriting book and they were supposed to write a story about a snowy day.  When I dropped by to check on K's finished story my first question was, "Were you intending to write a tall tale?"  What else could it be when one has written a story about the time it snowed 7 feet of snow in Senegal?  "No, no!  This really happened," insisted K.  So we checked with our resident expert, the other student who has spent some time in Senegal.  "L, did you ever see it snow in Senegal?  No, never.  Well that is truly shocking! K, do you think this might have taken place somewhere else like America, perhaps?"  After a few minutes of listening to the logical arguments of her second grade friends, reason prevailed and K changed the location to America.  But that wasn't the end of the whoppers!

The bridge that runs across the river right in front of our school was closed one particular morning this week so we all had to use the new bridge which was lately constucted by the Ch*nese.  It was quite a novelty and definitely occupied the first few minutes of our morning conversation.  But this led to a conversation in which the very same child informed us quite smartly that an American President named Benjamin Franklin had built the old bridge and that he was later killed in a car on the bridge.  Bad teacher that I am, I didn't even try to stop myself from laughing.  What a melange of stories that was!  After I finished laughing, I told her that it was JFK who built the bridge but that he was not killed in Niger but rather in the U.S. 

Oh, my goodness!  Those were some good laughs this week!

Little Bit of Sunshine

I saw this little yellow car from the Echo Park Little Boy collection and inspiration hit.  A little bit of yellow ribbon and that cute little button that Jane of plain jane created and voila, a happy little card!