It's that time of year

I think I will be taking the summer off from posting on my blog, but I hope you'll revisit me in August and we'll start up again. Thanks for reading! I'll end this school year with one of my kids' favorite poems by Shel Silverstein:

Shel Silverstein - Bear In There

There's a Polar Bear In our Frigidaire-- He likes it 'cause it's cold in there. With his seat in the meat And his face in the fish And his big hairy paws In the buttery dish, He's nibbling the noodles, He's munching the rice, He's slurping the soda, He's licking the ice. And he lets out a roar If you open the door. And it gives me a scare To know he's in there-- That Polary Bear In our Fridgitydaire.

Manners

I have a little guy in my room who burps a lot. I don't know if it's a medical thing or what, but he always says "excuse me" and never really thinks it's funny so I don't say much about it.

However, the truth came out today. We'll call him "O" in this conversation:



O: "Mrs. Overman, you know that my brother will probably be in your class next year."

Me: "Yep, that's what your mom told me. That will be fun!"

O: "Yeah, but you should know he doesn't EVER use his manners. I use my eating manners ALWAYS at school. But I don't use my burping manners."

Me: "I know."

Last Breath

Oh, blog readers, I'm sorry...I've done a yucky job of posting every day. School is busier at the end (as we all know) and that makes it more difficult.

However, here's a story for you today. I have this little girl in my room who has theories on EVERYTHING. We'll call her "Kid 1" and the other student "Kid 2." Here's the conversation that happened yesterday that (I think) kind of took her by surprise:

Kid 1: My mom is gone until tomorrow because my grandpa took his last breath today.

Kid 2: Oh no! Did he die?

Kid 1: I don't really know.


This was just funny to me because I don't think she was expecting anyone to ask her what that meant therefore she didn't bother to find out and when Kid 2 asked, it threw her! So cute.

Nebraska

One of my students (we'll call him F) lived in Nebraska before coming to Indiana. Today we were working on a map project about parts of the United States and were talking about the Midwest. This particular student was working with another little guy who came up to me and thus began the discussion:

K: "F says since he used to live in Nebraska he can speak their language really good."

Me: "You know they speak English there, right, K?"

K and I both look at F at the same time to witness the biggest smile on F's face...what a stinker!

Nevada

One of my students may be moving to Nevada. Here's our conversation about that from earlier today:

O: "You know, my dad may get a job in Nevada. I would like to live there because I would like to wake up with mountains, play in the mountains, look outside and see mountains, and eat lunch in the mountains. But I was wondering...what language do you have to speak in Nevada?"

Me: "Honey, don't worry, they speak English just like us."

O: "Oh, good."

Jamestown

We're doing a project right now in my first-grade class for the kids to learn about some places in Indiana that are significant to them. They're transferring things from a regular map like Indianapolis (one boy called it "Indiana-napolis," which is pretty good for reading it independently!), some local lakes, some cities, and a few rivers to their own maps.


One of my boys noticed the town of Jamestown, Indiana, and said,

"There is a town called Jamestown on this map. I think that must be where James from the other class lives because it is called JAMEStown. Do you get that? JAMES-town, like a town with James."


Got it.

Silly Gas

This is me at age seven. I just think it's funny to look at myself when I was the age of my students.



If I haven't said it before, I have a favorite student...I can't help it...I'm human! Lots of my posts are from him. This particular post is about a time he was filling me in on his upcoming dental visit:


"My tooth has been hurting so the dentist is going to have to put me to sleep. If that doesn't work, he's going to spray silly gas on my nose to make me laugh."


I asked him if he was sure it was "silly" gas and not laughing gas, but no, no, no, it was "silly" gas. There was no convincing him.