Good Leaders

The underlying theme in our social studies unit is leadership. I was asking the kids what qualities make someone a good leader. I was getting some long pauses and blank stares, so I asked, "Well what about me? What is something that makes me a good leader for our classroom?"

Anna raised her hand and firmly stated, "You're pretty."

She's got a lot to learn about feminism. Or something. 

Love is in the Air

I'm going to start giving out some updates on the love lives of my first graders, because apparently they want everyone to know everything. All the time.

Abbie was in the hallway today, just freely announcing, "I have a crush on Johnny! I have a crush on Johnny!" to whomever walked by.

She is a bold lady. 

Not Even Kidding

Johnny asked the librarian if she had any tax code books.

Full Moon

My kids have been nuts lately. I don't know what it is (except I think that I do know what it is), but they have been so talkative, antsy, overly excited, and just plain crazy. 

The funny thing about teachers, is that they will come up with any bizarre reason to explain this away. 

"It's the weather."

"There's been a big drop in the barometric pressure. It really affects them."

"It's the full moon."

For the longest time, I thought this was all a load of crap. Kids are weird, and they're going to act up sometimes. Except, with this latest full moon, I'm starting to believe it. I'm hearing from everyone that they're kids are being cray cray right now, even fellow teacher Facebook friends. I mean, there has to be some connecting factor there, right?

Anyway, my point is, I seem to be teaching 21 little werewolves. 

I Have A Dream

To wrap up our unit on Martin Luther King Jr., we made posters with our fourth grade buddies about our dream for the world. Each pair of buddies made a little clouds that said "I have a dream" and pasted them onto a blue piece of construction paper, then wrote and colored about their dream. (Totally fancy and Pinterest worthy, I know.) It was so cute, though, to read about their dreams. I made them all share at the end. 

Their dreams included: No more litter, a safer world, no bullying, clean drinking water for everyone, for homeless people to have homes, etc. My favorite was Amelie's because she said that her dream was for every child to have a home and family as loving as hers. I obviously teared up a little.

A Piece of Wisdom

Everyone morning we have our announcements broadcast over the TV, because we're fancy like that. A few select sixth graders get to run the two minute newscast. Well one of the sixth graders made a mistake, it seemed, which was a surprise to Jake.

Jake: "He's in sixth grade, so he should know everything."
Me: "I hope you'll know everything when you're in sixth grade."
Jake: "Ahhhh.... I'll have a lot of friends..." 

Who needs to know everything when you have a lot of friends? Jake knows what he's talking about. 

Diversity, or A Lack There Of

We've been talking about Martin Luther King Jr., which has been awesome. The holiday very nicely fit into our unit on leadership, and I love getting to teach even the most basic levels of history and social studies. 

Our conversations about segregation have been great (kids are so quick to hate injustice in the most beautiful way), but there has also been some confusion.

During reading group, I had a couple kids ask, "So... are you African American?" (I am, in fact, an extremely pale-skinned individual.) And then they looked around our all-white classroom, looking for any kid with even a tan, and then asked what race they were.

I'm thinking we need some diversity up in here.