Lil' Bites

"Why are the people in the story wearing dresses?" asked one of my 10 year olds as she looked at the picture for our Bible story. Before I had a chance to answer, another of my 10 year olds answered. "Those aren't dresses. Those are robes. Men only wore dresses in the 80's." And he was dead serious. Needless to say it took a little while for me to be able to explain that one.

"Is this right, Mrs. Helena?" asked one of my first graders. She had been having a great day at school. She was focusing on her work and really trying hard to do her work and it was paying off. Whenever my kids are having a great day and really doing well I tell them that they are "On fire!" So because this student was doing so well I of course told her that she was "On fire!" She went back to her desk and a few minutes later I heard her talking with the other boy who is in the first grade with her. She was trying to help him with his work by explaining how to do one of the activities that they were working on. After a couple of minutes of trying to help him she came to my desk and looked me in the eye and said in a very serious voice, "Mrs. Helena, he is not on fire today." I almost burst out laughing but instead I asked her to call him over because maybe I could try and help him.



"Mrs. Helena, guess what?" asked one of my six year olds. "You saw a purple hippopotamus." I guessed. "No." He answered with a smile. "I stayed up to midnight last night!" he exclaimed as proud as he could be! Needless to say I was not nearly as proud and wondering now what kind of day I was going to have. A couple of hours later, he came back to my desk, "Mrs. Helena, I am tired!"

It is towards the end of the day and several of my younger students were in the library room reading quietly together. They were being so quiet that I had almost forgotten that they were down there. Pretty soon, I heard sweet little voices coming from the library room singing quite loudly "London Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down. London Bridge is falling down, my FAIR LADY!!!" They then went on to sing "Baaa Baaa Black Sheep" and "Mary had a Little Lamb". So I went down the hall to see what was going on and two of my three students who were in there had a book between them that had these songs in them and they were "reading" and singing at the same time. Their faces were so happy and they were having such a great time I couldn't make them stop. 

A few weeks ago one of my little boys came up to my desk singing, "I roll up, I roll up." He had stuck a pencil behind his ear as he danced over to me. " I am Mr. Daniel." He explained to me as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

I thought that it would be a good idea to have my students write Mr. Daniel a letter. I figured that it would be a good way to practice writing in English, also letter writing is a good skill to have and to practice not to mention that Mr. Daniel would really love to get letters from the kids. I asked one my first graders what he was going to write in his letter. "I am going to ask Mr. Daniel why he dances in school." That was not what I was expecting to hear at all! "You are going to ask him what?" I asked again, thinking IJ must have misunderstood. "I want to ask him why he dances in school, because you say that the classroom is not where you should dance but Mr. Daniel used to dance in the classroom, so I want to ask him why?" Well, I couldn't really argue with that, I guess. I did try to explain to him that I don't want him dancing in the classroom because he bumps into people and or their desks and he might hurt himself. He seemed to understand that but he still asked Mr. Daniel anyway...Daniel just laughed and laughed...