Kids and Nature

Teaching my students all about nature!

Many kids today don't get to go out into nature much.  It is too bad, because when I was growing up, I remember running around outside from after breakfast till the streetlights came on!  We caught crayfish and minnows from ponds, went exploring in the woods, tried to catch birds, picked berries, built tree houses and had great times in the outdoors.  These days we have to take our kids on field trips to get these types of experiences.  In our area we take a field trip out to the woods where our kids get to ride in a boat, catch critters from a river, hold snakes, turtles, gators and chicks, learn to use a compass, build a shelter and run around in the woods.  Many of my students have never done anything like this in their life!  They ask a million questions, take two million pictures with their cell phones and have the time of their middle school lives!  What are you doing to introduce your kids to nature?

Can you describe your life in just 6 words???

Dance, Dance, Dance

Do you remember your 8th grade dance?
When I was in junior high we had dances, but never a big 8th grade dance.  I used to have so much fun dancing to songs like this:

These days a lot of middle schools go all out for their 8th grade dances.  One school did an "ICE" theme:

My school always goes all out with their designs too.  Last night they had a giant "Broadway" sign, with a red carpet for the kids to walk in on.  

The kids looked beautiful- not exactly dressed for prom, but dressed in the prettiest party dresses and suits!  One thing they had that was a great idea was a "shoe check".  The girls were all able to check their shoes when they walked in so that they could DANCE!  They had free snacks and punch for them and a photo booth for them to take pictures in.

I took my daughter with me to chaperone and she thought it was great!  She can't wait to be in middle school (a few years to go yet, kiddo!)  I was proud of the kids that they kept it classy, there wasn't really any grinding (dirty dancing) - just a lot of kids dancing and having fun.  Remember the train?  Kids still do that!  
And everyone did the "Casper Slide", "Cupid Shuffle" and of course, the "Dougie"!  Thank goodness I had watched this video and could join in!

Geography, Oceans and The Smarty Pants Kid

I have a student in my class who should probably be the one teaching instead of me.  
Let me explain.  I have been teaching science and math for 13 years.  All of a sudden, I have this geography class on my schedule this year.  I have only taught geography once and I co-taught, which means that the other teacher covered for my sorry butt since I know nothing about geography.  

First, I tried to talk my way out of it, tried to get another math or science prep instead.  When that didn't work out, I cried.  A lot.
So, I have spent this year trying to be a good geography teacher (Google is my BFF!!!).  Along with the book and the internet, I have come up with some good lessons and activities, and we have (slowly) made our way around the world- me learning right along with them most of the time.  

We have watched a lot of travel videos because we want to see what these places really look like, not just read about it.  Our favorite ones are the Globe Trekker series.  Be careful though, one time we saw a butt!

Anyway, with the end of the school year coming around, I handed out the exam review which was a foldable where the kids had to list the continents and oceans, 20 countries and capitols, 15 bodies of water, 3 deserts, 5 mountain ranges, etc.  
This brings me to The Smarty Pants Kid.  He comes up to me and says, "Miss, how many oceans are there?" all innocent and sweet-like.  I should have known I was walking right into a trap.  "4", I say.  "Nope," he said, "there are 5, I bet you a dollar that there is a new one called the Southern Ocean".  I had never heard such hooey in my life, so I give him a look and call up Google.  He starts laughing and walks over to the computer.  Sure enough, I owed the kid a dollar!  Why am I always the last to know everything?!

its a moostache!

 You always hear the funniest things from middle school kids.  They are seriously capable of keeping a person laughing all day long.  Today I only had a few kids working on a lab together and they were chatting about facial hair.  They were saying that one of the boys in our class started getting a mustache last year in elementary school and had to start shaving.  Just that much was enough to get me giggling because I just can't picture this kid standing in the mirror with a razor shaving his mustache.  Next, they proceeded to discuss who all the boys with mustaches in the 6th grade were.  Then, one girl blurted out, "Ew, kissing someone with a mustache would be like having a street sweeper sweep your face!"  I swear, I almost fell out of my chair right then and shouted, "I am with you, sister!"  So, which would you prefer, a street sweeper or a big mustachy kiss!

A funny kids book about mustaches!

It's Mystery Monday!

It's Mystery Monday!
There is only one more Monday for the kids this school year!  Can you believe it?  It is a mystery to me how fast the school year passes by!  It seems like one minute I am setting up my classroom and having an open house and the next minute I am taking down all the posters and counting textbooks!  It is a mystery how at the beginning of the year my little 6th graders are so scared and small and by the end of the year, they are confident and taller than me!  How can they change so much in just one year?! 

 From now on, Mystery Monday will be a blog hop!  Tell me what is mystifying you today.   Leave your mysterious thoughts as a comment, or click the linky to add your blog post!  Please spread the word and let's have some fun!  *The only rule is, to post your link, you must be a follower of this blog* 

trapped in a musical

In high school, I took musical theater classes and loved it.  Have you ever watched a musical?  I just love how one minute the people are talking and the next they are singing!  I showed a musical, Disney's Anastasia, to one of my classes earlier this year. At one point they were threatening to scream if she sang another song, and they were only halfway through it.  

 Last year the kids in my class watched a lot of ICarly where they do something called "Random Dancing".  Every once in a while, the kids would just do random dancing out of nowhere, then sit back down and do their work!  I think everyone should random dance now and then!

 This morning, though, one of the kids in my morning class sang a few lines from a song.  You know, the catchy one that goes, "Today I don't feel like doing anything".  Before I knew it, the class had all joined in singing, including me (I couldn't resist, and like I said, the song IS catchy!), and they even all joined arms and started dancing as they sang the entire song together.  I felt like I was trapped in a real life musical! I am really going to miss these kids at the end of the year.  They sure do lift my spirits, not to mention making me giggle!

Pulling Weeds and Planting Seeds

When I was in my 20's I loved staying out late, playing spades, dancing, smoking and drinking.  Now that I am in my 30's, I have forgotten how to play spades and quit smoking (bad for kids and my asthma).  You could not pay me to get dolled up and go out to the club.  My moves are circa 1997 and I get a splitting headache if I have more than 2 drinks!  Oh, and going out to the club also requires staying up past my 10:30 bedtime!  

In my 30's, my hobbies have changed.  Now, I like to cook, swim, read, scrapbook, but most of all I try to be a good momma.  Another surprising hobby I have picked up is gardening.  My passion for gardening has really grown lately!  I have a very nice garden that I keep up in the front of my house.  It includes banana trees, orchids, lillies, a dwarf azalea and some shrimp and jasmine plants.  

 About 2 months ago, I decided that since I had mastered that, I was ready to start a garden at my school with one of my classes.  I had the kids write the grant to fund the garden themselves, stake out the area and take soil samples, calculate how much soil and choose the seeds we would plant.  I sent the kids home with seeds and egg cartons to start growing seedlings while I pulled all of the deliveries and funding together.  Finally, we drilled and nailed together the landscaping ties and carried and poured 100 bags of dirt into rows and planted our seeds!  

As if the huge school garden wasn't enough for me, over Easter break, I dragged 20 bags of dirt and 30 giant pavers into my backyard and made a mini-vegetable garden back there with my daughter's help.  

You can see the giant boulder and tee-pee in this picture!

We used sea shells on sticks to mark the rows!

Well, what do you think?!
How have your hobbies changed as you have gotten older?

Mystery Monday- Teacher's Edition

It is a mystery to me how kids can talk so much.  My daughter does not ever stop talking.  Sometimes she talks the entire way home from school in the car without even stopping to take a breath!  She even talks in her sleep.  The kids in my class would talk non-stop if I didn't make them be quiet and do some work.  They will talk to me, the kid next to them or anybody who will listen.  Do you know that strange children even come up and talk to me at the mall or the park?  Maybe they know that it takes a talker to know a talker, ha, ha!  When I was a kid, my mom would limit my caffeine intake because she thought that was what made me talk so much.  I don't really think it helped...

the ding dong and ditcher

Every day this week during one of my classes, some kid has been jiggling our classroom door handle several times and running off.  Each time it would happen, the kids would get all riled up about it and take forever to settle down to work again. So, we discussed the ding dong and ditch issue together as a class and came up with a plan.  Talk about the scientific method in action!  So, yesterday at 11:55, we paused our "Feeling Good About Growing Up" movie and assumed our places.  I stood pressed against the wall on one side of the door, with a kid on the other side sitting down in a chair.  Two kids went through to one of the adjoining rooms, and two went through to the other and acted as lookouts.  My students pretended to all watch the movie and we waited...  Finally, I noticed a kid walk up and stand right beside the door, reach out for the handle, and... WE CAUGHT THE DING DONG DITCHER!!!  The kids all saw him and verified that he was the one they saw doing it, and were yelling "write him up, write him up!" and were cheering and clapping that the doorknob jiggler will be brought to justice and now they can learn in peace!

the day they have been waiting for!

Remember when you were in middle school and you (finally!) got to hear the birds and the bees human growth and development talk?!  Well, I don't.  It must have been just that bad for me!

Today, I had my students begin by reading the information in the textbook and writing down 10 facts they learned on a piece of paper.  I also had them write down any further questions they were wondering about on a separate paper which I collected from them, and oh my did they have all kinds of great questions saved up special for me!  Here are the top 8:

What happens to the umbilical cord after it is cut off?

Can a man have a baby?

How could a woman know if she is pregnant?

How can a twins fit in there?! 

Can twins be connected?

After you have a baby, do you still stay a little fat?

Do I HAVE to have a baby if I am a girl?

And (my favorite)  How many baby teeth do you loose? 

I am looking forward to what they will throw at me tomorrow when I read them a cute book about hormones, display some fancy diagrams on periods, and show the famous "Feeling Good About Growing Up" movie.  Man, am I looking forward to Easter break!

how to entertain 25 teenagers after testing

Standardized testing is so serious around here.  It is nothing but business in the morning on test days.  Then comes the afternoon.  So, what can you do to entertain these teenagers who are bursting with energy and were just forced to sit still for 2 hours?
Idea Number 1- Show a movie.  Works the first day.  Maybe the second day.  But after the third day becomes quite ineffective.
Idea Number 2- Math Art.  Teach the kids how to fill in large addition or multiplication grid, then have them substitute patterns in for the numbers.  Or have them make tessellations like the artist, MC Escher.
Idea Number 3- Make a garden.  This one is my personal plan of attack.  These kids carried about 100 bags of dirt from one side of the school to the other, dumped the dirt and formed rows, then planted seedlings they grew in egg cartons.  I went home dirty and sweaty every day for the past week, and I am sure the other teachers are wondering what the heck happened to me when they see me walking out in the evening.
Idea Number 4- This one came straight from the kids.  They walked into my class, said "let's have a dance party", "can we move the desks", "we promise we will put them back" "can we play music", proceeded to move the desks and begin dancing the "dougie" all before I could even blink an eye or answer them yes or no!  Hello?!
Idea Number 5- Get fed up and make them work!  They will call you mean and say "but we just took tests all morning!"  But hey, they just tried to throw a dance party!

fish fight

I have an awesome fish tank with African Cichlid fish in it set up in my living room.  I spend a lot of time arranging the tank with coral so that there are lots of hiding spots for the fish (about 15 of them). Cichlids are known to be aggressive, but mine usually aren't.  There is one that swims around to the other fish and shakes his tail in there face, then darts off.  I researched this and found that it some sort of mating thing.  Can't you just see running up to some guy, shaking your butt at him and running off?  Well, I guess it is working out well for her because we have had a few baby fish appear in the tank, and I assume that they are getting there from all that tail-shaking. The other night, I was watching the fish, and getting ready to feed them, when all of a sudden two of the fish were locked jaw to jaw and splashing all around- a fish fight!  How do you break up a fish fight?!  I jumped up and banged on the glass, and they let each other go and swam away.  They seem to have left each other alone since then.  I wonder if all the other fish were yelling, "fight!" (in fish talk) and swimming in a circle around them like they do in middle school.  I didn't notice. 

How to Get A Husband... According to 6th Graders

I have a boy in my class who just became a big brother a few weeks ago. We had a few free moments and he was proudly showing us her picture, and mentioned that her room is decorated in a monkey theme. I told the kids that my daughter's room was done up in bunnies, but if I ever have a baby boy, I want to do the room in red with cowboys. Well, they all looked at me and began freaking out: are you having another baby?! when?! what?! I told them to hold on, slow down, that I would like to be married before I even think about going and having another baby. Suddenly, one little girl piped up and said "Here is what you need to do. Get a friend to watch your daughter. Then get a pedicure. And you need to go shopping and buy some of those booty shorts. And get those fishnet things too. Then you go dance at the dance club." Then another kid pipes up, "I hear that Club S is really cool. Are you over 21?" By this time, I was trying hard to keep a straight face, and was not doing a very good job. These kids are so funny!

birds, bees and a ringing in your ears

Today I had a special guest speaker come speak to my middle school classes on teen pregnancy prevention. What with me being out sick for myself and my daughter, the "Just Say No to Drugs" lady coming in once a week, and everything else that has been going on lately, I ended up having to switch the presentation dates with another teacher, and did not even have a chance to so much as warn the kids about what was coming. Ha, ha, ha! The speaker started off with a very basic birds and bees anatomy lesson, and then progressed into a few activities where she shows the kids how much baby items would cost, and how small an actual premature baby would be (which is more common for teen moms to have). I really like the lessons because they are real life problems that kids don't think about facing when they are in the heat of the moment, and I believe that even if it saves one of my children from becoming a teen parent, or contracting an STD, it will be worth it. Being a single mom is hard enough when you are older, I could not imagine trying to do it as a teenager (but that is a story for another time). Well, about midway through the lady's presentation in one of my afternoon classes, a little boy came over to me and said he felt like he was going to faint and that he needed water. I looked at him and he was swaying on his feet and getting ready to hit the floor, so I grabbed his arm and started dragging him up to the nurse. He kept saying that he just needed water and that his ears were ringing and he was seeing spots. I just kept dragging him along up to the office- I was afraid he was going to pass out on the floor right in the middle of the hallway- then what would I do?! I have never seen a kid so pale and clammy! When I (finally!) got him sitting in the nurses office, I asked him if the pictures bothered him and he just looked at me with these big eyes and said "I don't think so", but I think maybe they had!

Middle Schoolers and Crooked Spines

Remember the whole scoliosis screening from back in middle school? Today I had to take my class to get theirs. Middle school is apparently a good time to check kids for scoliosis because if they can notice it while they are still growing, it is easier to fix it. Plus, kids carry those HEAVY backpacks which can make the problem worse.
I remember back in middle school having to take the letter about the scoliosis screening to my parents, begging them to write me a note so I would not have to do it, being told no, then forgetting about it until the day of the screening. Where I promptly FREAKED because I had forgotten to wear a swimsuit under my shirt, and was COMPLETELY embarrassed over having to take off my shirt to let the school nurse see my spine. I don't remember what happened after that, so it must not have been as bad as I thought it would be.
Now, my class could not walk in a straight quiet line, even if I paid them a dollar apiece, but on the way to the screening today, they were in a silent, straight albeit VERY slow moving line. When we arrived outside of the screening room, one little girl looked at me with very large eyes and said "my mom said I didn't have to do this". I said "do you have a note?" She said no, so I told her sorry. So, they all went in the room and then I ran up to the office for a few minutes. When I came back to pick them up, they were all standing there laughing, and told me that they didn't even have to take off their shirts. They also said that it felt like a massage and tried to convince me to go get one too!

the pencil sharpener

Most of my students last year behaved horribly. They made me want to quit my job. Everyday. I got through it (with a lot of prayer) and have lived to teach for another year. BUT, the pencil sharpener didn't. The kids last year sharpened God only knows what in it and broke it. I had one boy from Cuba who was absolutely amazed by it. Apparently in his school in Cuba, the teacher sharpened their pencils with a knife. I finally had to restrict him to one sharpen per class so he wouldn't stand there the whole period. The sharpener was a heavy duty one that cost about 100 bucks, so all I could afford to do this year, without dipping into my own pocket, was to get an old school one and screw it up on the wall. One thing that I found really funny is that many kids today don't really know how to use a pencil sharpener that is not automatic. They look at me like "hey Miss, help me out here!" every time they go to use it. Finally, they seem to have caught onto the fact that you have to crank your hand fast on it, and empty it out often, to get it to go, but now the screws have pulled out of the wall. I tried to screw it back up myself but didn't have screws that are small enough, so now it is laying in pieces on the back counter. The kids are REALLY starting to give me odd looks now. They look at their pencil and then at me, like "now what, Miss?!" One girl even decided to take matters into her own hands, pulled this out of her backpack and suction cupped it to the desk. See how much better the kids are this year!

microscopes and hand sanitizer

Do you remember how cool it was looking through microscopes when you were in school? I remember being in 7th grade and going into a small lab room filled with microscopes. We would all stand there in the dark observing all the cool stuff we could find in a few drops of pond water. It is amazing to me how many little critters live in just one tiny (gross!) drop. It also makes me want to wash my hands- a lot. The pond water lab has always been one of my favorite labs to do with my students every year. I enjoy hearing them squeal over what they see swimming around in their drop, and I don't even mind when they go through an entire bottle of hand sanitizer!

What a good number one will do for you...

I had a boy in my class today that I noticed was sort of clutching his stomach. I asked him if he was OK and he said that his stomach hurt. So, I went through the typical teacher interrogation: did you eat lunch? what did you eat? do you have to use the bathroom? would you like to go see the nurse? He tells me "No, I am sure it will pass". So I said "why don't you go walk out to the bathroom and get a drink of water, maybe if you walk around a little it will feel better". Well, he was gone for a few minutes, and he comes back, and on his way to his seat he tells me "well, I guess all I needed was a number one- I feel much better now!" Fabulous!

A sick day will wear you out

My daughter and I have both been sick for two weekends now. We have been coughing sneezing with fevers and she has a confirmed case of the flu. Even though she is sick, she never slows down- not even with a 104 degree fever! I think I probably could have gotten more rest if I had gone in to work and taught 120 middle schoolers. Seriously. Here is a sampling of what we did yesterday: woke up at 7:30, played some games, watched some tv, built fairy houses with acorns, leaves, mini-bird houses and hot glue, had lunch, watched a little more tv, snuck into the library for 10 minutes to switch out our library books and went through the McDonalds drive through for ice cream (I swear we did not breathe on anyone!), took naps, made some crafts, painted each other's nails, cooked dinner that she wouldn't eat, watched a little more tv, colored pictures, took bubble baths, watched a little more tv, read some books and FINALLY went to bed! I am exhausted just typing this! What do you do when your kids are sick to entertain them?

kids, giggling and farts

Farts are soooo funny. Especially to middle schoolers. Today in class, I noticed two kids scootch over a few chairs and hold their noses. Then I looked and saw another kid giggling and trying to move closer to them- he was clearly the one that dealt it. Each time he moved down one seat, they moved down one seat, until I told them to please return to their assigned seats. I was giggling too. But, it got me thinking about the different kind of farts that we have at school. One fart middle schoolers like is the BOMB FART. This is when one kid farts, and all of them jump back and all point at one another. It is nearly impossible to figure out who dealt it. Another kind is the SNEAKY FART. This one seems to come from no where and all of a sudden comes upon the class. Everyone looks at each other like, where did that come from?! In here?! In the hallway?! From the class next door?! Holy cow! The last fart, my favorite, is the WAVE FART. In this fart you see one kid hold their nose, then the two kids next to him, and the two kids next to them, until everyone in the room is giggling and holding their noses because, like I said before, farts are funny!