Those Mad Skills Are Beastly Exotic!!!

I apologize for the delay in a recent updated on the happenings of the always interesting students I encounter each day. I currently have a student teacher, so rather than interacting with my students, I have been unearthing the mounds of paperwork that I have been avoiding! However, never fear, the past few days have offered quite the material for this, the latest blog, that I like to call "Beastly Exotic." The following are accounts of recent interactions with my lovelies!


Event #1: About a week ago I had the distinct privilege to watch one of my students perform his yo-yo tricks. I say this in all seriousness. He is amazingly talented. It was the only 15 minutes of the entire year that not a sound could be heard in my classroom. His classmates were truly awe struck! I must set the stage. My student is up in front of the classroom showing a variety of rather complicated yo-yo stunts. The rest of my class is sitting wide-eyed, chins dropped, and practically drooling in amazement. You could hear a pin drop in the room. I asked the student if he uses a special yo-yo for his tricks. The student began to dismantle his yo-yo an explain the engineering that allows him to perform some of his tricks (quite impressive for a 10 yr old). After he finishes his explanation, in the middle of the "awe moment", one of my lovelies shouts, "I don't care what kind of yo-yo you got! You got mad skills! I mean mad skills!" Needless to say the blissful silence was over!


Event #2: On Friday afternoons I have a group of my former students, who are currently in fifth grade, that dismiss from my room. On this past Friday, I was working with a few students at my back table, and some of the fifth graders approached. Throughout the discussion, I was talking about possibly doing a new activity in my class. To this, one of them responded, "That would be BEASTLY!" I replied, "It would be what?" To which the student replied, "Ugh, you know what I mean Ms. Holloman, beastly, like the new word for cool, duh!" Who knew my vocabulary was so greatly lacking?

Event #3: Our school participates in something called "Team Time." We assess students on a skill, group them according to ability, and then for 1 1/2 hrs a week we share students to reinforce and/or extend the assessed skill. WELL, this week's skill happens to be poetry. My goal for today was to get the students to understand the "mood" of a poem, and how the author's word choice dictates the mood of the poem. Like any good teacher, I decided to "activate their prior knowledge" by asking the following, "Okay guys, we know that mood and feelings are created by words, settings, events, etc. What are some moods/feelings that we can have? Think about movies you have seen, books you have read, and music you have listened to. What kind of mood do those things create? How do they make you feel?" Several of the students followed with the usual, "happy, sad, mad, scared, nervous, excited," but one precious darling in the back decided to share his awe inspiring insight by stating, "I feel EXOTIC!" And no, I am not capitalizing to exaggerate, that is exactly how it was stated. The funniest part is to follow. . . As this is occurring, I am watching my student intern at the back of the room attempting with all of her might to hold back an outburst of laughter. Upon making eye contact with her, I decided to dig just a little deeper (that's what we are told to do as teachers, right?). So I followed up by stating, "Well, now, that is interesting. Can you tell me what you mean by feeling exotic?" (Disclaimer: I knew that the student was unaware of the true meaning of this word, I was simply doing this to humor my intern). Let's just say the kid was clueless, but Terrie and I sure had a great laugh!


That is a wrap for this installment. Sorry to disappoint, but we will be going on a four week vacation next week, so it may be a while before I have any fresh material. Stay tuned!