Kids say ....

That's right .. this post is all about my elves and the silly things they say. But of course, I can't write anything without writing about Jett. They say we talk about Jett more than Matt and Julie talk about their 3 week old twins!

And let me just say, nothing beats sunrise walks with Jett, or coming home and chasing him around the apartment until he's so tired, he can't only makes it halfway onto his bed before collapsing to take a nap.

The more time I spend with Jett, the more similarities I see between him and my elves. Both at the moment are loosing their *baby* teeth. I'm teaching both to sit and stay. Both will do anything for a treat. And the similarities became quite uncanny when I spotted a small puddle in my classroom. There was a brief moment when I totally overreacted, before I realized that no one peed on the floor, it was just a spilt water bottle.


In the classroom:

My elves have been writing pen pal letters. We have one elf in particular who still confuses letter sounds when writing. Instead of writing that his teachers were Ms. Lanham and Ms. Silket ... he read Ms. Lanham and Ms. Silket, but he spelled it Ms. Lame and Ms. Suck it.

Our student council shows a movie every other week, and usually there is a contest. This week was Wallace and Grommit, the the contest was coloring the cartoon. One of my elves colored Wallace's nose bright red. When another elf asked why, the first elf replied that Wallace had been drinking a lot of "bai jiu". The second elf nodded in sympathy and undersatnding. Bai jiu is a very strong alcohol that mostly people from the country drink. It's so common, even my 7 year olds understand!

In science we have moved from plants and animals, to a unit on habitats. When defining habitat, my elves asked, "Ms. Lanham, what is your habitat?" I responded that I like my habitat to be realatively cool and rainy, because then it is good for being outside and the surrounding area is always full of flowers and trees. Hearing the fact that I like a lot of plantlife around, the elves exclaimed, "Oh! Ms. Lanham loves the science!!!" Kate (middle school science teacher) would be so proud!

Of course we recently had Halloween. And with elves (meaning ELLs, meaning English Language Learners ... just in case you forgot), every moment is a teaching moment for English vocabulary and grammar.
On Halloween my elf asked me for some candy:
Elf: "I want."
Me: "How do you ask?"
Elf: "Please?"
Me: "Nope."
Elf: "May I?"
Me: "Nope. Silly, it's Trick-of-Treat!"
Elf: "Ohhhh yeah!"

The very next day:
Same elf: "I want."
Me: "How do you ask?"
Elf: "Trick-or-Treat?!"
Nope. Just ... just no.


Chicken was one of our spelling words this week, so for our morning routine when they correct sentences from the whiteboard, I thought it would be fun to write, "which came first, the chikon or the egg?" For the first 5 minutes they thought it meant "witch" like from Halloween. Once they figured out it meant WHICH ONE they had 10 more minutes of debate before asking me in exasperation, WHICH CAME FIRST?!?!?!?! Will you just tell us? Oh if they only knew how many people have debated this question for much longer ... I am growing mini philosophers in my class :)

This kiddo cracks me up. Her journal entry from last night: "How to mack a book! Frist you need blanck paper. Next you need to draw a leter's. Then you need a paperclob and you clob it, not too manny. Last you read a book with a coffie, you drink the coffe and read it. You can read with your family or read byy your slef. With TV is not ok." She's so right.