When I was in college, there were many things that they did not teach me about being a teacher of young children. For instance, I was not taught about some of the things I would have to say to my students in the line of teaching social skills. Here is a list of 10 of the strange things I find myself saying on a regular basis.
- Stop chewing on your collar.
- Why is there a crayon in your nose?
- Why did you tie your shoes together?
- Stop poking people in the ear.
- This is a classroom not a mosh pit.
- Take your book bag out of your mouth.
- Why did you bite the button off your shirt?
- Stop turning your eyelids inside out.
- Please do not do back bends over your chair.
- Stop trading hair with each other.
Must update here with a bonus one that I said for the first time today:
Stop kissing your desk.
Ok, so today when I was getting ready to have individual conversations with each of my students about their STAR Math test results from last week on of my darlings raised his hand.
Darling: "She got my stuff." as he's pointing to the little girl sitting across from him
Me: "Who's She?"
Darling: "Missy May"
Me: "What 'STUFF?'
Darling: refuses to answer
Me: What do yo expect me to do about it if you won't tell me what it is?
Darling: Mumbles something that sounds like "I don't know."
Me: "You don't know what it is? She has your stuff, but you don't know what your stuff is?"
Darling: "I didn't say I don't know."
Me: taking a deep breath... "Ok, again, What stuff?"
Darling: "Tommy Joe Jason gave me...."
Me: interrupting him... "I didn't ask you who gave it to you, I asked you what stuff?"
Darling: "My gum"
Really? This child has been in trouble for having gum numerous times over the last few weeks. I've even called mom about it.
The gum was confiscated and thrown away. Come to find out he was pushing the gum onto Missy May's desk so she took it and put it in her pocket.
Ten minutes later I was introducing the trash can to three more violators of our school wide no gum policy.
For some reason this happens EVERY year about this time. We can go all first semester and only have one or two gum incidents. Then we come back from winter break and all of the sudden it's Gumtopia.
0_o
