My student who always writes something about himself on the board and signs my name came up with a new one today. Today, he was "magical".

We are reading To Kill a Mockingbird in class and are just in the middle of the trial. We were talking about how Tom Robinson only has use of one arm and I heard a kid say "Well, you can't really take someone's clothes off with one arm" and another kid said "I think it depends on the kind of clothes..." I told them we were NOT going down that road.

In the middle of the presentation from the high school counselor I had to tell not 1, but 2 students to stop playing with scissors. One of them was literally scraping his face with them. I didn't realize I'd have to take scissors away from 8th graders so often.

The counselor from the high school was talking about all of the graduation requirements and the tests you have to pass and how if you don't pass a class you have to go to summer school, etc. The looks on some of their faces were truly amazing. Of course, the kids who looked the most terrified are going to be totally fine and already have all A's and the ones who looked like they were staring into the sun should probably be freaking out since they never turn in any of their work. Hopefully they'll figure it out...

All That Jazz

 We've been studying the 20s, and it's been AWESOME. Today the kids used 20s slang to create their own sentences or conversations. Here's some of my favorites:
You're hip to the jive snappy doll!
And how, Daddy!

The nifty bull pinched a doll.

The sap thought he was putting on the ritz, but he was all wet.

I make some pretty good clams selling giggle water, you could say I'm an egg since I have a flivver and a jitney, and look at my get-up! Wait a second, you're a bull trying to pinch me off, you better use your gams to get out of here because I'm about to bump you off! Pow, pow! That was a bit of a kill joy wasn't it, eh old boy?

Jane, what's eating you, don't you have a Daddy? I can give you a whoopee and we can go to the arcade. but, I must warn you, I'm the bee's knee's in this get-up. I'm not good at beating my gums. I'm balled up and me and my dogs are getting out of here.

I promise, those make sense :)

We also learned about 20s fashion and made life-size paper dolls with 20s style. Here's some great ones:

The kids are pretty into putting their faces through the holes when they walk by them. It's fabulous. 

I asked the kids to write everything they thought they knew about the 20s into the letter I gave them. Clearly we needed to start from square one...

This group had a big fat nothing. I kind of felt bad because their letter looked sad so I tossed them a bone with "jazz age". I thought that would maybe get the ball rolling...not so much. 

I'm really into this one. They have drawn a picture of a pyramid, a square with some stars, a man with a barbell or a gun or something and an airplane. They have written "old people" "WWII" and "Beatles". Needless to say, we were starting with a clean slate on the history front here. 

In other news...

Today this table group was messing around while I was talking about something and I told one of the boys to knock it off. He came up to the front of the room, got down on one knee and handed me a starburst. They are somehow annoying and fantastic all at the same time. It was also the nicest way anyone has ever tried to give me a starburst. I declined, it was a yellow one. 

We were watching clips from 20s movies today and the kids were really confused about the words on the screen until I explained that it was the dialogue. They were rattled about why people didn't understand how to record sound. 

2 boys had this to say about ladies fashion in the 20s: "They all wear stupid hats. Big, stupid hats." "Their hair looks like Top Ramen"

He's kind of right about the Top Ramen...

A girl came in yesterday and kept whispering to me. It got really annoying (I DO have a limit to the amount of annoying things I can take in a day) and I finally asked her what was going on. She said she had "an allergic reaction to her perfume". This "allergic reaction" somehow only impacted her ability to speak in a normal voice. I finally told her to just stop talking. Oddly enough, she was totally fine in some of her other classes. It's amazing how children can heal themselves when it's convenient!

A boy came in the other day wearing shorts and holding his pants. I was kind of wondering why he was now holding the jeans he had been wearing and he told me he just couldn't make it the whole day in jeans. I have noticed he's a a pretty strict khaki policy. 

That same kid keeps playing this super annoying high pitched sound on his computer to see if I can hear it or not. I'll be doing something and think "what is that terrible noise?" and then realize it's him and yell his name. I keep looking over to see him just holding up the illuminati sign. I think it's one of those noises that old people can't hear, except that I'm NOT old, and I CAN hear it. 

Middle School - Livin' the Dream. 

Tuesday Trivia

What do you give your only girl teacher?
An apple.

If you think your poem is really awesome, what do you say?
You Mackelmore'd it.

What word can you use for ANY WORD?
Swag

If a weird picture shows up in the mishmash of pictures after you show a youtube video, how long will it take someone to see it?
.5 seconds

Even though a student needed you to remind them 5 times to turn in an assignment AND it's super late, how fast will they expect you to enter their grade once they turn it in?
2 minutes

No matter what you do, will there always be at least 1 kid who doesn't listen to the directions?
YES

If you let 8th graders trace themselves and design 1920s fashion out of butcher paper, what percentage of them will be TOTALLY into it?
100%

When a student gets "Girl on Fire" stuck in their head, how many times should you prepare for them to sing it at you?
At least 5

What do kids think happened in the 1920s?
WWI (we JUST studied the end of it before starting the 20s...)

If you play classical music while students work silently, what will you look up to find them doing?
Conducting
Playing the air violin