First Best Present

My students are writing a persuasive letter, trying to convince someone to buy them a certain gift for Christmas. Today, I was proof-reading MB's letter when I read the phrase, "This touch screen laptop would be the second best present I got since the day I was born."

I simply asked, "Wow, well what was your FIRST best present?"

He replied, "Uh...being born." (Almost as if to say, "Duh, Ms. S.")

Um, amazing. Yes, of course that was your first best present. How underrated is being born. Today, I think we should all call our parents (if we can) to say, "Thank you for my first best present...me being born."

Kids?

Two different times I had students ask me if I had kids today. The response was totally different in each situation.

Situation 1
AL (Brazilian): Mrs. S, you don't have kids?
Me: Nope.
AL: You need to have kids.
Me: Why??
AL: Because you are so good with kids. You'd be a great mom!

* AL was referring to him & his peers when he said I was so good with "kids" & I reminded him that if I had kids, they would not be as old as he was right away. He laughed. I'm glad he got my joke.

Situation 2
* Inez is a friend of one of my students. She ate lunch in my classroom today with my student. We don't know each other very well, but she began talking about her new crush & said something about my "boyfriend..."

Me: Nope, no boyfriend here. A husband though.
IG: OH! You look young. Like early 20s.
Me: Thank you.
AA (my student): His name is John.
IG: Do you have kids?
Me & AA (same time): No.
IG: Oh good. Kids are terrible. They take up so much time & energy.
Me: Oh, I think I like them more than you do, but it's good that you don't because you're too young to care about them anyway. ;)

* Note: Not sure why AA wanted to share info about my husband & non-existent kids before I did.

The Brazilian

I have a student from Brazil. He is very inquisitive, very dramatic, & usually very tired (ie, asks to sleep in class.)

Today, the "Do Now" was to write about what you did over the weekend & how you felt about it. As he was telling me about his brand new Wii & the Pokemon game he got, he said, "I have Pokemon. I love Pokemon. Pokemon is my life. (Long pause) Wellllll, next to my family."

Then I actually read his written response from his journal & I had to take a picture of it to share with y'all. :) Please note the last 3 lines. (The "translation" is below the picture.)

When I saw the Wii in my house, I cried, I died, and came back to life in 1 second.

Birthday Poster

I'm LOVE my 4th period class. You've heard me talk about them before, they are my "newcomer" students who are beginner English speakers. I love them because they are so thoughtful & they always laugh at things I say. :) Of course I love them, right?

Well, today YS (7th grader) asked me, "¿Cuando es su cumpleaños?" I politely told her it was March 17th, even though it had NOTHING to do with our assignment. Then she asked, "¿Cual es su favorite color?" I was very proud of her for using the English words that she knew. :) So I gladly told her it was teal, which is between green & blue.

I happen to have teal construction paper in my room, so she grabbed a piece of it & used some scissors to cut a strip off. I asked what she was doing & she replied, "Ahh, surpriiiise," with a huge smile.

After 2 minutes, she held up the birthday poster I had made with all of my students birthdays on it & revealed how cute she really is... (notice the awkwardly placed teal one at the bottom)

Proficiency level: High Intermediate?

EC is one of my students who I also taught last year. He is an 8th grader this year & I must proudly say that he has progressed a lot in the time I've been working with him. He has jumped from a very low intermediate to a high intermediate proficiency level in English.

Just to put it in perspective, last semester he was reading slowly because he was not confident in his own verbal language & he did not have clear handwriting. Often times, he would "check out" in class because he didn't completely understand what was going on.

Well, yesterday was awesome for one reason & one reason only. I like to randomly teach my students fun idioms or phrases people say, but they might not understand. It's always fun when they get it & even better when they use it in every day life.

EC was trying to copy what I had written on the board onto his paper while sitting at his table. I was standing infront of the board talking about the subject (possibly blocking his view of the board) when EC said, "You make a better door than a window, Ms. S." He smiled immediately, more proud of himself for remembering that statement than anything else.

I couldn't help it, I screamed & said, "Yea!! That was so good. I'm proud of you for remembering that phrase. Good job. OK, I'll move now."