Charpie's Travels

I took my camera to school today, specifically to be sure I have a photo of each of my ridiculous kindergarteners. I can't say they're normal, but I did get photos. Justin Peter JunSeo Jaden Ann Annabelle Jini Maro Ellizabeth Henry Kelly   Andy

"Show to Elizabeth teacher!" Ann was whispering, but I still heard her as I entered the other end of the room.  "Oh! Where..." Peter dug through his backpack. Unfortunately, he found what he was looking for.  As we started our morning routine, Peter waited patiently, uncharacteristically calm and quiet. Once we reached a point where I was accepting questions, his hand shot into the air. I stalled, calling on a few others first. Eventually, I had to pick him. "Yes, Peter?" His face cracked into a ridiculous grin and his hand opened to show his prized possession. "RING!!" he shouted. And with that he was out of his chair, charging straight at me. He grabbed my hand and tried to pry apart my fingers.  "Just one time!" he insisted. Maybe I should have played along, but I didn't. Letting this infatuated 6-year old slip a ring on my finger could've haunted me for a long time.  It seems his mom let Peter borrow her sc...

My school had an all-day Halloween party.  Halloween

"Teacher, I have a queez!" Peter announced. " You have a quiz or a question?" I asked. " A queeez. What is one plus one plus one...hundred plus two hundred plus three hundred. Plus fifty-four." So I wrote it all out on the board. It looked more impressive and masked the fact that my brain couldn't handle it otherwise. I wrote the answer, and my kids oohed and aahed.  "Everyone clap!" Peter directed between giggles. The class erupted in applause, and I bowed. Then, Peter "remembered" something. "Oh... where is the rose?" "Or where is a tomato?" one of my loving students suggested. "You need a ring, Peter!" I think this brilliant idea came from Ann. She loves that Peter likes me. Those two spent too much time during the remainder of the day discussing how they'd get a ring for Peter to give me tomorrow.

"Teacher, you wanna hear a news?" Justin asks. "What's your news?" I reply. He doesn't say another word, though. Instead, he springs from his chair, stands straight and stiff, and holds his pencil sideways in front of his chest. Then, he remains motionless except to move the hand that holds the pencil. It slowly "ticks" backward from 3:00 to 12:00.  "BZZZZ!!!"  Justin makes an impressively annoying alarm sound. Peter leaps from his chair and bops Justin on the head. The the noise stops, and Peter sits back down. Justin stands statue-like and pleased, waiting for me to react or tell him to sit down. 

Peter brought a wooden bead bracelet today. Sometimes he wore it on his wrist, sometimes he wore it like an anklet. It even briefly hung over his entire ear. But most often, he just played with it.  At some point when he should have been in his chair, Peter appeared in front of my face. "Teacher, go like this," he instructed and held out his index finger. I hesitated and then complied. When I did, he slipped his bracelet onto my finger. "Dum dum duh-dum..."  After singing the beginning of The Wedding March, he announced to the class, "Teacher is my bride!"

I tried taking some photos of my kids. I think they planned it so that they each looked decent (or scary) in different shots. So you get the whole sequence.  

My kindergarten students have inside shoes and outside shoes. Every Monday, they bring their inside shoes in a plastic bag. This week, Justin held onto his bag and made good use of it throughout the day. I walked into first class, and Justin rocketed out of his chair.  " Teacher, this is-a my cow!" he announced as he opened his bag and held it to Andy's chest. He then proceeded to make glup glup glup sounds as if he were milking Andy.  When I returned for science class, Justin's bag was on his head.  "I'm a bakery!" When I asked what he makes in his bakery, he replied, "I make a meeeean bread!" I thought the bakery hat was safely packed away, but I few minutes later, I looked up to see Justin holding it out an inch or two in front of his face. The entire class could hear his exaggerated breathing sounds. I started to freak out on him, but he just looked at me calmly. "I'm an astronaut." Once more, the bag made an appearanc...

Kindergarten Phonics Question 1 :  Where is the Statue of Liberty? Answer : Peter  - United Skates! Question 2 :  Why does Lady Liberty hold the torch of freedom above her heard? Answers :   JunSeo  - because it wants to be handsome Henry  - to make the thief (pronounced "teef") afraid Annabelle  - because she is gift from France Kelly  - so at night the people can see Andy  - because he wanna eat the ice cream Jaden - she want to be the beautiful monster Peter   (hand raised like Lady Liberty)  - it is free!!

This was the best writing class of the Kindergarten year. We didn't make it past the first page. I didn't even finish reading the directions before Justin blurted, "What is inbisible??" So I explained, and then we spent half of the period thinking up and acting out the pranks we'd pull if we were invisible. Writing class can be the bane of Thursdays, but today would have been a good day for a video camera. Assignment:   Would you like to be invisible? Write about what you would do if no one could see you. Responses: I want to be invisible because... Kelly  ...the person is moving but other people just see the clothes moving. Jaden  ...I want to play. Peter  ...I want to go to the gril bathroom. Ellizabeth  ...I don’t want to listen to my mom. Andy  ...I want to steal money. Justin  ...I want to throw dynomite to build a campfire. Ann  ...I could surprise people. When my mother yells I will do work and pencil will float. Henry  ...I will...

Mini Olympics  World Cup

Ann wore her cardigan as a head covering today -- until I'd compliment her for it. Then she'd quickly remove it for 20 minutes or so.  Henry got a perm this weekend. It's nothing out of the ordinary for Korean mothers to get perms for their sons. It's also completely normal for those boys, including Henry, to absolutely hate their freshly permed hair. Jaden had one answer for nearly everything I said to him today. It went something like "be-quiet-and-eat-your-food-and-do-your-work-and-don't-talk-and..." at some point he'd run out of commands and then do whatever it was I'd asked him to do.  JunSeo is nearly an angel as students go. But occasionally he pulls some weird stuff. I glanced back at his row and found him sitting casually and contentedly with a pencil in his right nostril. Andy informed us today that he likes the color Peter. I have a pencil case that looks like a shoe. Clever little Jason decided to try it on, and he didn...

"What is moustache?" JunSeo inquired during reading class.  I started toward the computer to do a Google search, but I saw the dry-erase markers first. Only four kids were brave enough to let me near them with a marker; the others just crowded around a shrieked a whole lot.  Moustache

For the entire kindergarten day, Henry wore one white and blue inside shoe and one orange "outside" croc. He wasn't missing a shoe or anything. He just felt like wearing unmatching shoes. Upon returning from break, I discovered an addition to the list of student names on the white board. Maro added Big Toe (and autographed her work).  I asked Jaden to do something, and in response he stated, "You are monkey belly button." Our vocabulary words included "husband" and "marry" (though somehow there was no "wife"...).  One practice book question read something like "Cathy wears a pretty white dress when she marries  John." We barely finished the reading it before one of the boys blurted "Uh! DIR-ty!" The vocabulary list inspired Peter and JunSeo, who held an impromptu wedding ceremony for their pencils.

Question:  Imagine the sky really was falling. What would you do? Answers... Justin:   I will say “aaaaaahh!!” and I will climb the mountain. Kelly:  I will tell to my mom. Peter:   I will get an airplane and go to the space and I will live on another earth. Ellizabeth:  I don’t know. Maro:  I wanna go in my home. So I sleep and I cuddle with my Acorn (her beloved dog). Jaden:   I do the poopoo. Ann:   I will call everyone and say push the cloud up to the sky. Henry:  I will go to the America and the Canada and I will go to the everywhere and the somewhere. Then I will go to the Mars. Annabelle:   I would go home and eat the dinner with the sausage. JunSeo:  Tell another friends and push the sky to the up. Andy:  I run away and climb the tree and  I go to the home and I am safe and I see the movie called Alvin and Chipmunks.

We were cutting out and gluing some labels in Science. Instead of throwing away his leftover paper, one of my boys cut it into tiny pieces which he dumped in my pocket.  "Here's dynamite, Teacher!" he proudly announced before scurrying to the other end of the room.

Each morning, I write all my kids' names on the board. This is where we keep track of happy faces and other little things. On this particular day, writing 12 names took nearly 20 minutes. Before I reached her row, Ann informed me that she was no longer Ann. "My name is Annie." So I added 'Annie' to the list. Not surprisingly, more kids suddenly needed different names. "Teachaaar!" Henry shouted. "I'm Hengry!!" He couldn't decide whether it meant he was hungry or angry, but he cracked himself up either way. Andy (the original name-shifter) chose to be Candy. Most recently, he'd been Qandy. Annabelle became Anne, and Ellizabeth decided to be Annabelle. Jini turned into Aini, and Justin became Iron Man.   Peter insisted on being Hakinman. Either it's something Korean or he didn't know how to spell Heineken Man. Maro decided on Karo, and Kelly chose Jelly. JunSeo and Jaden kept their real names and just enjoyed t...

Tattling is increasingly annoying to me. In some of my classes, there are punishments for tattling. For most, I have to repeatedly define the word. The conversation goes something like this... Student: Teacher! Jason say my name! Me:  Amy, did someone get hurt? Student:  Teacher but-  Me: Is someone going  to get hurt? Student:  No... Me:  Is anything broken? Student: *sigh*  Me:  Then I don't want to hear about it. I don't remember which girl tried to tattle this morning. I don't even remember why she was annoyed. What I remember is the boy in the front row. Before I could respond, he whipped his head around and let her have it. "Is it broken?" he demanded. "Are you hurt??" And then he turned back to his work without even waiting for her reply.

While at the park, we pulled out the sketchbooks and did some drawing. Justin made a pretty sweet monster and brought it over for me to see. "Nice! Does it have a name?" I asked. "Yes." He didn't say anything else, just returned to his seat and and grabbed a crayon.  "Teacher, look!" It wasn't long before Justin returned, proudly displaying his newly labeled masterpiece.

Friday was field trip day.  At the park, Andy found a tree stump and stepped up and began his speech.  "Hello, my name is Andy. I am zero years old. Thank you the lunch..."  There was no lunch. He's just full of it.  Henry and Jaden were inspired and quickly removed Andy so they could deliver speeches.