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...

Third Grade Writing Assignment:  Think about a person whose job helps people in your community. Write about what this person does to help your community. Answer:  Sorry to write this answer in my writing, but I have no community at all. How could the children have their own community? I want to have my community, but I can't. If you see my writing, understand me that I don't have any community at all.  Sorry.

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...

Me: What people are in your family? Robin: Older brother, older brother... Me: How many brothers do you have? Robin: Two. No... four.  Me: What are their names? Robin: ( pause)  No names.  Me: No names or no English names? Robin: No English. Me: Ok, what are their Korean names? Older brothers first. He tells me a name, and I put up one finger. Then he says some more Korean, so I put up a second finger. He pushes it back to my palm.  Me: Who else? Robin rattles off some more syllables, and I put up a second finger again.  Me: And who else? More Korean. But again, when I try to put up a third finger, he pushes it down.  Me: So...hmm. Two older brothers? Robin: Yes. Me: And you have younger brothers. Who are they?  Robin: Younger brother, baby brother... Me: How many younger brothers?  Robin: Two. Me: So, two older brothers and two younger brothers? How many brothers all together? Robin: Many. Me: How many? Robin: I have seven br...

There was a pig but he has a tail as straight as a nail.  He was sad.  He eat noodles a oodles and prizle.  Now he get a tail with curly like the real pig. -by Lewis

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!!

They call me RGM. They are my smallest and, somehow, my loudest class.  Jun gave up on participating in class conversation long ago. We move too slowly, and he hates having homework. I can't say I blame him. Then again, something would be wrong if these boys actually got excited about English grammar class. Ethan is incapable of remaining completely silent for longer than 6.5 seconds. Most often, he's speaking to anyone who will listen -- or to the air, if necessary. He speaks more Korean in class than my other 81 students combined. He spends most minutes trying to make the other boys laugh. At the moment, he's singing the Korean soccer song to himself. I prefer the singing, partly because his soft voice puts a funny twist on his tough-jerk persona.  Henry spaces out more than me. I invited him back to Earth once, and the other boys won't let it die. Today, his classmates have failed to inform him about the chunk of tape in his hair. I don't mention it e...

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...

Assignment: Write a poem about a hot dog. Be as creative as possible. Katie's poem: Hot Dog Hot dog that not dog. It's yummy and bummy. Squeeze ketchup or netchup. Put inside sausage mausage. Make bread mread. I like hot dogs. I love hot dogs. But its not bood good for you!

Most days the AC is on at work, though you don't always feel the cool air. This was the case in my first Grade 4 class tonight. Not surprisingly, my cheeks were red. "Teacher," Hanna felt the need to announce the obvious. "Your face is red." "Yeah. Because I'm hot." "Ohhhh yeah!" Kevin instantly hollered. And then he  did a double-take. Hiding behind his grammar book didn't stop the mocking from the rest of the class.

Grade 1 Assignment Write a story to finish this line: " One day, Simone was walking alone in the forest when..." Marisol's story The Marisol princess was crying. So the Jase prince safe her. Jase prince win. Marisol princess was very happy. Jase prince and Marisol princess marry. So they lived happily ever after. Marisol's been kissing one of the boys lately. I'll give you one guess which one it is....

Mini Olympics  World Cup

My day ends with fourth grade. Today's class was all boys who all like to eat all the time. Each of them had their own regular-sized tube of Pringles this afternoon. Generally, I make them put the food away, but when one of them placed a generous stack of chips on my desk, I took the bribe. Furthermore, I taught them how to make a duck bill. This was all well and entertaining until Ethan decided to try drinking water through his duck bill. I don't think a single drop made it into his mouth. Instead, he gained a rather embarrassing wet spot on his shorts. So we laughed at Ethan and then sadly put our food away. 

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...