Cutting class

It's Friday and the weekend couldn't come soon enough. In the morning Rach and I hop on a plane and head to Vegas for a long weekend. After today an extra day off is much needed.

You know it's going to be a rough day when by 8:43 a.m. you have already shouted the phrase "Get your tongue out of the electric pencil sharpener!" By the time you're 9 years old you would hope you would have learned not to put any body parts near rapidly moving blades.

This week students have been working on adding adjectives to their writing assignments. On the board I had a list of close to 50 adjectives. Their task was to choose two words that could describe the nouns listed on their worksheet (tree, puppy, coat, bus, etc.) The trick was that both words had to make accurately describe the item. For instance, you couldn't say a flat, skinny globe. After a few minutes I called on students to share what they had written. One girl said "a thick, heavy book," while a boy stated "a smooth, red slide." The last boy I called on didn't seem to understanding the activity because he interjected "A black, hairy ball." I asked him what he meant by that because a ball could be black but not hairy. He responded "You know like Shaq." I tried to explain that Shaq wasn't consistently missing free throws because he was shooting with a hairy basketball. As though I wasn't understanding, he spoke very slowly. "Mr. Ritchason....black....hairy.....ballllllll," emphasizing the last word. Oh, okay I got it. I can appreciate a good testicle joke. I'm just disappointed it took me so long to get it.

Near the end of the day we learned about Christmas in Sweden as part of our unit on Christmas around the world. I taught the students that children there celebrate Saint Lucia Day, which is the start of the Christmas season. On that day children wear crowns with lit candles on the top of them. Each of the students got to make their own crowns using glue and strips of construction paper. When they finished they were told to come up to me so I could cut off the excess paper to fit their heads properly. As I was sizing up a girl's crown another student brought up a worksheet he had been working on for me to check. Not paying much attention while I cut, I looked over in time to see locks of hair floating to the carpet. I had cut a good inch or two from the back of her head. It wasn't major but at the right angle it certainly was noticeable. Oh well, I'm on my way to Vegas.