Not quite ready for fourth grade

Three days each week we have reading stations set up around the room where students go from one to the next every twenty minutes. I don't know what it was today that produced such strange behavior, but this will go down as one of the oddest school days in recent memory.

* With one group we talked about similes where two things are compared using the words "like" or "as". We went through a worksheet together that had a series of sentences. The students had to figure out whether or not the phrase was a simile. The fourth one down read "You are as wise as an owl." The boy to the right of me turned to look at me and stated "I'm part owl." He said it with such conviction like when someone says they're part Cherokee and a quarter Irish. I gave him a quizzical look and said simply "What?" With a straight face, he added "I'm part owl because I stare a lot." He was being dead serious. I tried to explain to him that this just made him similar to owls and that humans and animals don't come from the same relatives. This was lost on him as he emphatically declared that he was related to an owl. Unless his uncle dressed up as Woodsy the Owl from those catchy 80's commercials, I'm not buying it. Give a hoot, don't pollute.

* Another group had just finished reading a book about the Titanic. I asked them to jot down some facts they learned from reading the book. Several of them wrote down that the ship was the length of three football fields and that about 1,500 people died. However, I'm beginning to think that one girl read an entirely different story. When I called on her to share what she had written she told me that the people on the Titanic were traveling to America to gain their freedom. Um, no, that was the Pilgrims on the Mayflower. She proceeded to add that not only were they in search of freedom but they also wanted to be able to own dogs, a luxury that was unavailable apparently in England. Just to check my facts, I Googled "bulldog" and found that they've been around in the U.K. since 1568. The cherry on top came when she added that some of the survivors from the Titanic went on to throw coffee in the river. I don't remember Kate Winslet throwing cans of Folgers into Boston Harbor. It was as though this girl had taken a history textbook, shoved it into a blender, and turned it on for several seconds. I'm sure next week Saturn will be a decorated war hero who is trying to become the next American Idol.

* Another group was reading a story about glaciers. We discussed that glaciers become so heavy that gravity pulls them downhill. This invariably led us to talking about what gravity is and how it keeps us rooted to the ground unlike things in space. I explained that when you see video of astronauts floating around in the air this is due to the lack of gravity. This spurred their curiosity and led them to begin asking questions about how they sleep up there and how they cook their meals. One boy raised his hand and when I called on him he added "Astronauts just pee in their space suits since they can't use the bathroom." I explained that this wasn't true without going into all of the details about what amounts to not much more than a funnel and a garden hose.

* My final group of the day came by after finishing reading their book about sea mammals. They were asked to create a newspaper article to highlight what they had learned. Before beginning the task we went around the table to share some examples of important things to write down. One girl shared that walruses are killed for their fur for clothing, their meat for food, and their blubber for fuel. I explained that this was a large fact so to make sure that they left themselves enough room to write the whole things. One of my habitual troublemakers turned to me and said "I've got a big one." When I asked him what his fact was he was his usual goofy self and told me that he had a big, fat elephant. As it was almost the end of the day I played along and asked him where his big, fat elephant was. His response was "In my pants" to which he dissolved into a sea of obnoxious laughter. Spoken like an obnoxious, immature college freshman trying to hit on a girl way out of his league after 17 beers at the Sigma Chi house.