Second graders...

List of things I said to my second graders today:

“Boys, stop playing in the bathroom!” This happens literally every day. They boys have a routine to go into the bathroom after lunch/recess and splash each other with water and get into “other mischief” before going to class. They are very loud and rowdy (as all boys are). Today I heard that they were acting up in the bathroom and so I decided to wait outside of the bathroom door for them all to come out and talk to them as a group. So needless to say they came out, one by one, and stood horrified that a teacher was right there waiting for them! When they were all together, I used all of my background knowledge that I gleaned from OSU and said “I have noticed that every day after recess the four of you go into the bathroom and mess around. I can hear you all yelling and screaming and this disrupts the other classes and delays our class. How can we fix this?” I think all my teachers would agree that this was a great argument because it starts with “I have noticed” which isn’t to condescending and it also causes students to assume responsibility in fixing the problem. The response I got was “I wasn’t making any noise!” “Joe Bob (names have been changed lol) followed us in here!” Or my favorite, “We didn’t know you were listening!” Those were not the responses we were taught to handle. Long story short, I ended up saying that from now on they will have to ask me before they can go to the bathroom until I can see them being more responsible with their time in there. They all walked away like I had taken away their lunch and forced them to watch me eat it!! We will see tomorrow if it works.

“If it is not your turn to stick your tongue out, keep your tongue in your mouth.” Okay, this was part of a game called “Frogger” in which you stick your tongue out at people. Still, an odd sentence to say in class.

“Can you please stop tapping your head with the pencil?” This one kid has a habit of hitting his head with a pencil and it looks painful. I just wanted him to stop.

Things my second graders said to me:

“Miss Callie, I ripped my pants. Can I go to the nurse?” hahah poor kid. He ripped his pants on the playground. How humiliating! Only as a kid would that not phase you.

“Can you please tell him to stop picking his nose?” Yes. Yes, I can do that for you. Gross.

“Why did the hamburger cross the road? Because it was in the Chicken’s pocket” or “Why did the hippopotamus cross the road? Because the chicken had the hippopotamus as a pet” …. What? I told a joke today (Why did the gum cross the road? Because it was stuck to the chicken’s foot! Hahaha) and they came up with every variation of this possible! The comedic gene has not fully developed in second graders yet.

“Miss Callie, Joe Bob cut in line!!” I literally here this 8 times a day. But with any student’s name inserted into the sentence. They tattle SO MUCH in second grade. They are constantly blaming someone else and rarely take responsibility for any part in the problem.

“Miss Callie, I made a friendship bracelet for you”. Isn’t that so sweet! I guess they can be cute sometimes….