Friday, October 12, 2007

Timpanogas Cave and Picnic

American Fork canyon is GORGEOUS right now...the pictures don't even do it justice. We had the best campfire dinner in this canyon. I have always hated tinfoil dinners but realized that I can put other things in them besides the regular meat, potatoes, carrots, etc. I made a hawaiian dinner with pineapples and chicken and veggies...it was grub! I am a complete mountain girl...I love them!

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We're not supposed to touch the walls - no one said anything about tongues!


































These caves were AMAAAAAZING!!!!! WOW!

Thursday, October 11, 2007

Isn't fall the best?!



This red tree was awesome - so bright

Cascade Falls

We LOVE fall...it is beautiful in Utah!


Funny kiddos

I love teaching elementary school kids because they are so darn cute and so funny! I'll update this list often with funny things that happen at school. I want to remember them and I think they are fun to share with all of you!

October 4 - There is one boy in my class that drives me crazy. One day I found him standing in the back of the classroom throwing his shirt up and down in the middle of the lesson. I asked him what in the world was he doing because we were right in the middle of a lesson. "I just felt like throwing my shirt up and down." He's the kid who cut a girls hair the first day I taught by myself...yeah, I need to keep an eye on him at ALL times. So in short, he is kind of a naughty kid. Well, he left the class during a lesson to go to the bathroom and he was gone for 15 minutes. All the kids noticed and of course realized that it's not fair that he got to go to the bathroom for that long. I sent a student to fetch him and he comes into the classroom with a big grin on his face. As I pull him into the hall I asked what he has been doing for so long. He recognizes my frustration at him and starts to panic. (I never use a strict voice with my students so it was a change of venue for him.) His response: "Well I was in the bathroom and I, I, I think I might have diarrhea." I didn't know how to respond to that so I made sure that he was being honest and then sent him to the seat with the charge that he needed to be SO SO good the rest of the day and follow all my directions, or he would be in trouble. How would you respond to the naughty kid saying he has diarrhea???!!

October 9 - We read a trickster tale from the Andes Mountains as part of our continents unit. This story was hilarious! It's called Love and Roast Chicken for anyone that wants a cute picture book. I used a not-so-good Spanish accent when quoting the characters and the kids laughed the whole way through it. Their laughs made me laugh and we were all just sitting on the rug laughing together. Moments like those make me want to teach forever!

October 10 - As a class, we were coming up with words to make a Halloween acrostic poem (write the letters vertically and then think of words or phrases that start with each letter). When we got to N a few of the kids held up their whiteboards and had "Nacho Libre" written on it. I couldn't really read it of course so I asked what it said. I laughed and asked these 7 year old boys what that had to do with Halloween. "He kicks little kids." I ask again, what does that have to do with Halloween? Then they come up with a speech with reasons why to put Nacho Libre in the poem. We didn't add it, but it was pretty funny.

Tattling lesson - 7 year olds like to tattle on each other so I talked to them about it and said that it's hard for me to help make the situation before because I didn't see what happened. I gave them an example: "If Eli stole my shoe, I wouldn't go tell Mrs. Gardner (their actual 2nd grade teacher). She doesn't know what happened." and so on. The kids missed the message and responded, "Eli wouldn't steal your shoe."