There are times when students say things that make me laugh out loud or sometimes on the inside if they happen to be right in front of me. I’ve lost so many of these over the years in the crowded hemispheres of my teacher brain so I am finally going to start collecting them. I’ve categorized them under KidSpeak so that they don’t get lost in the archives.
Here are a few that I can remember right now.
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Last June, when I first started as a French teacher I put out a little pre-test to see what these kids knew. I asked them to translate some common phrases. One was, ‘I am tired’. My 3rd grader replied to only that one with:
fat see gay
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Madame, my nose is coming! (kindergarten)
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Madame, I want to get changed.
But little boy, it’s almost home time, you don’t need to change.
But madame, I have the squirts. (kindergarten)
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When working on beginning reading skills with a struggling reader in the hallway: the written sentence was ‘the mouse crept out of his hole’, the sentence that was read (with great pride, might I add) was ‘the mouse crapt out of his hole’. (grade 2)
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When resolving a conflict on the playground, a boy was upset that certain boys were playing with the balls he brought in from home. I explained that if you brought toys from home you had to expect to share them on the playground. He nodded, then asked, ‘Is it ok if I hold my balls on the bus?’ (grade 2)
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I have lots as a mom, but my best 8th grader kidspeak story was the time a reluctant reader found a book he really got into. It was a book set in the battles of the Vietnam War. One day during free reading he gasped, brought the book over to where I was reading and whispered, “Mrs. Moore, you’ll never believe this! The guy in my book gets his tentacles cut off!”
Many years ago one of my third graders came in to school one day saying “My mom is having a baby and my dad doesn’t know how it happened!” I shared this with his mother at conferences a couple of weeks later, and while I think she was a little embarrassed, she did find it funny. She figured he must of heard them talking about “how could this happen” as the pregnancy was a huge surprise. This same boy brought in an ultrasound picture, proudly pointing out the body parts (wait for it) but noted “We don’t know if it’s a boy or girl because its legs are together.”
@Linda704, love it! I’ve had a few pregnancy-related comments…
Right at the beginning of the year, a grade 2 student yelled out, while I was teaching, ‘are you making a baby in there?’ and then just the other day another grade 2 student, who didn’t realize I was standing right behind her, turned around, put her hands on my belly and exclaimed, ‘Mamma mia!’
Oh and then there’s the grade 5 boy who, after finally realizing I was pregnant and not deformed in the belly, said, ‘wait a second… last year you said you weren’t married, now you’re pregnant….?’
@Tracy, my favorite pregnancy one: when I was pg with my first born, I was also working on my Masters degree. During free reading with my 8th graders, I was reading my text for my child growth and development class. I found pictures that showed what my own growing fetus looked like and I showed them to the class. One girl got a confused look and asked, “Wait a minute, you have to take a class to have a baby?”
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