Oh the things I will do for my kids!

In our new politically correct world, many elementary students aren't allowed to wear the typical Halloween costumes to school. At the school I'm at now, the word Halloween can't be seen anywhere! No ghosts, no witches, no bats, no anything that might offend a soccer mom.

Come on people!

What has the world come to when a parent can't go out and buy a cheap costume at Wal-Mart and send their kid off to school dressed as the grim reaper, complete with realistic looking sickle? Isn't that just want we want, a school full of kindergartners wielding fake, plastic symbols of death?

Because the powers that be have ruled that kids can't wear what they really want to wear to school for Halloween, the have to dress up as a book character. A book character, really? We all know that deep down in their heart of hearts they want to be Freddy Krueger, Jason, or at least a ninja with plastic nunchucks! Okay, maybe they don't want to be a serial killer but they certainly don't want to be a tame book character. On top of having to wear a not so cool costume, they have to write a book report! So, not only did our American school system manage to suck the scary and fun element out of Halloween at school, they made it an academic holiday too!

In the spirit of the watered down version that is imposed on us by the school system, I present for your consideration my costume for Book Character Dress Up Day.

Ms. Frizzle is in the house! Who knew that cutting out individual lizards from some fabric I found would be so tedious! You are looking at two nights of hard labor, all so half of them could call me the lizard lady. Thanks guys, I appreciate it!

But in all seriousness, my kids liked my costume and I even got a few compliments from other teachers. All in a day's work for a second grade teacher.

Jerry Seinfeld on Halloween

See what Jerry has to say about Halloween!

[Please excuse the website advertisements....it's the only one I could find]

Playing Favorites

I've decided that every week I'm going to post a favorite thing of the week. It's your job to check out my blog to see my favorite thing of the week!

Without further ado...drum roll please........

I picked these cutie patooties up at Target for one of the theme days we had at school this week (slipper day)! They make me smile every time I look at my feet and they are comfortable to boot! What was your favorite thing of the week?

Another edition of Kidisms!!!!!

So....this week our reading unit's theme is "Let's Explore". A week long project for the kids is to explore their yard or neighborhood and find nature related items to bring in and share. One of our students made a great little shadow box with some nature related items in it. It is really cute and really well done. Everything is labeled and all! Yesterday, her mother came for the report card conference. As she was walking out the door we complimented the shadow box that her daughter brought in. As we were all looking at it, the centipede that she had glued in started to move!!! His little antennas started to go back and forth. She said they found it in their pool and there was no way it could be alive....apparently it is! Today, the kids noticed! Luckily, I was able to compare it to a lizard's tail that wiggles after you cut it off. I played it off as nerves and that the centipede is dead. The kids bough it! After school today me and my teacher were checking it out and it was still moving and now it's legs are moving! How long could this centipede possibly live?!?! So I have a possibly dead centipede glued into a shadow box in my room....is that anything like a possibly dead Sheriff Dullard?

One of my students said the sweetest thing to me today. After working with his reading group, as he was cleaning up his space, he turned to me and said, "Thank you for teaching us Ms. Cole." How sweet! That really made me feel like a true teacher. :)

Have a good rest of the week!

Marching Chiefs doing Thriller!!

Parent's Weekend 2009

Originally uploaded by smc06r

It was officially the last Parent's Weekend as an undergraduate :(

We had a lot of fun! My parents brought the RV to Tallahassee so that was a lot more convenient. On Friday night we went to the FSU Circus. It was wonderful as usual! The, on Saturday, before the game, I took them to Pebble Hill Plantation just over the line in Georgia. It was a beautiful day and we had a great time.

Saturday night was the big game! FSU vs. GA Tech! Well we go though half of the first quarter and then the game was suspended because of lightning in the area. After about an hour the game started again. We stuck it out in the rain! There was a row of GA TEch fans in front of us and we couldn't possibly leave before they did!

At half time the Marching Chiefs did a tribute to Michael Jackson! They even did the Thriller dance! That's right, 500 band nerds, some lacking rhythmic coordination, doing the thriller dance in front of 83,000 people! It was amazing!

We did lose the game but it wasn't because of a lack of effort. After the week's hoopla over Bobby Bowden it was great to see a show of solidarity by the fans! There were multiple signs in support of our beloved head coach. My favorite one was "In Bowden We Trust". Another one read, "Every Real Seminole Supports Bobby".

Hope you had a good weekend! Click on the pic for more!

You know you love 'em!

The state has implemented a new reading test that every child in the state has to to do. Some of the testing is one-on-one. One of the tasks is to re-make words. The teacher says, "Make the word 'code' into 'node'." And the students use letter cards to make the new word. The kid that was being tested says, "I can't, there isn't a 'k' !" As in 'knowed'...ha ha ha!

One more for ya! One of our spelling words this week is 'demand'. So, one of the teachers in second grade is giving a spelling pre-test. She says the word and one of her students writes: the man....like "da man"....ha ha ha!