I Can't Understand You...You're Speaking English!

This quarter at school in science my sixth graders have been studying about mixtures and solutions. At one point, they learned about what a mixture was, and how some mixtures are solutions. They also learned that some solutions can be separated by evaporation. I then assigned an at-home science investigation where I asked the kids to use different substances and see if they dissolved in water to form a solution, and if so, what happened when they tried to evaporate the solution. They could try sugar, rubbing alcohol, vegetable oil, flour, baking soda, or common substances of their choice. Then they were to create a poster showing their investigation and results. I called this their "Science Home-Extension Project."

These were due last Monday. The kids had to share their posters, much to their dismay. So I'm going down the list of the kids who remembered to turn in their project on time, and I get to one of my students, a little Ukranian girl. She is still in the English Language Learner program at our school, as I don't think she's been in America for more than two years.

She shyly gets up to share. She spoke very softly so it was hard to hear, but she proudly tells us that she titled her poster "Exmention Extantion." She then went on without skipping a beat to explain everything she did...We all sat there and thought, "What?" But no one questioned her on choice of title, which was probably good. Maybe the kids really couldn't hear her well.

This afternoon after school I was grading the projects. I had forgotten her poster. Then I came to it. Exmention Extantion? What could she mean? I still have no idea, except that the poor girl was hearing the words "solution," "evaporation," "investigation," and "extension." I think she was just unsure what all of those "-tion" words meant, and was doing the best she could to figure it out!

I just have to laugh, hearing her in my mind speaking in that thick accent, "I decide to call my poster 'Exmention Extantion!'" She was quite proud!

And by the way, her solids didn't dissolve...They "dezolt."

I Didn't Know I Needed to Be Specific

Last night Stella went to her first concert. She scored a ticket and went to see Hannah Montana. Now, I would not have taken her, as it was on a school night. So, I never even considered it. But, her best friend's mom was splurging for tickets for her friend's 10th birthday, and Stella was chosen to go along.

I told Stella that it was fine with me if she went, although that would mean a late night, and she'd be tired the next day. "I don't want to hear you complain in the morning," I said.

"I won't, I promise," she replied.

She got home at 11:00 pm, which also meant that I was up two hours beyond my normal bedtime, as well as Emily. But Stella had a great time. I had given her $50.00 for dinner and a souvenir, expecting change back. But she spent every dime. A T-shirt alone cost $30.00. She also bought some sort of glowing pen for $10.00, and a Jonas Brothers poster for Emily ($10.00). She was even interviewed by a tv station, but she didn't know which one, and we never saw it.

This morning I got her up at the usual time. When I went back upstairs, there she was in the hallway, crying her eyes out. "I'm so tired..." she wailed.

"Stella, this was your choice. I told you that I did not want to hear or see you cry about being tired the next day," I yelled at her.

"You said I couldn't complain," she sniffed. "You didn't say anything about not crying..."

I should have been more specific.

What? I Wasn't Paying Attention...

Earlier this week I gave a unit 2 math test to my sixth graders. On the whole, they did pretty poorly. The test was on adding, subtracting, and mulitplying with decimals, long division, and writing very large and very small numbers in both standard and number-and-word notation. Anyway, I had a very few 4s, a handful of 3s, and the rest were 2s and 1s-scores under 70% (most were WAY under...).

Today I passed back the tests, telling the kids that if they got a 1 or a 2 for a score, they needed to take home the test for their parents' signature. I didn't want to hit the parent with these lousy scores at conference time in a couple of weeks and catch them unawares. After passing out the tests, I proceeded to go over every problem with the kids.

Later, a student came up to me and asked if she could take the test over again to improve her score. "But, I just spent all morning going over the test," I replied. "Now you know each problem."

"No, I don't," she said. "I wasn't paying attention..."

Do You Want Fries With That?

Last night was our annual "Teachers Night" at the local Mcdonalds. The teachers work there, and for the 2 1/2 hour period, a certain percentage of sales goes back to the school. The teachers volunteer, and the kids come and bring their families. They are excited to see you, as if they haven't seen you before, as if you are rock stars.

I was stationed at the ice cream machine. That meant that I made milkshakes, ice cream cones, ice cream sundaes, and McFlurries. I made my first chocolate milkshake for an elderly gentleman and presented it to him with a flourish. "Here is the first milkshake I ever made," I told him. Later, after he had finished his meal, he came up to me to tell me that that had been the best milkshake he had ever had.

McDonalds has this whole thing down to a science. To make a milkshake, you insert the appropriate size of cup, and push the "chocolate," "strawberry," "vanilla," or "Artic Organge" button. The shake automatically comes out and fills the cup. When it's full, it stops. It's like putting gas in the car. Only yummier.

I also made extraordinary McFlurries. This is what you'd do: first, you'd fill the McFlurry cup with ice cream (I liked to fill it real full). Then you put a special lid on it. Then you'd do two twists of the topping dispenser (M&M or Oreo)-three twists for a large McFlurry. Then you'd get the special spoon that is also a mixer. Put the spoon in the ice cream mixture, attach the spoon to the mixing machine, and mix it all up for about 8 seconds. I made wonderful McFlurries. In fact, later that night I took my girls to a McDonalds to eat, and we all ordered small McFlurries. I was surprised at how puny they were! The people who got my McFlurries were lucky, indeed...

All too soon my time as a McDonalds worker had come to an end, and my family hadn't come in to see me working at a fast food establishment. I called home, and Emily said that Dad hadn't even come home yet! And it was already after 6 pm! I told her I wasn't going to wait around; that I was coming home. She was very sad to not be able to see me working at McDonalds. I came home and took them out to another, less crowded McDonalds. Later Eric came home. For some reason, he thought I was going to be working until 7 pm (now that would be volunteering, wouldn't it!). He too was disappointed he didn't get to see me. Oh, well. There is always next year!

Survivor Episode Three

Religious gal, Leslie, is out. God has called her home, she said.

Courtney may surprise us all, although I think she is hard to look at because she looks anorexic. How can she survive? The survivors always lose weight-she has nothing to lose. It's probably why she went on Survivor, though, so she can drop those last 20 ugly pounds. Don't anorexics always see themselves as fat?