First Day Moments

*First thing in the morning I had my students work on writing me a letter telling me about themselves. As they worked on this, I went around to each student to check on his or her name before I made their name tag. I have learned to do this; too many times I have put "Nicole" on the nametag, only to be told that she goes by "Nikki..." Waste of paper and effort.

So, as I walked around, Leonardo told me he goes by Leo. Katelyn told me she goes by Katie. Rebecka told me she goes by Becka. Then I get to Tyler. Not much you can do with his name, unless he goes by "Ty." But he has something else scribbled on his post-it note.

"What's that say?" I ask.

"Ty Ty. That's what my friends call me," he replied.

"Well, sorry, but I'm not calling you Ty Ty, and I'm not putting that on your name tag. I'll stick with Tyler."

"OK," he said.

*I did an activity with the students that I call "3 Facts and a Fib." The idea is for each kid to write three true facts about himself or herself, and one made-up fact. Then the students take turns sharing their facts and fib, and the rest of the students try to guess which one is the fib.

Some kids can be very clever with their facts and fibs. But not Anthony. He got up to share: 1. I'm smart. 2. I'm strong. 3. I'm silly. 4. I'm ugly

Now, I knew right away that he intended the "I'm ugly" to be his fib. And I am glad he has such a high opinion of himself (the "smart," according to his records and the work I saw him do yesterday, was, in fact, the real fib...). But, he did set himself up here. The kids began to guess the fib.

"Your smart!" they'd say, meaning, that was the one that was the fib.

But Anthony did not get upset. In fact, he would shake his head in a "I fooled you!" manner, and say, "No, that's not it..."

He had us all fooled.

*One other boy (I have 19 boys, so it'll take me awhile to get them straight) got up to read his facts and one fib. He read three things.

"You were supposed to have four things!" the other students cried.

"Oh," he said. "OK. Just a minute and I'll make something up..."

I think that was the fib.

*Conversation overheard on the playground between two first graders:

First kid: I got them at Discount Shoes! 40 bucks!

Second kid: Wow!