Taco Shells

My student teaching experience has reminded me of how much enjoyment I get from being around children. I have a great although talkative class of third graders. They are smart, funny, and clever. I like to joke around with them, even though my supervisor thinks I am "too nice to them".

I took my kids out for morning recess the other day. Once they had finished their snacks, they were off to play. The girls love to jump rope, much like I did when I was their age. One of their favorite rhymes goes as follows:

Bluebells, cockle shells,
Eevie, ivy, over;
I like coffee, I like tea;
I like the boys, and the boys like me.
Tell your mother to hold her tongue;
She had a fellow when she was young.
Tell your father to do the same;
He had a girl and he changed her name.

I was sitting on the bench, keeping an eye on all the kids, when I heard the girls start this chant. I thought nothing of it until I listened closer. They were singing:

"Bluebells, TACO shells..."

I started laughing and I asked them to say it slowly so I could make sure I heard correctly. They again repeated the "taco shells" version. I laughed even harder and one serious girl said "Mrs. James, you DO know what a taco shell is, don't you?"

All of my friends like to come over and hear the funny stories I come home with every day. A lot of stories I have come from the same dear boy. We shall call him S. for confidentiality purposes.

S. is a very long-winded boy. He is pudgy and not athletic and he is extremely intelligent for an eight-year-old. One day I had to keep him inside for a few minutes to finishes his math (he was not on-task during math time). I had a couple of other students in too, and they finished as quickly as possible and ran outside. Not S.

He walked up to me looking very pensive. I asked him if he needed something and he said "I have a question." Preparing myself for something fantastic, S. launches into the following:

"Mrs. James, if we were having indoor recess, because it was raining, and I wanted to draw on the small white boards, and I wanted to draw a Pikachu, which is a Pokemon, and I needed to use the yellow dry-erase marker and someone was using it, would it be possible for me to use one of my Roseart washable markers?"

I wanted to pant for breath after he said this run-on sentence. Poor S., I had to answer "no" to his very detailed question. Instead of being upset, he said "very well."

Children are so wonderful. They have very interesting perspectives on the world and I feel very fortunate to be around them every day.