Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Random

PS - I know PS goes at the end...I just quickly want to say thank you to those who comment and who become followers...I love it!

1) I just finished watching Oprah instead of grading the mountain of papers I swore I wouldn't let pile up, and I just have to share. Three chefs from the food network were on helping three families spend less and make better meals. Usually when I see these types of things I react one of two ways. I am either overly eager to do exactly what they say or I think the whole thing is a crock. Luckily, today afforded me feeling number one. If you struggle with what to eat/make in general you should check it out....http://www.oprah.com/menu/food/menus/20090227-tows-celebrity-chef-recipes
SIDE NOTE: Seth and I eat the exact same meals every week and almost everything is grilled. However, we eat out A LOT. We eat out more so because we have this fabulous second job of cleaning doctors offices which requires one of us to not be at home one night a week (so two nights dinner gets tough). Anyway, I got in the habit of trying to go to the farmer's market every week and it has astonished me how much I save and how much better we eat. We are lucky to live 10 minutes from the market, but that doesn't mean it's "easy". The DeKalb farmer's market is one of the busiest, craziest, most amazing places to me. I don't know what half the stuff is, but the produce and meat alone make me feel like I am getting healthier every step I take in the place. I typically buy a crapload of fruits, make a huge fruit salad, and we eat it all week. I also buy our favorite meats, steak and chicken, marinate it when I get home and we grill that all week. I haven't ventured much further than fruits, meats, and vegetables because like I said, I don't know what a lot of the other stuff even is. Then, once a month I try to go to Publix to get things like toilet paper and such. AT ANY RATE (I am rambling), I find it hard to find recipes without random stuff I don't already have or typically buy. The Oprah show today gave me some GREAT ideas and when I made a grocery list from the recipes I had 80% of it already at my house.
SECOND SIDE NOTE: It is amazing what you can get accomplished when you don't want to work or get off the couch.

2) I try very hard to stay away from talking about my job on this blog because I just don't know who is reading and all that nonsense. HOWEVER, I have to share this little story because it truly made my day. My class has PE at the very end of the day and there is about a 15 minute mad dash back from PE to get everything packed up and everyone out the door so no buses are missed. At the very beginning of last year I realized quickly that I had to have a very specific, very enticing system for this 15 minutes or I would lose my mind every day at 2:15. I got the idea from another teacher in a learning college (aka, trailer) to turn off the lights and require no talking so the necessities can be done. I tried that and even I got bored. I did stick with the lights off, but I added a few things. Last year I decided that to keep the kids quiet and interested while some packed up and some sat still, we would play the game high/low. I call one group to pack up but it must be quiet enough to hear the high/lows being shared at the same time. Then I call the second and third group in a similar fashion. If you don't know what high/low is, it's a game where you simply share your high and your low of the day. I think it came from a movie....anyway, the kids LOVE it. This year, another aspect has been added to this 15 minutes and I honestly can't remember how or why. Basically, it's a super speedy version of show and tell. If the student tells me first thing in the morning that they have something to share, they can share it during that 15 minutes instead of doing their high and low. NOW is where the story begins:

Today, one of my students said he had something to share but it wasn't anything like a toy or something he could show. It was a story he wanted to tell. This particular child knows A LOT about A LOT of things, so usually his stories deal with how an explosion created Earth or the inner workings of an airplane. We were all in for a surprise today. His story goes something like this (my attempt at truly verbatim telling the story):

My cousin, who lives in Tennessee, came to visit and his grandparents took him to the Georgia Aquarium. They were having such a good time and when they got to the shark tank he kept telling his grandmother to keep a close eye on the sharks. She turned around a minute later and he was gone. They looked and looked for him and someone that works there finally said, "we found him!". To their surprise he was found in the penguin room hanging out with the penguins (Mrs. Burrow interjects and asks how old the cousin is to which the student replies "four"). His grandparents were so relieved! So they got in their car and decided to head back to Tennessee. The entire time my cousin looked very upset and nervous in the backseat of the car. Finally, his grandfather pulled the car over and turned around and said, "Ok, you aren't in trouble and we aren't going to tell your parents, but I just want to know how you got into the room with the penguins". My cousin sat there for a minute and then all he said back to his grandfather was, "I have one in my backpack". Somehow my little four-year-old cousin had a baby penguin in his backpack and they had no idea! (At this point the class is losing their mind with fits of laughter and never once thinking maybe this story isn't true). So my grandparents call the aquarium and they were told to drop the penguin off at the Tennessee aquarium. THE END.

This particular student is a fabulous storyteller but not in the sense of telling stories he makes up. He is very truthful and factual because he just knows so many facts. I am still awaiting an email back from his mother telling me if all of this did in fact happen. Until then, I am choosing to believe that somehow it did.

4 comments:

  1. Wait...but I've heard that story about the penguin before. I swear someone told it to me and said they heard it on the radio or something, this was probably 6-8 months ago at least. I know you said this kid is usually pretty honest, but I could SWEAR I've heard that story before.

    ReplyDelete
  2. HAHAHA! Do you feel as though this child closely resembles what Seth may have been like as a little boy!

    ReplyDelete
  3. LOL.. that penguin story is an urban legend! But what a creative first grader! You know he had to be thinking about it all day long!

    http://www.snopes.com/critters/farce/smuggled.asp

    ReplyDelete
  4. I've heard that story before, too. I'm dying to know what the mom emailed back to you!

    ReplyDelete

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...