Wednesday, October 20, 2010

I'm baaaack!

It's amazing how one messed up summer can drastically change all plans. Yikes! That said, with the school year well under way again, I'm finally ready to get back to blogging. What better way to do so than with humour?

First: Student wails, caterwauls, shrieks, giggles, and generally makes a huge ruckus for no apparent reason. What does any sane teacher ask the student to do? Stop the noise, of course! How did this charming student respond? "But teacher, I'm just making a joyful noise to the Lord!" I didn't pursue it.

Next: Knock, knock? Who's there? Toilet. Or, monkey on the toilet. Or, any other possible attempt to get away with using bathroom words. At lunch time. *sigh*

Then: M says "Teacher! O pinched me!"
I say "O, why did you pinch M?"
O replies "He told me to pinch!"
I say "M, why did you tell O to pinch you?"
M replies "Because I was spanking her."
I didn't pursue that, either.

Finally: We took a field trip to the local police station. A wonderful time was had by all, the students all behaved, no one got tied into the restraint chair (though they did ask), no one was left in jail (again, they asked), the students were thrilled to find out that prisoners get to eat Eggo waffles for breakfast (and wanted to become prisoners, themselves!)...and the officers mostly kept straight faces. Why is this important? Here are the questions that I dropped off ahead of time...as a warning! I felt that they deserved to know what sort of things they were in for, and was actually very pleased that the kids remembered so many of them so that I could watch the reactions!


Kindergarten-Grade One Questions to ask the Police Men and Women
1. What do prisoners drink? (Around here? Nothing suitable for students, haha.)
2. Do Police Officers go to jail?
3. Do Police Officers get tickets?
4. What do prisoners sleep on?
5. What do pregnant prisoners sleep on?
6. What do prisoners eat?
7. Do Police Officers take care of mean animals? (Fortunately, I was able to redirect this one when the officers looked worried about having to talk about their answer!)
8. How and where do prisoners go to the bathroom? (One little darling sniffed the jail cell's sink, to see how clean it was. Who does that?)
9. Do on-duty officers sleep in the station?
10. Do Police Dogs get bathroom breaks? (NEWS UPDATE! Police dogs are trained to go before a mission, and then just "hold it"! If dogs can do this, why can't five year olds?)
11. Does Port Hardy have Police Dogs? Nope! The nearest Police Dog is two and a half hours away.
12. How does the Police boat catch speeders?
13. Do Police Officers deal with people who break the law by taking their boats too close to the whales in the water?
14. Where do officers store their gear? In lockers, like the big kids at school.
15. Where do Police Dogs stay? With their trainers.
16. What do Police Officers do when people are shooting?
17. Do bad guys in P.H. throw people to the whales to get eaten? No.
18. Do Police Officers get bathroom breaks when they are on a mission?
19. In the olden days, where did Police Officers keep their horses? In their barns.
20. Do Police Officers get in fights with each other?
21. Do Police Officers get bathroom breaks? (Clearly, this was VERY important!)
22. Do Police Officers take care of people who are in danger?
23. Do Police Officers kill dangerous animals who are attacking? Not unless they have to.
24. Do Police Officers save animals from danger?
25. Do Police Officers find fossils?

Then, these unexpected gems came up:

26. Can you use your cell phone to call heaven? No, the long distance charges would be expensive.
27. Can you use your cell phone to call hell? No.
28. Why do you have a wheel chair with a seatbelt? (That was the chair with restraints. The officer froze up, I thought fast and told the students that sometimes prisoners forget that it's in their best interest to just sit still and behave...just like students sometimes forget that it's best to just stay in time out and be still. The officer looked very relieved. Hahaha...)
29. Do you get to eat lunch?
30. Will you shoot me with your gun?


The officers only choked once. I had to step out once to laugh, and repeatedly ensured that I didn't make any eye contact with the adults in the room.

Gotta love the little ones!