When in France

So my school does a yearly French Trip over spring break. Students (who pay) are taken to France for a week. So I was walking around the room as they were writing today and I overheard this...

Student A: "Yeah, he will get a French girlfriend."
Student B: "For like a week!"

We ain't nothing but Mammals...

Teaching classification today in science I had a student achieve an, as Oprah would call it, "Ah-Ha!" moment.

Me: "Where do humans fit into this?"
Student: "I dunno. There isn't a category for us."
Me: "Sure there is. We fall into the Animal Kingdom."
Student: "WHAT!?! We are ANIMALS?!?"
Me: "Yes. Now what Sub-Kingdom are we in? Mammals, Birds, Reptiles, Amphibians or Fish?"
Student: "I can't decide."
Me: "Well do we fly like birds, have scaly skin like reptiles, are we like frogs, which are amphibians or do we live in the water like fish?"
Student: "We don't do any of that."
Me: "Well what does that leave?"
Student: "So not only are we ANIMALS, we are MAMMALS too!?!"
Me: "Yes."

Multiplication Fail

While reviewing conversions I showed the students a recipe and asked what would be necessary to double the recipe.
"Multiply by two!" came the replies.
"So if there is 1 1/2 cups of cornmeal in the recipe, how much would I need for my doubled recipe?" I ask. "1 cup!" yells a very bright student (no kidding, this kid is smart!)
"Walk me through that," I say puzzled.
"1 1/2 times 2 equals 1," he stated.
"Really?"
"Yeah."
"How?"
"Oh I thought we were doing 1/2 times 2."

No you didn't, you just realized you made a HUGE fail!

Escape Artist

I am currently with 5th graders and we are looking at "The Spread of Communism" I taught in South Korea for a year so I brought in pictures of the DMZ to show the separation between North and South. I showed the pictures and explained how communist North Korea was very strict and didn't let people out. If they did escape then they were hunted and if found imprisoned or killed. After the slide show and discussion I had a girl raise her hand and very meekly ask...

"Mr. Walter, how did you escape?"

Can we try it?

Teaching about communism in Social Studies and I came up with a real-life scenario for the students. I split the class in two and told half of them they were communist and the other half that they were democratic. They were to research their government and prepare for a class debate. The catch being, the communist side could only use 3 preselected websites and a dictionary for research. Anything they wanted to say in the debate must be cleared through me and they had to wear armbands. The democratic side could do anything they wanted to prepare.

After the researching and the debate, my students asked...

"Can we be communist for a day! We want you to tell us where we can sit and what to eat and where to play at recess!"

Excuse me? You are willingly giving up your freedoms? K.