Spills and Sticky Blobs

We're still close enough to the beginning of the year that I can at least vaguely recall the feeling of stocked shelves.  When the kids arrived for the new year with fresh haircuts, new shoes, and toting bags full of supplies, I stacked all of the paper towels on top of the cubbies and thought to myself,  "Finally!  This will be the year that we'll make it at least halfway through December without running out of paper towels!" 

To the untrained eye, our mountains of paper towels must have looked like a year's stash if not more, but as I gazed upon our bounty of Bounty, Viva, and Brawny, I pictured the leaking water bottles, the hemorrhaging juice boxes, the dripping glue, and the smeared chocolate pudding that would surely make quick work of these rolls in our near future.  I revised my estimate to put our restock date closer to the middle of October.

Eating both snack and lunch in our classroom ensures that we have a steady stream of containers trotting around the room, waiting to be spilled, knocked, squirted, punctured, or tipped.  And when the school lunches come with oranges, well, pretty much everything ends up sticky.

Today Dewan managed to wind up with a lap full of water while trying to assemble his do-it-yourself Lunchable Kool-Aid.  Yes, whoever decided that it was a good idea to give kids a packet of powder to pour through the tiny opening of a bottle of water was perhaps an investor in paper towel stock.  I came over to survey the damage (and to make sure this was actually water all over his pants....) and found not only a puddle on the ground but splash marks reaching two feet in any direction, and a not-insignificant amount of water on the table as well.  Not to let his drink-fixing endeavor be waylaid by the spill, Dewan poured the pink powder into what was left of his bottle of water, turning it bright red and "frooty" before dashing off to fetch the paper towels.  "Well," I thought as I watched half of the powder end up on the table, "We're due for a thorough wiping down anyway, what's a little more mess?"

Anyone who noticed Dewan's dripping pants could have easily guessed who was the party responsible for the spill today.  Last week, however, we encountered a mysterious blob of sticky gooeyness with no clear origin.  "Clean that up," I told the kids sitting nearby.  No luck.  Even after enlisting the help of the entire group, the blob remained unmoved.  There seemed to be no explanation for this curious, dark purple blob.  "Did anyone over here have blueberries today?"  No such luck.  Two kids still valiantly continued attacking the sticky mess with the cleaning spray.

"It's probably cake" piped up Ciara.  Never mind the fact that there had been exactly no cake on the menu that day, the fact that we actually never have cake in class, or the fact that the purple, gummy mystery mess in no way resembled cake.  We never did figure out what the blob was, but I'm sure we'll have plenty of opportunities in the near future to play another thrilling round of, "Guess That Mess."

What was YOUR biggest classroom spill?

Image: www.jbsitedesigns.com

Thanks for Noticing

As much as I'd like to think that consequences in my classroom are between me and a particular student, there are moments when a "time out" is a fairly public affair. I'm not sure if this phenomenon happens in other classes out there, but some days I swear that someone observing our classroom from afar has a mute button and chooses to press it, eliminating all of the normal noise of literacy centers, exactly as I'm telling someone across the room that scissors are for paper, not for hair and that there's an opening in the "time out" chair. Ideally, I'd be able to deliver that message up close and personal, but sometimes scissors across the room require immediate attention.

Last week, I was sitting with Darius, eating lunch. It was, you see, the time for eating lunch. Antonie, however, had not gotten this message and thought instead that it was the time for leaning within four inches of the kid across from you and making silly faces.

"Antoine. Bring your lunch and move to the rug."

"Caught him" commented Darius under his breath.

Yes. Yes I did catch him. Thanks for noticing.

That's What You Always Say

"What are you doing this weekend?" I heard Niyah asking loudly and exaggeratedly at the next table during lunch today. She turned and looked over her shoulder at me. "I'm Ms. Sarah! That's what you always say!" True, that is what I say when I pull up a seat at one of the tables during lunch. "What else will be part of this Ms. Sarah impersonation?" I wondered, thinking of Mr. Halpern's recent post over at Look at My Happy Rainbow.

"Sit down! Eat your lunch!" Niyah/Ms. Sarah continued. Well, true, that is also what I say quite frequently at lunch time. I then tuned out of their conversation for a bit but caught the tail end, following a fake slap between Niyah and her friend Amelia. "Don't slap me!" said Amelia. "Ms. Sarah doesn't slap people!"

Hold Your Nose

Truth be told, I didn't think that turkey sandwich looked all that appealing either, but it was lunchtime and that's when you do the eating. And if you don't particularly like the school lunch, Derrick, well, you still gotta try to eat some of it so that you don't collapse in a heap in the middle of math from hunger and lack of good nutrition. I found myself in a rather extended sandwich discussion with Derrick that consisted of these things:

How Derrick only likes turkey, not ham and thus was not eating his sandwich

How I was pretty sure that the turkey-colored meat was turkey and not ham because it was not ham-colored

How Derrick only likes turkey

How it was turkey, just eat some and see that it is turkey


After this turkey/ham impasse, our discussion turned to the other contents of the plastic school lunch tray besides the meat. When Derrick said that he didn't like the salad either, I let him in on the holding your nose trick. Sometimes you just have to get it down whether you like it or not to prevent the aforementioned collapsing during math. He managed a bite of the salad with his nose pinched tightly, but there was a limit to the effectiveness of this technique. Taste now not a factor thanks to the nose-holding, temperature was the issue. "I don't like cold pasta. I only like warm pasta."

Kids are just funny about food! I suppose that many adults are funny about which foods they like and don't like, and that many tastes we have as adults can be traced back to that one incident with the peaches. But they're just so odd with their tastes! I was passing out cheese sticks at snack one day and Brian shook his head. "I don't like cold cheese" he said. "Well, what kind of cheese do you like then?" "Warm cheese."

And just last week, I encountered a child who doesn't like the most child-friendly food of all times! Daniel explained as his lunch sat uneaten that he didn't eat pizza, though he was cajoled into taking a few bites. "What kind of lunch DO you like, then?" I asked, still amazed at this seven-year-old shunning pizza. "Bacon" he replied. "And fries."

Any picky eater stories out there?

Photo from Anna the Red

But It Says

Lunch food opening methods keep second graders busy for a sizeable percentage of lunch time every day. There are the ketchup packets, Thermoses, and fruit cup pull-ring lids that are all just really tricky if you don't have quite the right angle, and the yogurt tinfoil covers are liable to burp out a dribble of yogurt down your hand if you don't get the pressure release just right. Most encounters with containers, wrappers, or packets cause frustration, but some can be wholly amusing if you're generally prone to silliness anyway.

Today I glanced over during lunch to see Alec with his fist balled up, attacking his milk carton. "What?" he asked, as he picked up his straw and aimed it at the carton's round perforated hole. "It says 'punch here.' "

Illustration by Mark A. Hicks

This is Freakin' Me Out

Second grade is the time to try out new fun phrases. You hear something one day and take it out for a test drive the next. It's OK if the situation doesn't fully warrant the phrase, the important part is just that you're making the attempt.
  One of our lunch helpers yesterday was passing out the school lunches and came to Kyron, who had brought his own lunch from home that day. She walked over to me, rather puzzled, holding the blue lunch container in her hand, and declared, "This is freakin' me out. Kyron has a lunch, but this is his school lunch." I reassured her that she could simply place the lunch back in the bin, rather than continue to freak out.

Tear Here

Lunch items of various descriptions have been particularly hard to open this week--Thermos caps that won't unscrew, juice pouch straws that won't poke, fruit snack pouches that won't "tear here." Often, students do not even attempt to infiltrate these impossibly secure lunch containers before seeking my assistance. The task usually requires either fingernails or brute strength. Fortunately, I possess both and thus children in my class do not starve.
  After making a valiant but ultimately failed attempt to open his own ketchup one day, Julius commented, “It should say, ‘Tear and get frustrated here!’” I try to give on-the-spot instructional demonstrations on exactly how students can free that fruit roll from its silver wrapper without me, but it is much, much faster if I just use my fingernails to perform the special little rip. Then we can all get back to our food with a minimum of frustration.
  Unfortunately, frustration is not so easily minimized when it comes to academics. Just when students are starting to think they have a pretty good grasp on the world, some completely new and different piece of knowledge is forced into their realm of consciousness and throws everything off. They’re rolling right along, getting the hang of adding and subtracting numbers, even multiplying and then all of a sudden a seven gets replaced by a slanty n. “When did letters become math?” moaned Ayeisha, head in her hands, the day we started algebra. Yes, you’re right, letters can now be math and “sh” can now be spelled with “ti.” Welcome to second grade—it’s frustrating.

du-LI-CIOUS

Ahhh! Resisting temptation is so hard! Nate was eating some Five Guys fries the other day, which are cooked in peanut oil. I am allergic to nuts and have been to the emergency room my fair share of times for some rather unfortunate accidental walnut and pecan situations. I actually ate Five Guys fries a few times before finding out they cook everything there in death oil, as I like to call it. The fact that I survived those death oil fries means one of two things: either peanuts just aren't that bad on my nut-allergy spectrum, or I'm faking! Still, I avoid eating at Five Guys.

But those fries! The smell was irresistible and I admit that I did eat a few. My defense sounded a lot like that given by third grade Thomas a couple of years ago, who was lactose intolerant. One afternoon, he was doubled over with a stomach ache after having eaten cheese at lunch. "Thomas," I asked, "why did you eat cheese if you knew it would make your stomach hurt?" In light of my inability to resist those amazing but potentially deadly French fries, I can't really blame him for his reply, delivered in a rather pathetic-sounding moan. "Because it's du-LI-CIOUS!"

Meat with Plants IN IT

Deonte: "You don't eat meat?"
Ms. Sarah: "No, I'm a vegetarian. I don't eat meat."
Deonte: "Why?"
Ms. Sarah: "I think it would be better for the planet if people ate only plants."
Deonte: "Well. I eat meat. With plants IN IT. And broccoli and cheese."