Sad and Fruity

Standing in front of my Smart board, the projector light started to go out.  What I didn't realize, is that I had "changed colors."  One of my students raised his hand and said "Miss Wynn, you're blue!"  Yay a teaching moment right?  I asked him if he was saying that figuratively or literally.  We had a good discussion on the difference between the two terms. 

Trying to push their brains to think a bit more, we started thinking of some synonyms for the figurative meaning of "blue."  The most common answer was "sad."  I wrote the word melancholy on the board while asking my students who thought they knew what it might mean.  I was hoping they would use some context clues from our conversation to get the meaning.  One young man, used some different word clues in his answer.  "Miss Wynn, would that be a type of cantaloupe?"  After what seemed an eternity I finally figured out that he got this definition from the first five letters of the term..."melan" which he thought to mean "melon."  I had to give him credit that he did use parts of the word to decipher the definition.....So the next time you feel sad or "melancholy," take some comfort in that some 7th grader just thinks you're fruity.  :)

Smart Seventh Graders

Quiz Question: Miguel wants to put a fence around his square garden. If the garden covers 81 ft2, how many feet of fencing does he need?

Quiz Answer:  A WHOLE lot.

Quiz Question:  Jen rents 5 movies. She will watch each movie once. In how many different ways can she choose the first and second movie to watch?

Quiz Answer:  Flip a coin or ask a friend.

Dyslexic Barbie Dolls

I was introducing similar figures to my honors class today.  One of my students asked, "Well what does proportional mean the same?"  I answered with my wealth of useless knowledge (ha!).  Somewhere in my 27 years, I remember someone telling me that if Barbie was a "real" woman (go ahead...make the Pinocchio reference..."I'm a real boy!") she would be something like 7 feet tall and weight 100 pounds with an 18 inch waist and legs that made up 3/4 of her body?  I used that to tell my students that she is NOT proportional to a real woman, but that those measurements would be proportional to the Barbie as a doll.  One of my students made a very astute conclusion after hearing her height and weight, "She would be dyslexic!"  I replied, "How would you know she couldn't read?"  His response, "I thought dyslexic meant she didn't eat!"  

Paper, Scissors, Rock?

The last twenty-five minutes of school every day is an Enrichment period.  If my students have completed all their work for the week, we do some sort of activity on Fridays.  This past Friday we played Duck, Duck, Goose...and yes, 7th graders LOVE this game.  A boy was "goosed" and promptly stood up and with a puzzled look on his face, said "what do I do now??"  Unbelieveable...

So because of this recent experience, I took a bit more time than usual explaining how to play rock, paper, scissors.  I asked the students to show me what "paper" looks like with their hands, what the "scissors" look like with their hands, and finally what the "rock" looks like.  When I said, "Show me what the rock looks like," a boy stood up in the back of the room, and said, "I'll show you what rock looks like...ROCK HARD ABS!!!"  I said no thank you.  I stopped breathing for the first phrase of his comment, so I'm glad he didn't linger on it and moved right on to the end.  Be careful what and how you say things...

It Only Takes One

A funny then a serious one...

Trying to get one of my students to divide 150 by 75 in her head, I asked how many quarters are in 75 cents?  She correctly said 3.  I then asked how much money there would be if her friend also had 3 quarters.  She said "A dollar and some change."  :)  I love teaching math.

Now on to serious...

I have formed a very special bond with one of my students.  He doesn't have a mom at home and has a very rough home life.  He is a fantastic athlete and has all the potential in the world.  The Lord has put him in my life, some days to try me, some days to bless me.  Today was a trying day for both of us.  We have had a great week, and today I found him storming down the hall muttering something about wanting to hurt somebody.  I slowed him down and tears brimming in his eyes, he told me of an earlier conversation with a substitute teacher.  I know that some of what he replayed to me was skewed i his favor, but I also know from my "many" years of experience that middle school students are usually honest to a fault.  Apparently his class was discussing their dreams, which their bellwork was on, and he had said something about wanting to play for the NBA someday.  The  substitute responded to him that that dream could never happen.  She told him that in order to get that far, he would have to first pass middle school.  He responded, probably disrespectfully, that he was passing all his classes and was working hard.  She told him that his teachers were probably just giving him good marks so he could play and that there was no way he could earn passing grades on his own.  According to her, he just needed to give up now. 

With tears in my eyes, I did my best to console him and remind him of all the work he had done this semester.  What makes me so angry when it comes to my students is that it takes ONE bad experience with a teacher to undo months of positive growth.  I'm learning that many things in this life need to be taken day by day and this is certainly one of them.  Pray that this young man will be surrounded by Christian men and women who show him how much he is worth and how much he is loved. 

Middle School Cheerleaders...Need I Say More?

Cheerleader playing with my iPhone:  "Does this have one of those pen things that touches the screen?
Me:  "A stylus?"
Cheerleader:  "No, one of those pens!"
Me:  "That's called a stylus."
Cheerleader:  "No Miss Wynn, I'm not talking about the person who does your hair!"

One of These is Not Like the Other

Short laugh for you Math people out there!  We are working on recognizing 3D shapes in my Honors class this week.  While "discovering" the names together, we came across a figure that had rectangles as bases.  Keep in mind that we had been using words like "pentagonal," "hexagonal," and "octogonal."  My students correctly decided that it was a prism.  Feeling VERY sure of himself, one of my students yelled out "RECTAGONAL!"  I am so glad I have a classroom where we can laugh with each other and continue learning!