About Me

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Greenville, SC
I am a second year teacher originally from Augusta, GA. I just got married in July and my husband and I LOVE Greenville. This blog is to provide connections between my students and their parents.

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Sunday, December 26, 2010

How much do we forget?

My dad and I love to watch game shows together.  One that we used to watch pretty frequently is Jeff Foxworthy's "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?"  My dad has always insisted I should go on the show.  I've always refused. Why? Because I don't have enough confidence in myself to believe I could win if I went on the show, and I obviously don't want to get on the show, stand up there and say, My name is Amy Green.  I'm a middle school teacher, and no, I'm NOT smarter than a fifth grader.   Obviously, I'm smarter than the average fifth grader as far as reasoning, life skills, and basic knowledge.  However, I'm sure that I've forgotten many of the minute details.  Every now and then, a question on the show stumps me.  

Earlier this week, I was spending time with some of my favorite campers.  These are children I met through Camp Happy Days, an organization that provides support to kids with cancer and their siblings.  They're great kids, and I got to spend an entire day hanging out with them while their parents were at work.  We baked and decorated cookies for Santa and our own enjoyment, had a feast of a lunch from Chic-fil-A, watched a movie, hung out, played and talked together, and, most relevant to this blog post, played school. I got to be the teacher.  Not something new to me, but hey, whatever made the kids happy.  The girl I was playing school with is in first grade this year.  We played for well over an hour.  At one point, I was "teaching" math.  We did some basic math problems, but then my "student" asked me to give her some patterns to try.  I did my best.  She pronounced them, "Easy!"  I then asked her to make me some patterns to show me what hard patterns would be like.  Safe to say, I would have failed that first grade math test.  Those patterns kicked my butt!

This really made me think: if I've forgotten so much about patterns and the foundations of my math skills, what else have I forgotten?  How much of what my teachers taught me have I forgotten? Have I remembered the things that are actually important? As a teacher, WHAT are the most important things for me to teach my students?  How often do I forget the little moments that remind me why I teach day after day?  Beyond school, how many things that should be cherished have I completely forgotten about? 


~Ms. Green

Friday, December 17, 2010

The Best Christmas Present Ever!

What I am apparently getting from my children for Christmas:

"Ms. Sox, can I make you a Facebook page for Christmas? That way you can meet a new boyfriend."

"Yeah, Ms. Sox, you won't be lonely anymore, and you will have someone to spend time with on Saturday and Sunday."

What a wonderful Christmas present!  Who knew I was lonely and needed a boyfriend...

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

The reason I became a teacher...

This was an "award/certificate" that I recieved from one of my students:

Certificate of Achievement

Awarded to
Mrs. Sox

This 11 day of 16 in the year 2010.

Signature:  Harry Soot

Best Teacher
You Rock

This was written on the back:

Mrs. Sox you are the most careing teacher!  you have lesson plans plan out when you could have Been sleeping But you stay up workin.  I give you My word to BE BETTER IN School And not Drop out And get shot By the police (pronounced poe-lease).  So that's why I Harry Soot present this to you.  Best teacher Award of 2010

Love it!
Ms. Sox

P.S. It was news to me that I was married. : )

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

I've Got Big Balls

Song credit to AC/DC, which plays in my head every time I remember this story.  This happened awhile ago, but what blog about teachers (especially one that is partially written by middle school teachers) doesn't have some perverted stories?

You know those little hair elastics that have the glitter woven into them with the balls that you twist at the end, kind of like a hairbow?  Well, they make big ones. Really big ones.  Like 3 inches in diameter.  Big, three inch in diameter balls.  In beautiful colors like yellow, orange, and brown.  I don't know if those are the only colors they make them in, but they're certainly the only colors I saw them in.

Setting: 8 AM one morning, teacher's feeling a little crabby, and the kids are "wilding out."

I'm wandering the classroom checking homework and the progress of their daily Get Started!, when all of a sudden I hear, "Get off my balls! They'll break!!!"  That grabbed my attention.  I look over and one of my female students has these two big balls in a nice shade of orange in the palm of her hand and is rolling them for "a massage."  Needless to say, many inappropriate comments came from that side of the room for the rest of the period.

~Ms. Brown

Thursday, December 9, 2010

Things I learned today in 8th grade science.

You learn something every day, right?  This is an email I sent to another of my fabulous co-workers today, based on the conversation I had with my 8th grade students walking back from lunch.

1) Apparently I'm pregnant.
2) The baby daddy is either Mr. Wall or Coach Spalding.
3) The odds are leaning towards Coach Spalding.
4) His wife is going to come up to school and snap and pop her neck at me for stealing her man.
5) You're gonna fight me for him.
6) You'll probably win (this I agree with).

I found this rather amusing.  Hope you have a good afternoon!


I'm a softy.. I would never beat you up.... your taller than me
Can you send this to spalding he wanted to see it

Of course I did....oh, the rumors that middle schoolers are capable of creating.  Thank goodness these ones are pretty harmless and change based on which male I'm talking to at any given moment.  In retrospect, no wonder middle school was so awful.  These kids could be seriously damaging if I actually did have a crush on one of these men.


~Ms. Brown

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

I'm beginning to think I'm a blog-aholic.  It's a great break from work, though. 

Here's to wondeful co-workers.  I have a great team of teachers (Middle School teaches in teams).  One of the teachers I work with is particularly punny and has a bit of a reputation with the kids for making corny jokes.  Nevermind the fact that the majority of his jokes go right over their heads.  Anyway, I was teaching homophones in my english tutorial classes the other day and wanted to insert a few puns.  The lesson started with a reading comprehension exercise "A tale of tails." 

I later sent a message to my coworker, and this is our conversation:

Me: I meant to tell you....I was talking to my tutorials about homophones today and we talked about puns and plays on words, and I told them about you but was completely at a loss for a "punny" comment.

Him: you were "green" with envy

Him: you were too busy using the "amyg-dala" part of the brain

Get it?? Because my last name is green and I'm Amy G....oh, silly.

~Ms. Brown

Take me out to the ball game...I'd really love some peanuts

It's so rewarding to see my students apply something I taught them. I feel like it doesn't happen very often, but lately, I've taught them the meaning of two phrases. The first is, "Can it!" We all know this is a polite way of saying "SHUT UP YOU CRAZY WILD CHILD!" I used it as a last resort yesterday, and that same student was ordered by classmates to can it at least twice this morning. The other example, which I find really amusing, is that I taught them "that's enough from the peanut gallery." I said this during my fifth period class, and the idea that they wouldn't understand this didn't even flit across my mind. When they all looked at me with that student-patented what the heck is that look and began to actually ask, I explained the origin and the meaning of the term. Now, everytime one or more of my students chime in unecessarily during 5th period, at least one of my students retorts with, "That's quite enough from the peanut gallery!" They really do crack me up.
~Ms. Brown

PS- While on car duty yesterday afternoon, I was trying to corral all the kids into one area.  I was the only teacher out there at the time and had quite a number of kids.  Logically, I wanted them all in one space so they'd be easier to monitor.  To get them to go down the hill, I started saying
down, down, everybody down
and motioning with my hands.  One precious sixth grader with a host of issues and Asperger's immediately crouched into the fetal position and hit the ground.  It was so funny in the midst of everything, but also so remarkably sad because that's what he feels he has to do to stay safe.  I apologized to the poor kid at least half a dozen times, but it really did make me laugh to see him so obedient and quick to respond.

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Toilet Paper

Thanks Erin for letting me invade the blog!  I felt it was only right to add some stories about my 2nd grade babies into the mix!  This is a Legacy favorite from the first day of school...

All my students were sitting in a circle.  We were getting ready to play the get to know you game where you pass toilet paper around and however many squares you take, that's how many things you have to tell the class about yourself.  Simple, right? WRONG.

For this activity, I literally just grabbed toilet paper from my bathroom.  However, as I explained the activity I was met with a chorus of "Ewwwwww!!!!" Apparently, they didn't trust me enough and thought I was handing them used toilet paper!!! Then as it was being passed around, the students noticed that it was a little different from what they were used to.  One girl raised and her hand and begin to cry because she was so upset that she "broke" her toilet paper.  Needless to say, we had to have a Q&A about TWO PLY!!! None of them had ever experienced this small joy in life!

The best part is that my students got attached to the toilet paper.
 "It's so soft Ms. Bennett!"
"Where did you get this?!?!"
One of my students in particular LOVED it.  He began to rub it up and down his arms and when that wasn't enough, he scrubbed it across his face and any exposed part of his body VERY hard.  Imagine someone scrubbing clothes against a washboard...then substitute a small boy and toilet paper! I was rolling!  To this day, if you offer him toilet paper, we will gladly take it and go about his business slowly rubbing it across his body!

So if you ever visit my room, PLEASE bring 2 ply toilet paper...you won't regret it.

Apparently it's cool to be a teen mom

I guess I should have taken my cue from those tv shows "16 and pregnant" or "teen mom."  Apparently, my students (and many other students at the school) think it's a fantastic amount of fun to be a mommy.  Don't get me wrong; I am looking forward to the day I become a mommy, but somehow I just don't think all-nighters and constant feeding and poop changing is going to be a ton of fun. 

My students, however, are excited to be mamas.  The new trend is to swaddle a teddy bear or some similar stuffed animal and carry it around as if it were a newborn.  This morning, I got yelled at because I was holding the door open for the students and one of my girls' babies "got too cold."  This may have been rude, but I literally laughed at her.   Another of my students uses her jacket as a baby.  These "babies" supposedly require changing in the bathroom, constant attention and affection, and even extra warmth from blankets and jackets.  As a team, we've decided to sotp the baby epidemic, and I've started a collection.  Anybody want a stuffed animal or a teenagers' jacket???

~Ms. Brown

Monday, December 6, 2010

Quote of the day...Dec. 6

In after school tutoring an African American student of mine made a comment about his skin getting "whiter." I held out my arm to his and said "I don't know, looks like you've got a little way to go." They laughed and I said that's pretty funny because "I want to be darker, I lost my tan." A different, very vocal, African American child then said

...."Man I can't lay out in the sun, I turn into a Krispy Kreme Doughnut." 
Not sure what that means but this was after they passed lotion around my room. That's how we got on this crazy topic.

PS- 9 SCHOOL DAYS TILL CHRISTMAS!!!!!


- Ms. Boland