James Bond

Today's WSH daily activity was to design a WA state flag. Only rules were "it needs to be in color and it needs to connect to either Washington's past or present. As you can guess, I got a lost of flag's with apples and trees. Salmon galore and the occasional Space Needle. What I wasn't anticipating was the following that can really only be described through the conversation I had:

Student: "Here's my flag"

Me: Looking at the helicopter and mountain on fire "Can you explain this to me?"

Student: "Sure, that's James Bond and he's chasing that bad guy who set the mountain on fire."

Me: "and what does this have to do with Washington State?"

Student: "nothing."

Me: "ok. well. you can either take this assignment seriously and do it over OR you can turn this in and see what happens."

Student: "i think i'll do it over."

His second edition work of art had a train on it with the following in the smoke cloud: "Washington Is Cool."

Creativity is Key

Today students turned in their fifth portion of their Washington State History Settlement Project. The only criteria for today's assignment was that students had to write three different journal entries about the unfortunate deaths of members on their Oregon Trail journey. One creative student decided to forget about the value of historical accuracy and wrote the following:

"Recently Pocahontas and Sacajawea got into a huge fight over which way to go. Pocahontas wanted to go Southwest but Sacajawea wanted to go Northwest. They started arguing but then Sacajawea grabbed a knife and pinned Pocahontas and Mom tried to pull her off but she cut Mom. Older Brother came by and saw the gash on Mom's arm and saw Sacajawea on top of Pocahontas (which I think he loves) and shot Sacajawea. She died before dinner from the wound. We are now caring for her baby."

Kids Say the Darndest Things

Two student responses today that made me laugh:

Mrs. Haslam: "How many branches of government does the U.S. have?"
Student: "Two plus that really small one."
Mrs. Haslam to student: "Two plus that really small one? Can you name them?"
Student: "You know, Republican, Democrat and that small one"
Mrs. Haslam: "Not exactly."

Mrs. Haslam: "And the Kalahari Desert stretches through Southeastern Namibia"
Student #1: "Isn't that a food, Kalahari?'
Student #2: "it's Kalamari stupid."
Mrs. Haslam: "wow."

Bathroom Lottery

7th grade boys are ridiculous for a lot of reasons, that's a give in. But today we reached a whole new level. It's fourth block and the rule in my class is that you cannot even ask to go to the bathroom until a half hour of class has passed unless it's a serious emergency. As is typical of most days in 4th block, about 1 hour in to class a boy asks to go to the bathroom. I say "sure" and immediately, it begins. Instantly 6 other boys raise their hands and ask if they can go. My answer in this kind of situation is usually yes but one at at time.

Today, for some reason, that was not the case. This is because I know that most of these boys want to go just to get out of the room, not actually go to the bathroom. How do I know this you ask? Because if they ask too early and I say no, most of the time they don't ask again. If they really had to go, they'd ask again. but I digress. Today I said "raise your hand if you have to go to the bathroom and you're a boy." 6 hands go up. I said " i am going to write your names on pieces of paper and will draw three, you three get to go and the rest of you have to hold it." As I am writing down names, one of the boys makes sure to whisper to me that he hopes he gets picked because "he has to go number two." he actually said this to me. gross.

i drew three names. three cheered. three moaned. thankfully the number two kid got picked.