Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing

You probably haven't read this book since you were in fourth grade, but it's a cute one by Judy Blume. I'm reading it to my kids and we are loving it. So, in honor of this fabulous title, I have a few anecdotes for you from the life of a real fourth grade nothing.

8/25/08
I'm teaching our vocabulary words for the week. One of the words is suspicious. My sentence for suspicious is "I would be very suspicious if a cookie was left on my desk." A couple hours later at lunch, I receive 2 cookies from anonymous fourth grade donors. (ps- I totally knew who the cookies were from)

8/27/08
I'm on recess duty and all of a sudden a student runs down the hill screaming "There's a huge poisonous rattlesnake on the playground!!!!" I was (of course) completely freaked out and created a huge perimeter in which no one was allowed to go. Luckily my classroom aide came to my rescue and took care of the beast. Turns out the gardner snake was harmless, but it was still very creepy and I'm not looking forward to my next recess duty.

8/28/08
A girl comes to school and tells me, "I have a dress just like yours. I like to wear it when I'm riding around in my mom's convertible with the top down. It's also fun to wear when we're driving in my dad's lamborghini. People stop us all the time and want to take pictures of our car. They also stop us when we drive the ferrari and the viper, but mostly they stop us when we drive the lamborghini." My mouth pretty much dropped down to my knees. Let's just say I'm expecting a great Christmas present from that family :)

9/2/08
We start out the year with a unit on respect and one type of respect we discuss is respect for country. We talk about how even if you don't like the president or you didn't vote for him, you should still show respect because he is our leader. Here is part of our conversation:
Kelli: "If Barack Obama is elected, I will not respect him."
me: "Why not?"
Kelli: "Because I just do not like him"
(I've never met a fourth grader that cared so much about politics)
Skyler: "Should we respect Bill Clinton?"
me: "Yes, he was the leader that we elected"
Skyler: "Didn't he lie?"
me: "Well, yes he did lie to the country, which made it difficult for us to show him respect."
Skyler: "What did he lie about?"
me: "umm.... ask your parents about it"

So, there you have it. My life in a nutshell.