Bits & Pieces

• *The kids love to sweep and vacuum in class. They love to clean off the desks with 409. They beg to be allowed to wash my car. (I do not, in fact, let them. I'm sure that's a violation of many laws.) How much do you want to bet that doesn't happen at home?
• *For anyone who missed why it is 'light skinded' instead of 'light skinned' - the kids were reading aloud today and every single child said 'lookded' instead of 'looked.' We had to go through the word sound by sound to see that there is only one 'd' sound. That's just not how you say things here.
• *One of the kids came to me in tears today to tell that another kid was calling him a 'buck-toothed beaver.' I realize that that would be hurtful when you are 8 years old, but it was really really hard to not laugh at him, especially when he kept repeating 'buck-toothed beaver.'
• *Because of the No Child Left Behind law (don't believe it, we're leaving children behind left and right and I have a hard time talking calmly about it), our school was reconstituted and next year we're going into incubation to be a new small school. I could explain what those mean, but really, don't those words make you think of frozen orange juice and baby chickens? Who says schools are 'reconsituted' and 'incubated'? For that matter, who declares 'sanctions' against elementary schools? Your administration, that's who. I don't take credit for them. I've decided to be Mexican.