Won't You Be My Neighbor?

Oh Mr. Rogers...I love him. He was probably the best neighbor ever. This weekend I made a frightening discovery. One of my students lives up the street from me. Luckily, this student does not know this information yet...let's hope it stays that way.

When talking about Emperor Qin...
Me: "Qin wanted absolute control and to regulate every aspect of people's lives."
Student: "Just like Kate Gosselin!"

I missed Thursday and Friday last week because I was sick. My students freaked out. When they saw me at school today, you would have thought that I was gone for months. It sure is going to be tough to leave them in three weeks.

One bonus of teaching middle school is that I still have the maturity and mind set of a middle schooler. "That's what she said" goes through my mind at least 50 times a day and I still think farts are funny. Today I had one of those moments when my immaturity got the best of me. We were talking about the Silk Road and the different items that were traded. Each group was assigned an item and had to come up with a commercial. The best line of the day:
Student: "You can keep it in your camel sack!"
It was hilarious and of course the classroom erupted with laughter...good thing I was sitting in the back so hopefully my students didn't see me laughing harder than they were. Oops.

If you want some quality, free entertainment, just have students create a commercial to present to the class. Some other noteworthy moments from their commercials:
Student: advertising perfume "Find a scent that will make people hard for you."

Student: "Glass...nature without the dirt."

One student belted out Rhianna's song Umbrella to advertise an umbrella.

Student: "Hey, wanna play with my abacus?"

Student: "North, east, south, west...that's what a compass does best."

Student: "Buy wool! Everyone wears it."
Student: "I'm a sheep and I even wear wool!"
Overall, it was a great day filled with many good laughs. That's another thing I love about these middle schoolers, they aren't afraid to act goofy in front of others.

Note to self: grown-up teacher clothes do not wash the same way as college t-shirts.