A Beef Patty is Like A Pork Patty - 05/03/2019

First grade does a "morning message" after lunch every day where students take turns saying "good morning, today is (insert date here)." and then there's a question of the day. Today the question was "would you rather have a chicken patty or a beef patty?" and everyone said "chicken patty, because it's better than a beef patty" with no hesitation. After everyone had answered, Mr. Wiley asked if anyone knew what a beef patty was, and not a single hand went up at first. Slowly, they started going up, and a little lady confidently declares that "it's kind of like pork, but it's beef." Yep, that sounds about right. 

I started my morning out with teaching Mandarin to a group of 3 accelerated fourth grade learners. It was their first lesson and they picked it up incredibly quickly. We were able to cover a lot in a short half hour and I'm super excited to keep working with them next week. I also had Andrew helping me with teaching this group. We had hoped we'd be able to teach together in the Fall/Winter but never got the times to match up, so we were so excited to finally get the opportunity to teach Mandarin together. 

We worked on math in Mr. Hubbard's third grade class, and I got to work with a few kids individually to spot differences in their work with the work on the board. Today was more of a fun math day because the kiddos got to do technology math, and I was just floating around the room and helping kids out with different problems. I notice that they always ask if they got the right answer before they enter their answer. They kind of remind me of a little me with their need to get a perfect score! Also, I got another bag of flour today. A third grader is going to be the proud new mother of a little girl on Monday. Someone called me the "master baby maker" today. That said, I did accidentally leave the soon-to-be flour baby in the classroom and didn't realize until about 7 hours later, 5 minutes before I was supposed to be teaching Mandarin. I debated over whether I should make the hike back to AEMS to pick it up or if I should just break the bad news to her on Monday. Ultimately, I decided to run over to get the bag of flour, because I could only imagine how disappointed she would be if she found out the production of her baby was delayed. Then I ran, baby in arms, to Mandarin and explained my tardiness to them.

In first grade, we started off with a few second graders coming down to read to the little guys. I don't have the chance to work with second graders during senior project, but it was so awesome seeing familiar faces from working with them throughout the year (I get to see some of them in gymnastics too!). After that, we were making a fraction craft to help the first graders visually see how different sized fractions compare with one another. It was super effective and a bunch of them understood the concepts way better. The first graders crack me up the way that they always raise their hands and always want to say an answer even when they have absolutely no clue what the answer is. 

"How many quarters are in one half?" *first grader bouncing out of seat and waving arm in the air* "TWELVE?!?" 

It would be so cool to just consciously live in the mind of a first grader for a day. I bet it would be so fun to see the great big world through those eyes again.

Today in third grade we were working on writing different, personalized versions of Jack and the Beanstalk. Mrs Peters has been reading different versions to her class for the past few days, and today they all started writing their own. My little buddy is writing his about an Orca named Jimmy who lives with his mother and father, both named Jimmy. He gets magic golden gushers from a hippo named Bob, and when he plants them, they grow gushers that taste like bacon. These bacon-tasting gushers take him to a purple magic land that sells grapes, and he steals a Gucci Lamborghini from the giant. The giant, named Jimmy, "cries in his bed cause Jimmy takes his gucci Lamborghini and he can't skrrt." After that, I got to join in the fun and draw lego people with the students. One girl and I decided to draw each other to see who could do it better, and we had a lot of fun with it (I definitely won, hands down). The other lego person drawing in this post is another third grader drawing of me. I know what you're thinking, and don't worry, she did apologize for the fact that she forgot to give me eyelashes and eyebrows. 

After school I was teaching Mandarin to faculty kids. I was missing one of my usuals but had a new student who will hopefully be coming for the rest of the term too! We made these super cool shifting cube puzzle things. I taught them the different emotions and then they drew emojis onto the shifting cubes. We had lots of fun. We got to hangout and chat both during and after which was a lot of fun. It was awesome getting to know them better and hanging out in a super casual, non-school setting. Tonight I also got to hangout with one of my favorite kiddos. We did art, made flour babies, read a book called "Everyone Farts", made popcorn, and hid behind walls to scare each other. All in good fun. A few of the kiddos gave me art to keep, which I always LOVE. My dorm room walls are lined with artwork from second and third graders, which makes my heart feel all warm and fuzzy. It reminds me why I love doing this.

Time: 9:42
Hours: 8
Total Hours: 41