Camel Shakes

I have a student who INSISTS that our local McDonald's carries a special camel shake!  Mrs. Reading and I have talked with her several times and tried to convince her that while McDonald's has chocolate, vanilla and strawberry milkshakes and occasionally special shakes like the Shamrock shake or Egg Nog at Christmas time...there is no CAMEL shake at McDonald's.
  

Since the student in question is Taxi Boy's sister (of America's Got Talons/Talent fame), Mrs. Reading and I finally gave up our efforts after banging our heads against the wall for some time.  

However, we got a pretty big laugh when we recently figured out that we THINK she was referring to caramel rather than camel!!  OK, if you take the letters "r" and "a" out of caramel, you get the word camel.  I can see where her thoughts were going with this topic.  Caramel shakes...camel shakes.  

At any rate, when I saw that McDonald's was featuring a Dulce de leche caramel shake in July, I had to text Mrs. Reading to let her know!!  "Hey, camel shakes are back, Mrs. R!"   

However, I shudder to think what Little Taxi Girl will come up with from Dulce de leche???  It boggles my mind....

    

A Rootin' Tootin' Time

A couple of days ago I was giving the mid-year writing assessment to two of my fourth grade students.  I know it's a difficult assessment, but Mrs. Pokey and I believe strongly that it's important to assess the writing of our English Language Learners at least three times during the school year.  We do a beginning of the year assessment, another at mid-year and the third at the end of the school year.  We use the grade level tests from the Write Source writing series and also use a rubric from Writing A-Z.

I set up my small room with the appropriate materials including tabletop cardboard privacy shields (corrugated cardboard trifold boards). By small room, I mean that my room is about the size of a large closet.  There's enough room for a small round table, four chairs and a very small floor space in front of my tiny meter wide SmartBoard. It's quite "cozy" at times.

My fourth graders entered the room and sighed when they saw the set up.  They knew the privacy shields meant serious business.  My fourth graders are Taxi Boy (of the "America's Got Talons fame") and California Kid.  California Kid was new to our school at the beginning of the year and has some serious gaps in his education.  We're working on filling those gaps as quickly as we can, but he'll need lot of intervention to catch up to his classmates.

We started the test and I began to read it aloud to the two boys.  (It's intended to be a writing test, not a reading test.  Therefore, I chose to use read-aloud as an accommodation.)  After about the third question in the first "bubble-the-correct-answer" section, California Kid let loose a loud flatulent blast.  Taxi Boy looked up from his test to see California Kid's embarrassed face.  California Kid flopped his head down on the table and started to giggle.

Taxi Boy looked at California Kid for a moment and then calmly said, "Dude!"  California Kid continued to giggle. ( I thought Taxi Boy showed a lot of restraint because the "toot" in question was quite loud.)

I said something teacher-ly like, "We all pass gas now and then. It happens. Let's keep going with the test."

We continued the test and a minute or so later, California Kid snuck out another little toot.  He started giggling again.  I continued reading the test aloud.  This pattern continued for a few minutes until finally California Kid ripped out another loud flatulent emission. Taxi Boy couldn't take it any more!  He sat up straight in his chair and then leaned over the privacy shields between them and said,

"D-U-U-U-D-E!!!   SERIOUSLY??????!!!???"

I thought I was going to lose it!  I wanted to laugh so much, but I knew I needed to maintain professional decorum.

Who knew that you could have such a ROOTIN' TOOTIN' time in ESL class??

I definitely need to stock up on some air freshener this weekend when I head to the grocery!  

Malapropism Strikes Again

Yes, the English language is complicated.  I see my students struggle every day to conquer the twists, turns and peculiarities inherent in the language.  They work hard, but sometimes the results are inadvertently funny to listen to.  I try hard not to laugh but to model correct usage/pronunciation instead.  

Here is an example of an inadvertent malapropism from one of my students.  It was shared with me last week by my neighbor, Mrs. Cheerleader.  She and I share a student, Taxi Boy.  Taxi Boy LOVES to talk and talk and talk.  Mrs. Cheerleader had Taxi Boy and a girl, Quiet Mouse, in a reading group.  They read a non-fiction book about eagles and were discussing the information found in the book.  The text in the book was about how eagles catch their prey with their sharp talons.  Next to the word "talons" was the word "claws" in parenthesis.  Mrs. Cheerleader asked Taxi Boy and Quiet Mouse what talons meant.  Quiet Mouse wouldn't respond, but after some thought, Taxi Boy piped up.

"Talons!  I know...like 'America's Got Talons'!!!"   

Mrs. Cheerleader had the hardest time keeping a straight face as she explained the difference between "talons" and "talents"!  When she told me the story after school, she and I laughed so hard we nearly fell over.   

Yes, indeed...America's Got Talons!  

Toddlers and Tiaras

Today I read a post on Diane Laney Fitzpatrick's blog, "Just Humor Me."  I laughed so hard that my dog looked at me as if he was unsure if I was all right or not.

Diane comments about the show "Toddlers and Tiaras".  I've watched the show a few times and just been aghast at the parents of these children!  Dear God, what are they thinking??  It's an awful train wreck!   She says it so much better than I ever could, so please visit her blog and read it for yourself.  Be sure to watch the YouTube clip at the bottom.  It's a clip from the Jimmy Kimmel show where Tom Hanks parodies the whole "Toddler and Tiaras" phenomenon. 

http://just-humor-me.blogspot.com/2011/08/gnashing-my-flippers-over-toddlers-and.html