Laugh Lines May 2006

Lost in Translation
We had eye checks recently and as one of my fifth grade ESL students looked into the eye-check unit, the nurse asked him to read line five. The student leaned back, looked at her, leaned back in and finally replied, "I can't tell you what the word is, but I can spell it."
John Bouchard
Dodge City, KS

Boxed In
When my fifth graders come across challenging problems, I often advise, "Think outside the box." One day, after a particularly exasperating problem, a student replied, "I can't, Miss Russell, I'm trapped inside it!"
Leslie Ann Russell
Somerset, NJ

Food Folly
I run a youth sports club with my brother. We have athletic teams and take our young people on educational and recreational field trips. One day we went to a picnic and had the children get into the two different lines for food. All of a sudden one of our second grade girls started crying. When we asked what was wrong, she cried, "I don't belong in this line. I'm not a brat!" We were puzzled until we looked at the two signs in front of which the lines were formed. One read "hot dogs" and the other read "brats" (bratwurst).
Richard "RJ" Krause
East St. Louis, IL

Double Recall
I have identical twin boys in my kindergarten class who are very hard to tell apart. I discovered that one of the boys had a freckle on each ear. He is the one with the "o" in his name, so I had made a connection. The only trouble is, I had to be able to see the sides of their faces. I would tilt my head or stand off to the side when calling the boys by name. This worked out fine – until this week. I heard some giggles and looked up to see both twins had covered the sides of their faces with their hands! They had figured out my strategy.
Sherry Rice
Moreno Valley, CA

Comedic Comparison
I was teaching at an inner city school where I was a minority at the time. It was January and my first grade class had just finished a unit on winter, and we were eating polar bars. After eating the polar bars the students were to fill out a form with questions about their polar bar, such as "My polar bar is as cold as…" and then share some of their writing with the class. One student stood up and enthusiastically read, "My ice cream was as white as Mrs. Fulton."
Loree Fulton
Deatsville, AL

Bumpy Ride
While collecting homework from my second grade students one Friday, I noticed that one little girl's homework wasn't signed by her parents. Upon closer inspection I discovered that her homework wasn't complete, and what was complete was so messy it was illegible. When I asked the student why her homework wasn't finished, she simply looked at me, shocked to think that I didn't know the obvious answer to my question, and said, "Well, the bus ride is too short!"
Kristina Kirchgraber
Brockport, NY

May, 2006, Vol.36, No.8