Thank you to Amanda @ Running With Spoons for this Thinking Out Loud link up!I teach at an elementary school, but sometimes I forget what it is like to be a kid. So I decided to share some random elementary school memories with you. I wrote a similar post a few weeks ago but I'm doing it again! I have a lot of memories from grades K-5...
Enjoy!!
Kindergarten (1987)
There were two kindergarten classrooms at my elementary school and we had an AM and PM class. I was in Mrs. Batzel's AM class. The other teacher was Mrs. Piccola and the rooms were joined together by a door. I remember that everyone in my class was extremely jealous of the kids in Mrs. Piccola's class because they had wooden monkey bars in their room and one of those turtle sandboxes. We had some cool stuff too... some toy cars you could actually ride and a lot of kitchen toys with rubbery pretend food... but they didn't hold a candle to actual MONKEY BARS!
1st Grade (1988)
At my elementary school, you didn't have to "stay in from recess" if you got in trouble. You had to "stand against the wall" at recess- as in, stand facing/up against the brick wall of the school while everyone else played. That would totally not fly anymore. I think parents would be up in arms about the "public humiliation" aspect of it... except most kids don't get embarrassed that easily! Anyway, so I had to stand up against the wall in 1st grade because I let my friend Misty give me a piggy back ride in the classroom. When my teacher walked in and saw us, I knew we were in trouble. I did my time. I stood up against the wall at recess. But at the next recess (Yes, back when I was in school we had THREE RECESSES!) I had to field questions from my friends. They wanted to know why I had to stand up against the wall. I lied, of course. I told them it wasn't me up against the wall, it was my twin sister. No one bought my story. Shocker.
2nd Grade (1989)
I peed my pants in second grade! (I peed my pants in first grade too, but that's a story for another time.) All I remember is that I was in the lunch line getting my food and I had to go sooooo bad so I just... went in my pants. I'm not sure of my thought process behind it. "I peed my pants," I told the lunch lady. Of course I had to go to the nurse and get cleaned off. My mom brought in clean clothes for me. My friends asked why I was wearing different pants but I just blew it off and said, "Oh no, I had these on earlier." Wow, I am seeing a theme here. I was a little liar when I wanted to save face!
3rd Grade (1990)
My third grade teacher read us the best books. She started out with the The Happy Hollisters books and then halfway through the school year she switched to Trixie Belden. I loved mysteries, so these books were right up my alley. Every day, she would spend a good amount of time reading a chapter or two to our whole class. I always looked forward to that. I am lucky I had good teachers that made me love reading!
4th Grade (1991)
In 4th grade, I got to be in a play! I was so excited. It was called "Miranda's Dream" and I got to play the lead- Miranda! I wasn't initially supposed to be in the play. You see, only the "high" reading class got to do plays. I don't know why I wasn't in the high reading class. I read ALL THE TIME. I was obsessed with books and reading. Maybe I wasn't good at it though because I was only in the "average" class, and the average kids didn't get to do plays. But the girl that was supposed to be the lead got stage fright, so the teacher recruited me to play the part! I memorized all of my lines because I took it so seriously. Everyone else carried their scripts. I figured that would show them for not putting me in the correct reading group in the first place!
5th Grade (1992)
When I was a kid, not only did I love reading, but I loved writing stories. One of the stories I wrote was called “Oops.” It was about a girl that won a writing contest and got to read her story in front of the whole school. But when she was reading her story, she accidentally FARTED in front of the whole audience! For Grandparent’s Day, I decided that I would read this short story for my class and all of the grandparents. I was really annoyed that my 5th grade teacher made me change the ending. She made me say my character burped instead of farted. I guess that was more PG? I don’t know, I like my original ending better!
Alright my readers, go ahead and share some elementary school memories with me! Think out loud!
Oh man I miss the old days. I do remember having three recesses, and being totally jealous of kids from other classes. I remember getting super excited to buy school sup pies at the beginning of each year, even though there was nothing wrong with my old ones. I remember watching Looney Tunes and Flinstones at lunch before it was time to go outside. Gah! I miss being a little kid.
ReplyDeleteWow you got to watch TV!?
DeleteHAH! You're so cute!! These stories are hilarious! I was homeschool for elementary school so unfortunately I don't have a lot of stories!
ReplyDeleteI bet they run together. It's easier for me to think of the stories because of the different rooms/teachers/etc.
DeleteLove the pictures! Look at your glasses from second grade... so awesome!
ReplyDeleteIn fourth grade I wrote a story called The Trip to Space That Never Happened and I was selected to go to this thing called Young Author's where we learned how to draw cartoons and write better stories. It was kind of cool because I got to skip school to go :) I can't remember, but I hope they taught me that you shouldn't give away the ending to a book in the title.
LOL you are hilarious,
DeleteAww, so cute and you literally made me LOL while sitting here reading! Shame on your teacher for stifling your imagination and making you change YOUR ending. I bet the grandparents would have got a kick out of the original story!
ReplyDeleteI know, grandparents live for that shit!
DeleteHaha I peed my pants in 2nd grade but because I was on an overnight Girl Scouts trip and I went to use the latrine and it had SPIDERS in it. Obviously, this wasn't going to fly so I figured I'd just hold it (love 7 year old rationale...) and I lasted until the next morning (!!) but just couldn't hold it anymore after breakfast. All because of some spiders...also, why didn't I just pee in the woods?
ReplyDeleteDamn that's a long time to hold it, good job! I didn't pee in the woods until I was a senior in HS on a rafting trip and at the time it was like a HUGE deal. Now, I will pee anywhere. It's the trail runner in me!
DeleteYou were SO cute! I love this. I definitely had one of those turtle sandboxes. I guess I would have been a cool kid to your class. Also, as a Special Educator, it seems so absolutely obscene to me that they let you know which reading group you were in. There are ways of putting students into groups without letting them know if they are "high" or "low." And the farting story! That is SO SO awesome!
ReplyDeleteIs there a way??? I mean, I was 9.Being "average", I was still smart enough to see there was a group that was moving so slow and there was group that was reading really hard stuff.
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