Adventures in Second Grade

So I thought after 20+ years of teaching I had seen it all ---- turns out I am a foolish foolish person...

This week's happenings in my 3 ring classroom included

- two girls pouting during indoor recess because they did not get the color Play Doh they wanted!  Seriously!  8-year-olds! Pouting over Play Doh! ALL RECESS LONG!!!

- A (a girl) told N (a girl) that they were no longer friends because I picked N's name to answer a question instead of hers! Incidentally, A was the common denominator in the Play Doh incident too.   And for the record, I put my student's names on Popsicle sticks and then pick the sticks to answer questions so that I am not accused of not being fair.  

But this one still leaves me shaking my head...

- we were playing a game called sparkle using their spelling words so first, I took a couple minutes to explain the rules...the students take turns spelling the word one letter at a time and then when the word is done, the next person says sparkle, and the next person has to sit down and is out of the game.  So I called out the first words, the game began, and 11 students later we came to a little boy who DID NOT EVEN KNOW WE WERE PLAYING A GAME!!!   He, instead, was playing with two pieces of paper on his desk.   I have often had children who were not paying attention and were unsure what letter we are on or whose turn it was, but never have I had a student not even realize we were playing a game.  I got to him and he says, "what?  wait...what are we doing?"