Tales of a Third Grade Subbing

Chapter 1. Give me Specials or give me death.
There is a magical time (hopefully in the morning around 10:30 am, if you're lucky) that all the students leave the classroom and travel to the wonderful land of "Specials"... a land of P.E. and/or Art and/or Music. During this time (usually 45 mins) the classroom teacher has "quiet time" to herself where she can relax and rejuvenate (or frantically pull together lesson plans, tidy up the room, grab coffee, and pee.) I would like to credit Specials as the only reason I did not have a straight-out, flopping-on-the-floor freak-out this week.

Chapter 2. Pickle
During lunch on Wednesday I was sitting at the "teacher table" when a student approached the teacher next to me.

"Mrs. G, Sarah is saying a word that I don't like over and over again. I've asked her to stop, but she keeps on saying it."
"What's the word? It's ok, honey, you can tell me."
"Pickle."

You should have seen the look on Mrs. G's face. It was a mix of, "Really?!?" and "You have to be s****ing me." Her response?

"Go sit down."

That student got off easy. Had it been me, the conversation would have gone like this:

"Ms. Nelson, Sarah is saying a word that I don't like over and over again. I've asked her to stop, but she keeps on saying it."
"What's the word? It's ok, honey, you can tell me."
"Pickle."
"I can't believe she said that! Go sit pickle. I'll be over there in a pickle to take care of it. Thank you for being pickle. Pickle."

Chapter 3. "It tasted like fish."
During the same lunch I took off the bun to my sandwich to add ketchup, lettuce, tomato, and PICKLE. I thought the breading looked kind of odd, plus the chicken looked a little pink... but I dismissed it because let's be honest- cafeteria meat never looks like real meat.
Well, during recess I started to feel sick. Like, mouth-watering, I'm-about-to-vomit sick. I asked the other teacher if she noticed anything wrong with the chicken at lunch. She agreed about the breading and called her daughter, who also ate the sandwich, over.

"Honey, do you remember anything odd about the chicken sandwich at lunch today?"
"Yeah... I thought it tasted like fish."
[laughing] "Oh, is that why you didn't eat it all?"

Because salmonella is hilarious.

Chapter 4. Natural Gas
Do I even have to explain the 3rd grade mind with this one? In Science I hear:

"Natural gas."
[farting sound]
"There's nothing natural about that."

Chapter 5. "YOU'RE renewable!"
By far my favorite cut-down of the week, if not year. Same Science class. We've made it past "natural gas" and are now discussing bauxite. For those of you who have slept since 3rd grade Science (me), bauxite is an aluminum ore and considered a non-renewable resource. Well, since aluminum can be recycled, categorizing bauxite confused some students... so much that they decided to argue about it.

"Is bauxite renewable, non-renewable, or inexhaustible?"
"Renewable. You can recycle aluminum cans."
"But the book says it can't renew itself in a lifetime..."
"You can recycle it! It's RENEWABLE!"
"YOU'RE renewable!".

I waited to hear, "Your mom's renewable," but alas; it never came.

Epilogue
I don't know how you do it, K-4 teachers. Really, I don't. Two days in a 3rd grade classroom and I'm ready for an entire week off. Good thing that's exactly what's happening next week, huh? :)