A Night at the Symphony

One of my favorite things about teaching is watching my students grow up. Tonight I had the opportunity to watch one of these kids perform in a symphony I was in at the same age. She's only a 6th grader, but I've had her in class and in private violin lessons for the last four years. She's so much fun and has a passion for music! I've watched her go from book 1 through book 5 (and now into other, more advanced music). Often, her half hour lessons stretch into and hour or beyond, just because she's one of those fun kids who loves playing her instrument.
Tonight, I had the privilege to see her perform with the youth symphony. I was so proud of her! It is an awesome experience to watch someone go from the very beginning of learning an instrument to performing in a symphony. Pride doesn't begin to describe it!

7th Graders....again!

We were reading our Bible lesson today in my 7th grade class. I had chosen four students to each read one paragraph of the lesson. The first two read very well. The third one, on the other hand, stumbled over the word 'that's' He was confused on how 'that's' is possessive. I tried to explain that it was a contraction, but then I had to explain what a contraction was (understand that this is one of my more intelligent students, so I think he was just tring to be funny). Finally, he continued reading. It sounded funny so I just stared at him for a while, wondering what exactly was going on.
If he had been reading this paragraph that I am typing now out loud it would have sounded like this..."We're read'r Bib'on to'in my'th gra'ss. I'd cho'or stud'o ea'r on'ph"...and so on and so on. He finally looked up and explained that he was using contractions. I just started laughing!
He kept reading. In the last sentence of his paragraph was the phrase "the evil one." He read it and then stopped and said "I know what the contraction is for that...it's "devil."

O Wise One??

I have a student in 7th grade who never calls me Miss Gray. For the longest time, it was "Teacher". I told him I would rather be called Miss Gray, but still, it was "Teacher". I finally told him I was going to call him "Student" and that seemed to get rid of the "Teacher" comments. Although now, his new game is to figure out what new names he can call me. He calls me teacher, I call him student. He calls me professor, I call him scholar. Etc.
The other day, he deicided to call me "O Wise One" in the middle of class. I asked him if that meant I could call him "O Foolish One." That quickly ended my "Wise One" days! He's now moved on to coming up with the next name :) Middle Schoolers...I'll never understand them, but sometimes they do make me laugh!