Free Candy

After a visit to the first grade teacher a bit before Christmas, Petey walked through the door with a candy cane and handed it up to his teacher.

"Why, thank you, Petey. But, where did you get this?"

"Mrs. Sussex had them out in her room for free," he responded.

"Are you sure it was free?" the teacher questioned, suspicious.

"Yeah," Petey said confused, but confident. "It was in a box that said 'sugar free candy canes'..."

Not Always With You

As most teachers have come to realize, their students attention is not always on what is being taught. For instance, the following story cropped up during one of my second grade math sessions:

"So you cross out the 6, change it to a 5 and borrow 10 ..." Then, as is typical, a student raised their hand, a little boy in this case, probably with a question asking why we were borrowing 10 and not 1 or something like that...

"Yes, Johnny?" I asked.

"Did you know that last year I went on a really fast rollercoaster at Great Flags and it was really fun, but I wouldn't take my pet turtle on it 'cause his shell would probably crack...but I would take my hamster because . . ."

"Oh, Johnny, yes, that is very interesting. I'm sure it was fun, but...this is math..."

Or, there was also the time when a fifth grade boy woke up during math class. At the same moment, the teacher asked for answers to her question about multiplication. Opening his eyes, he quickly slipped his hand up when the teacher called on him for the answer. In a loud voice he spoke up, "Did you know pterodactyls can fly?!"