Thursday, January 06, 2005

a science lesson in first grade

I just came back from walking the dog. In bright red plaid pajama pants, fur trimmed denim coat, and my all-weather mocs from Land's End (love them to death). It's either uber-trendy, or the biggest fashion faux-pas of the year. At least it's dark out.

A quick gripe before I go into my story o' the day: our reading series has five different anthologies, with a lot of great stories for first graders. The third reader in the series, which we just started this week, has a picture of a snowman on the front. Perfect timing, you'd think. However, the first story is a non-fiction story about the life cycle of a butterfly. In January.

So I'm teaching about butterflies this afternoon, and I was trying to explain what a "life-cycle" is. I gave examples (frog, bird, butterfly). One of my kids said, "Do we have life-cycles, too?" "Sure," I said. "Your mommy started as a baby, then she grew up and had a baby... then one day she'll be an old woman and you'll grow up and have a baby." (And honestly, I'm not even sure if that constitutes a life-cycle. I'm such a bad teacher.)

Well, they got all giggly at the mere thought of being grown-ups and having their own kids. The boys started saying, "I'm not gonna be an old lady. I'm not gonna have kids." One girl said, with great authority, "No, boys grow up to be men and girls grow up to be women. Usually the women have the kids." I almost laughed out loud. "Usually." Tee hee. I'd love to know what she thinks happens the rest of the time.

Lord, they crack me up.