(And other things I read this week.)

A picture someone drew for me. So it wasn’t all “pee pee. Poo poo.” There were also rainbows and butterflies.

If you give a group of first and second graders colored chalk at the end of a long school day, because the teacher left playdough for them to work with, but you know that the playdough will most likely end up in people’s hair and then will be turned into balls that get tossed around the classroom and ground into the carpet and since you do not want to give the frazzled custodian extra work, you are grateful that another teacher takes pity on you and loans you a box of beautiful sidewalk chalk. If that happens, then you can rest assured that someone in the group will stealthily write “butt,” “butt,” “butt,” all over the school courtyard when you are not looking, on the day before the fall open house. Someone else will write, “Pee pee poo poo.”

(This is not funny)

(Maybe it is a little funny.)

So then you will take the graffiti writers aside (The second grade equivalent of a graffiti writer, anyway), and you will have a talk about what words are appropriate for the school courtyard on the day before open house. Then you will frantically run into the classroom to search for a bowl, or cups, or anything to fill with water so that they can splash water on the sidewalk and wash away the inappropriate words. You might also hope that the other teachers who have rooms facing the courtyard will be so involved in their lessons that they do not notice the ruckus your first and second graders are causing. Continue Reading…