The times, they are a-changin'...

Every year I do an "All About Me" unit to start the school year. One of the projects in the unit is a self-portrait. First, each child draws his or her face on an oval. Then I distribute a copy of a poem on a t-shirt pattern. The kids fill in the blanks on a poem by writing hair color, eye color, age and name to make it personalized. When they're finished, the face gets glued to the t-shirt, and the new "kids" get hung in the hallway.

This is the poem... found on the internet years ago:

____ is my hair,

____ are my eyes.

I'm ____ years old,

I'm just the right size.

My name is ____,

And as you can see,

I'm very happy

To be me!

Every year, I'm surprised by how much my little guys know. And I'm not talking academics. I'm talking pop culture and street slang. And as a teacher, you gotta keep up with it... or else you won't be able to deal with situations like this:

On Friday, while we were discussing color words for hair, one of my girls raised her hand and said, "Miss M? Some girls have highlights. What color should they write?"

And later... one of my boys began embellishing the mouth he had drawn.

"What are you drawing?" I asked.

"My grill," he responded.

Yeah. He also drew himself with a mohawk and an earring in each ear. I can't wait 'til his parents see that at Back to School Night.

Although, in their defense, nothing tops the year one of my boys drew himself with a giant green booger coming out of his nose. Pure class.