Crying Students

My day wouldn't be normal if I didn't have at least five of my kindergartners cry but it's much more rare for my older afternoon students to cry. Yesterday though, I accidentally brought 2 students to tears in one of my afternoon classes within minutes of starting the class. I was writing all their names on the board I and giving them each nicknames (they came up with Chris-mas for Chris, ha ha). For Henry (one of the twins) I wrote "Hairy Henry" and asked the class if they knew what "hairy" meant. They didn't so I began to draw a boy with hair all over his body and face but right after starting I hear someone burst into tears. It was a new, really cute boy named Harry who misunderstood and thought the hairy beast on the board was meant to be him...Oops. After nearly 3 months of teaching one thing I've learned is that if you want to cheer up a crying kid either a) hurt yourself (I have a huge bruise on my leg from running into the table last week and the class thought it was hilarious!) or b) make fun of yourself. On this occasion I decided to have the kids help me draw a picture of Aly teacher on the board. They wanted me to have one small ear, one big ear, a pig nose, sharp teeth, red eyes and big hair and by the end were calling me "Aly monster". This successfully cheered Harry up but when I looked the classroom, Emily was missing. I found her crying uncontrollably under the table because she was scared of the Aly monster picture. She's considerably younger than the rest of the class-- the classes at hogwan's are based more on ability than age. I guess you just can't please them all...

These are the twins Henry and Chris, the only difference in appearance being a chip in Henry's tooth. They always try to confuse me with who is who and then get mad when I call them the wrong name. Sit down and show me your teeth now!!!