Take Notes

I was in classroom where kids were working in small groups when one of the girls walks up to me and says:

Girl:  Excuse me, I have a question.

Me: Yes?

Girl:  I want to grow my hair down to here (motions to her waist), how long do you think it'll take? (she has a short do right now, super cute I think!!)

Me:  It'll be some time, but if you want it grow long and healthy, you need to trim it often.

Girl:  Trim it?  What does that mean?

Me:  Cut off the split ends.

Girl:  Do I have any split ends? (spins around to show me the back of her hair).

Me:  Nope you're good.  Why do you want to grow your hair long, you have the cutest bob!

Girl: I just want it to grow long.  How often do I trim it?

Me: about every six week? (I guessed, I'm no hair expert, I get my haircuts at Fantastic Sam's!)

Girl: Ok ( and she goes back to her seat).

A few minutes later...

Girl: How often again do I need to trim my hair so it'll be healthy?

Me: About 6-8 week I would say.

Girl (she takes out a piece of paper and a pencil):  Ok, I've GOT to write that down!

So cute!  I think she is going to be one of my favorites:-)

Presidential Lesson

This entry will not do this anecdote justice, this was definitely a situation where you HAD to be there.  I'll do my best to recreate the conversation.  Try to follow, I honestly had a hard time.  

While discussing how the words "candidate" and "vote" are related to my 11 year old client:  

Me:  Who is our president?

Client:  I'm not sure.

Me:  It's Barack Obama.

Client (with a shocked look on her face): I thought he was dead! 

I was shocked to hear her say that, but after thinking about it, she probably thought I meant Osama??

Me: Not, he's not dead, he's our president.  Before he became president he was a "candidate," someone who runs for office, and people had to "vote," or pick him to become president.

Client: Oh.... Isn't there another president? With dark skin?

Me: No, Obama has been the only president that is African American.

Client: No, what about the one that freed the slaves?  Isn't he president?

Me: He WAS president but he wasn't African American.  That was Abraham Lincoln and he was white.  

Client:  What about the other president,  the one who was on the bus that said "heck no I'm not getting off this bus!"

At this point, I'm laughing out loud!

Me: That is Rosa Parks and she was never president.  

I've got to hand it to this client.  Everyone she talked about in this little conversation had SOMETHING to do with politics, granted she jumped decades and centuries, and had her facts a little mixed up, but she was technically on topic??  I'm just hoping she got the lesson on how "candidate" and "vote" go together! :-)    

No Ordinary Can of Barbasol

One day, while I was working with a group of students, one of them busts out this can of Barbasol.  I knew he wasn't going to start shaving right there in the middle of speech, but I was intrigued to see what would happen next.  He starts unscrewing the bottom of the can...

It's a can filled with cotton swabs?  Hmm.... Cotton swabs were the last thing I'd expect to see from a fake can of Barbasol.  

Me: Um, where did you get that can?

Student:  At the International Spy Museum in Washington DC.  

Me:  Reminds of the can in Jurassic Park!

Student: Yeah.

Me:  So what are the Q-tips for?

Student: For when my ears are itchy.

He then proceeds to take one out and starts swabbing his inner ear!  I explained that the best place to probably do that is the bathroom so other people wouldn't be weirded out. 

Student:  Oh all right (as he begrudgingly screws the can back).  

I wonder what else is at the International Spy Museum!  This is photographic proof that you can't just make this stuff up sometimes!  Love my students!!  

Question of the Day

Is it true that squirrels can give you wedgies?

Super random!! Haha!

Beauty sleep

Me:  Are you excited that it's Friday?  No school for two days!
Client: Yeah!  I don't have to wake up early and have my beauty sleep messed up.

Date Nights

Many kids during speech will ask me, "how much time is left?"  And so when one of my clients asked me "what time is it?" about half way through our session, I said, "oh we have about 20 minutes left." 

She said "oh, I'm just wondering because my babysitter is coming soon."
Me:  Babysitter?
Client:  Yeah, she watches us when Mom and Dad go out.
Me:  Oh that's right, Thursday is date night for your parents!
Client: Yeah.
Me:  Why do you think parents go out on dates?
Client:  So they can spend time together without us, get to know each other more, and not get divorced.

So thoughtful and sweet:-) 

Personal, appropriate bread

I got a hand written letter from one of my students today.  Her aide read it over before giving it to me to make sure all the contents of the letter were appropriate.  The period before, she had asked me what I had for breakfast and I told her toast with butter so this letter makes total sense to me :-)

Hey Sabio, How are you?
I just thought about buying ash bread.
Did you ever had ashbread?  That bread is with lavasha.
I was just thinking about buying personal bread.  But it's appropriate bread.   
I was thinking about buying it.
Would you like to have a piece of cheese.
There is a certain piece of cheese I like to eat.  American cheese is what I like.  I love watermelon.
Would you recommend getting watermelon.
We asked questions about watermelon.
One piece of watermelon. 
Do you like watermelon?
Do you love strawberries too?

As I was leaving the room with the letter she had written me, she asked me, "will you write me back?" So sweet! 

Day 2 in the books.  

Night Owl

I need to premise this entry by stating that by sharing this story, I'm not stating my opinion, in one way or another about teenage pregnancy.  I was just disturbed by this conversation but at the same time, it was one of the most hilarious things.

I was teaching a lesson on sleep related idioms.  The idiom night owl came up.  It was defined and one the senior girls in the class (whose disability is Speech/Language Impairment), happened to be about 4-5 months pregnant, chimed in, and the conversation went something like this:

Student:  Oh I'm a night owl!
Me: You are?
Student: Yeah, I stay up until about 3am with my friends just hanging outside in my neighborhood.
Me:  Um, you shouldn't do that, you're pregnant, you should probably get as much as rest as you possibly can right now.
Student: nah, I'll get some rest when the baby comes.

I literally laughed out loud!  Sorry, no you're not.

I truly hope that mom and if baby has arrived, are doing well.    

Ding!

After almost two and half months of summer, I'm not exactly thrilled to go back to work full time.  It's the students that make my long hours bearable, like this student I've described below.  

The student that this post is about has been working on using appropriate voice volume.  I have this app on my iPad (Voice-o-Meter) that dings if your voice is too loud or dings if you're too soft (parameters have to be manually set). This student's voice is very strong.  He always sounds so passionate, but his volume could be bothersome in a classroom setting, especially when he begins to get agitated.  

One day, during a speech session, I had the app turned on to monitor everyone's voice volume in the group, when every time this student spoke, it would ding indicating his volume was too loud.  He would continue, it would ding.  He would keep going, it would ding again.  Finally, after it had dinged a handful of times, he says at the top of his voice, "Ugh! Curse my lungs!!"

Needless to say, the iPad dinged.

Don't be racist...

A client of mine was telling me about how her family is watching her grandmother's dog while she is on vacation.  Here is the gist of that conversation.

Client:  We got a new puppy!
Me:  You did, what kind?
Client:  Well, it's my grandma's dog, Sophie and we're watching her while is going on vacation somewhere.
Me:  Oh ok.  That's nice that Po (her dog) has another dog to play with for awhile.
Client: Yeah, but my dad doesn't like Sophie, because she shakes (she's a chihuahua), and barks.  Ugh, my dad.  I told him to stop being racist!!
Me (chuckling to myself):  I don't think you mean racist.  Racist refers to people, not dogs.
Client: Oh, like the color of someone's skin?
Me:  Yes, something like that.
Client:  Oh.....

Glad we cleared that up.  If you didn't guess it already, one of her goals is on word finding.  

Little Football Fan

Client:  Do you like USC?
Me:  I watch more pro football.  Do you like USC?
Client:  Yes!
Me:  Why?
Client:  Because they are Notre Dame's rival!

This kid is 4 years old!!  We've had many a football conversations.  I would love him, but he's a Broncos fan, boo!!!! :-)

Joke of the Day

Brought to you by my 11 year old client.

What did the dog say to the other dog?
You're a hot dog.

I laughed out loud :-)

When I Have Kids...

As I sat down to begin a session with one of my private clients, this random comment popped out of her mouth.

Client:  When I have a baby, I'm going to continue breasting.
Me (confused):  What?
Client:  Yeah, I don't want to give my baby regular milk cause they will get sick so I'll just breast my baby.
Me:  You mean breastfeeding.
Client:  Oh yeah that.
Me: And why are we talking about babies and breastfeeding?  Did I bring up babies or did we talk about this last week?
Client:  Well, I might want to be a mom someday and so I have to think about these things.

She's 11, therefore I was speechless.

I took this opportunity to remind her that when she wants to talk about something she needs to introduce it so people (like me) are not completely confused!  She restarted.

Client:  So, I was watching this show, called "So Random" about feeding babies...

Apparently it's a Disney show??