Things You Can Learn from a 10-Year-Old

So my first block of student teaching is done, and my second one has started. A couple weeks ago, I said goodbye to my fourth graders. I had mixed feelings about leaving them - on the one hand, it's nice to move on to something new. On the other hand, first grade is SO different! As I tried to figure out how to sum up my fourth grade experience, I decided to make a list of things that I learned from hanging around with 10-year-olds for two months.


1. 4th grade boys still have cooties.

2. Nothing is worse than having to stay inside for recess to finish your math homework that you didn't do the night before. Seriously, it would be so much more fun to go outside in the -20 degree weather and watch your hands turn into little icicles.

3. Sometimes, you just forget to bring your backpack to school.

4. Or your shoes. No big deal.

5. Hanging out in the hall is pretty much the coolest thing ever.

6. Hanging out in the lunchroom is not.

7. It's hard to understand why teachers get mad when you ask if you can go to the bathroom and then stay in there for 25 minutes so that you accidently miss the spelling test.

8. "Miss Andrus Ball" is the absolute funnest thing to do for P.E. time.

9. It doesn't get any better than taking the colored paper from the classroom and folding it into... stuff.

10. It would be better to die than to have to hold a girl's hand for the dance concert!

11. "Shrimp Poppers" taste a lot better than they sound.

12. So do "Chicken Pieces".

13. There is nothing wrong with spending all of the classroom money that you have earned for the entire year at once... on Silly Putty.

14. Sitting in the bean bag chair during silent reading is by far the coolest thing you get to do at school.

15. Learning how to do long division is probably the worst torture that you could give a kid.