7th Grade

I'm in my second week of school. To be honest, I didn't know what to expect. I've never taught middle schoolers before. Were they babies? Were they basically sophomores? The answer to both of these questions is "yes." Mike, who has had experience teaching middle school before, told me, "Seventh grade is really transitional. Half of them still belong in elementary school and half of them belong in 8th grade or high school."

I've decided that I'm just dorky enough for middle school. This opinion might change. Who knows how I will be feeling in March.

Here are some silly/interesting things I've experienced at my middle school so far:

• On my first day, my students were making name tags to help me out. They had to fold the paper into a prism. I told them, "Just fold them in thirds. Like this. Eh, it's good enough. That's my life motto." One of my students said, "That's really your life motto? Will you marry me?" *crickets* Then another boy at his table said, "Dude, tone it down. That came on a little strong."

• As 6th graders, my students were trained to thank the teacher after each class. After my first class on my first day, my students filed out and chanted, "Thank you, Ms. Sundt." I was like, "What's happening?"

• We were reviewing parts of speech and talking about the difference between helping verbs and action verbs. I said, "Shout out some examples of action verbs." I got the typical "run, jump, climb, walk..." I said, "Yeah, that's okay. Can we get a little more creative?" Yeah, it got really dark really fast. They came up with words like "Murder, impale, decapitate, disembowel, fart." What did I expect?

Suffice it to say seventh grade is going to be just as big a gold mine of quotable quotes as tenth grade was. Oh, and middle schoolers bring in treats on their birthdays! Score!

P.S.

Weird Things I've Noticed about Washington (a growing list)

• For the life of me I cannot find wraps or flatbreads at the grocery store. They have tortillas, but none of those fladbread yummy things. Weird. Tortillas just taste different than actual wrap things.

• I ended up talking to my students about the spider situation. I said, "What's going on with the giant spiders in the house? What can we do about this?" They told me, "They're not dangerous at all. Just leave them alone. And, anyway, there's nothing you can do because it's breeding season." Excellent.

• If there's any kind of restaurant/bar/store that you think might exist, just Google it. It probably exists in Seattle. Mike and I had a fun time going to Cafe Mox, which is a cafe/bar that is connected to a game store. I mean any type of game you might think of. People bring their board games and play them while they drink coffee or beer. If you're really legit, you can reserve a room strictly for playing Dungeons and Dragons or Risk or Settlers of Catan.