Mad Libs
He can�t shut up. He�s so annoying sometimes that the other kids get fed up with him. He doesn�t have a learning disability or emotional disturbance beyond being an only child. This was unremarkable except for the fact that we wrote our pen pals today and Ulysses, who is in my class but in the grade below Richard wrote his pen pal this quick note,
There is a boy in our class, Richard. He is very annoying and talks all the time. He can never seem to stop talking and he is always behind. He thinks he�s really funny falling out of his chair in the Lunchroom and during class but he isn�t. Do you have a nerd like Richard in your class?
Who says, �nerd�?
I had to intercept and stop this letter from being sent. I can�t have that going across America where another teacher will think that I�m an idiot. God forbid that fell into the hands of another child who was the Richard of their class. The irony would be completely lost on them and nothing is tragic like misunderstood or misplaced irony.
Then the class did some Mad Libs for our grammar lesson. The students enjoy this activity but when they�re older they�ll enjoy it a lot more. They had no idea they were creating some rather tawdry stories and a thinking man would have saved those stories but a lot of them were at this point where �The George said, �I did it with my (noun).�� Great nouns like: girl, snake, lizard, pole, mom, dad and cousin. Pretty much anything that went into that slot fit well and poorly all at once. The other sentence was, �Irishmen are famous for their (plural nouns).� The plural nouns included balls, snakes, poles, nuts, cherries and cucumbers. These kids are too little to get what they were saying at an innuendo level but at the same time I had to suppress laughter.
Try some Mad Libs today for immature family fun.
