Have to tell you about one of my fav. students, "Mr. Moon." His name is fitting for a number of reasons. One being his medication makes him quite spacey (poor guy). I suspect even without it he'd be an odd duck (probably more so). He's a bright student but will frequently say things like, "Why am I crying?" or "Why is Miaya looking at me like that?" or "I drew that gun in my notes because it was in my Star Wars book." He also has glasses that make his eyes look really really big.
He hates reading and writing but likes schoolwork that requires calculation or memorization. Last month he was sick for a 8 days and upon his return I gave him a list of the Standards of Learning we had covered in science that week. He read them, took the benchmark test, and got a 100%. He hadn't been in class for even a single day of that science unit. His peers are always totally blindsided by his brilliance which is fun to watch..."What did Moon get? ... BUT HE WASN'T EVEN HERE LAST WEEK!!"
Anyway, back to the mooniness...incessant pencil loss, can't use his crayons because he glued them together... Typical 3rd grade loner behavior too, I suppose...talking to his action figures on the playground...creating elaborate obstacles for his finger skateboards...making faces as though no one can see him...
Today he was feeling really moany and groany about going to his least favorite special, Gym (which is our last block of the day). That is until he found out about the milk. I guess Milk sponsored some sort of special event in gym promoting health and fitness. This meant that the kids got to listen to a cute little cow story and didn't have to run laps or do pull ups or any other stuff that would usually torture and embarrass the Moon. Also, they got little cartons of shelf-safe chocolate milk (like YooHoo). Wow. The kids went crazy for that milk--not just Moon. They were skipping and singing songs about it all down the hall as if the goodness of the milk had somehow cancelled out all of their woes and of course school rules.
I told them to put their milk cartons straight into their backpacks, as it was the end of the day and we were headed back out of our classroom to the buses (have you ever seen middle school kids with a packet of ketchup?). Everyone got themselves packed, lined up at the door, and started to march down the hall when I suddenly thought "Where's the Moon?!!" I went back the room and there he was, sitting at his desk without his coat on, backpack hung up, drinking his carton of milk with a straw. Just relaxing.
