WAAAY better than a pet rock.

My favorite writer is at it again, this time doing her best via short answers on a reading comprehension quiz for Salmon Summer.

Q. How does Alex spend his day before he goes fishing at Dog Salmon Creek?
A. He has fun at alaska. Alex also catch a Dog Salmon Creek and wanted to have the creek as a pet. But he could keep the creek.

Q. If you are preparing smoked salmon to eat, what step comes after you clean and smoke salmon? Why is this step important?
A. This step is important because you can go fishing and catching fish.

Now we are reading Wildfires by Seymour Simon and my kids LOVE it. There is a description of the Yellowstone fires of the late '80s, including how long-overdue rain is what finally put an end to the fires. To make sure the students understood this part, I prompted them with a question of "Was it the firefighters that finally put out the fires?" They all screamed "NO!" as if to say that I was extremely stupid. So I asked them who or what it was that ended the fires. Amid the sea of more softly spoken "rain," one boy, as though he were being saved by the Holy Spirit itself, lifted a hand to she sky and belted out a resounding "JEEE-SUS!" I love him just a bit more than I did.

Today was also April Fool's Day. They all came to class determined to fool me. Please. You will have to try harder than to tell me that you didn't get any of the vocabulary questions right. A) I wouldn't be too fooled because you are the one kid in class who definitely wouldn't get anything wrong. B) You are 9 and do not know how to lie very well. I totally got them twice though. Why? I have learned the delicate art of lying to children. And also, they are 9 and 10 and tend to believe you when you are their teacher. I guess I had the upper hand. I tried to get them to think of a good prank to pull on the Disagreeable Diabetic, but they all responded with "She's not that kind of teacher, Mr. Hatcher" and "She's too old. She'll probably have a heart attack." I love ALL of my students a little bit more than I did.