huffing

We sing a song at the beginning of each class. I have finally found a rap song that isn't terribly innapropriate for high school students. However, one part does talk about huffing. When I told my students about it I tried to keep a very matter-of-fact face. "This part is about huffing." One kid (the fish from the other post) started laughing. Another said, "WHAT!!!" They thought I'd said, "humping". So, I said, "no - huffing". Another yelled, "cuffing?" "No HUFFING!" I eventually had to write it on the board. Then, half the class didn't know what huffing was. I swear, if it weren't for me these kids would be a lot more innocent.

El nadaba y el pescaba.

Playing charades trying to make my students practice two of the past tenses in Spanish...

One kid is a fish and the other a fisherman. The one playing the fish sprayed his face with water to "get into character". He walked around the "pond" he'd created by circuling some desks bent over and flapping his arms. He was screaming, "do it!" to his partner. We never did find out what his partner was supposed to do.

Jesus didn't wear candles!

While playing pictionary to practice the Spanish words for nationalities…

The girl at the board draws a wreath with four lit candles in it. This is to represent Santa Lucia (when the oldest girl in the Swedish family dresses as St. Lucia by wearing a wreath with lit candles on her head). General pandemonium ensues:

“You didn’t teach us how to say Jewish!”

“How do you say ‘Jerusalemian’”?
The one that pushed me over the edge was delivered by a junior boy who got completely bent out of shape. He was convinced she was drawing Jesus and wouldn’t listen when other students said it couldn’t possibly be a drawing of Jesus. He’d been getting more and more upset, his energy level increasing, his body becoming tense, starting to make fun of the girl’s drawing abilities and finally screaming in a very angry voice – “Jesus didn’t wear candles!”