"The Swine"

I'm sure everybody has been hearing tons about the swine flu. None of the teachers are too worried about it at my school. However, we have had to remind the students to wash their hands often and use hand sanitizer after sneezing or coughing.

A couple of my students this week have been really worried about it. Not only do they think it's called "The Swine"... which only makes it more dramatic... they also are very scared they will get it. To make matters worse I was feeling sick on Thursday and Friday this week. I didn't feel horrible and it definitely didn't keep me from work. I was a little bit less patient though and told the kids it was because I wasn't feeling well. This practically created hysteria in my classroom. The kids would lean away from me if I talked to them and kept asking me if I had The Swine. They were very concerned! I told them no of course not, but I couldn't help but play a few jokes on them.

It started out as a, "Oh I think I should sit down I feel really dizzy. I think I'm going to faint... it must be the swine" Then it turned into, "Quick get the trash can I think I'm going to throw up". They were taking it so seriously and then I would yell gotcha. I even would pretend like I couldn't understand what they were saying and all I could hear was buzzing. So I would make them repeat their questions like 5 times before I "heard" it. This went on till about 2:30 when they started catching on and it wasn't as funny after that. Needless to say, I think they realized they were being a little silly about The Swine.

I love playing jokes on my kids because they think it is so dorky. And the best part is that I can play the same joke on them over and over and they still think it's funny. They also try to play tricks on me and think their really hilarious when they do it. On Thursday they didn't realize that I was walking behind them when they were coming back from recess. They were all hiding behind the door ready to jump out and scare me when I walked in. Instead I jumped in and scared them. They still can't figure out how I knew what they were doing when I wasn't even in the classroom.