Well they say honesty is the best policy

Feeling refreshed after a nice snack and watching the kids run around with the other elementary grades in the gym for fifteen minutes or so, I was pumped and ready for a fresh and exciting class of phonics.

I had my flash cards on the board and before we got into the wonderful world of vowels we were going to go over the two vowels we have been studying. The children are sitting nice and straight after I gave them the pep talk. "We had our break and now we are going to explore the world of phonics." They were now excited and started saying with me as I pointed to "I" "Capital I little i. I says ...i...i...i as in Indian I says...i...i...i While we were doing our little chant I noticed one of my students (a little girl) chewing something as she rattled off our ditty.

"__________ What's in your mouth?" Little girl "Gum." My "teacher-y look" came out on my face. "And where did you get the gum?" Silence. "Did somebody give it to you?" She shook her head no. "Well then, where did you get it?" In her sweet, adorable, little voice she said... "Under my chair." *GAG* After I rushed over to my desk and grabbed a tissue like there was no tomorrow and told her to take the gum out of her mouth. I tried not to say "Ewww" again and changed our vowel lesson to how we don't want germs in our bodies.

Later on I just couldn't let the issue leave my mind so we took a few minutes to talk about how germs are bad and we need to prevent getting them. A little boy gave me an example (Yes,the same one who called me old!) Like licking the bottoms of our shoes....

Help me! Yes...I am the germafobic who doesn't touch public door handles, who has a mini stroke shaking the hand of someone I don't know and who tries very hard to keep some sort of Germx type bottle in my purse or at least a tissue to hold the handle. They will know Miss._______ means business when they each find a box of Clorox wipes in their desk next week.:)