Classroom Zoo #25 - Excuses Are Like Armpits. . .

As someone once told me, "honesty is the best policy because excuses are like armpits: we all have them and they all stink." I try to instill the idea of telling the truth in my classroom on a daily basis. Yet, my little friends continually surprise me with the things they do to get themselves in trouble while often simultaneously entertaining me with their attempts to avoid the consequences from those decisions. When a student colors over the yellow and/or red stoplights on their daily behavioral record, I love it when they say "I just had to color." When a student got reprimanded on the bus for attempting to use his crotch to "teabag" another student, who was to blame: television of course. Why would a student drink paint water? Because he wanted to have Kool-Aid for a snack, What do you do when you want to invite a friend over to play but are too afraid to ask? Steal their snack of course. And my most favorite, when a student was caught licking the lunch trays of his peers, he finally confessed he did it because "friends use their tongues." Maybe really, really close friends, but not kindergarten ones.