Rodent Removal

My second graders are obsessed with tongue twisters.  I’m not sure how this started, but I suspect one of them found a joke book in the library with some included.  At any rate, it’s become the class craze.

There are lots of positives about their new mania.  They are VERY engaged with print.  They are researching and delighting in their findings every time they discover a new tongue twister.  They are sharing books, sharing laughter, and having contests to see who can say it faster.

At the same time, our classroom is filled with a constant undercurrent of “How much wood can a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?” It never stops.  And now they’ve developed variations on it that make no sense, which is a scream for them and a different kind of scream for me.  I don’t care how much wood the woodchuck chucks, and I’m more than ready for them to stop asking me!  They jump out at me at the oddest times asking about the woodchuck and his chucking.  They surround me at recess.  They leave notes on my desk.

The thing is, woodchucks don’t chuck wood!  They don’t want to.  They just want to be woodchucks.  Why is this tongue twister a question that can never be answered? What is this insanity?  My ELL students and I do not understand why they must know the answer to this question that isn’t even really a question.  Can you imagine trying to explain to a little English learner what this odd little animal is that they speak of, or what it is or is NOT trying to do with a stack of wood?  And why?  I envy my new little girl who has just arrived from El Salvador and doesn’t understand a word we say yet–I think she must have great oblivious peace in the midst of the swirl of chucking.  Either that, or they’re going to teach her to speak in tongue twisters.  Good grief.

I’ve tried to change the tune over to Peter Piper and his pickled peppers and even Susie with her seashore–but they are relentless with the woodchuck.  In desperation today I quietly started singing “Jingle Bells” because I knew they wouldn’t be able to resist singing along.  There are NO woodchucks dashing through the snow.

The festive diversion didn’t work for very long.  I’ve printed lists of new tongue twisters for them.  I’ve tried to threaten extermination of the woodchuck, but I know tomorrow morning as the kids walk through the door, they will be chucking wood all the way.

Maybe the woodchuck will lose its steam over winter break…one can hope.  In the meantime, I’m bringing earplugs and hiding the joke books tomorrow.