Funny student stories

Since I'm retiring at the end of this school year, I've been thinking I should write down some of the funny events that have occurred in my classroom. One day last week a student handed me an empty Wal-Mart sack first thing in the morning. I asked, "Is this trash honey? Do you want me to throw it away?" She looked at me and said, "No, you told me to bring a bag to school." I thought and thought and was coming up clueless. She told me it was on the note I sent home. I said, "Oh, sweetie, you were supposed to bring a bag of conversation hearts!!!"

We are currently doing our fairy tale unit and the culminating activity will be cereal box book reports and a parade where students dress as the fairy tale character from their report. I asked my students to bring an empty cereal box to school so I would know they had one. Two weeks later 2 students have brought a cereal box. For two weeks, I have also put a note about the cereal box on homework online, and this note is printed and given to each student. They put it in the homework section of their notebooks in a sheet protector so it is very accessible for everyone. I asked parents to let me know if they did not have a cereal box. I haven't heard from anyone. This brings me to Feb. 3rd, the day after the hundredth day of school. I have an empty cereal box from one of the snacks that students brought for our celebration. I once again talk about cereal boxes and ask if each student has one. My Junie B. Jones (a very adorable but somewhat mischievous book character) brought the cereal box so I ask her if she needs it for her book report. She says yes so I give it to her and she puts it in her cubby. At the end of the day, Junie comes up to me and says very seriously, "This cereal box is empty." To which I replied, "Sweetie, you brought the cereal for the hundredth day of school and we ate it yesterday with our hundred item snack mix. That's the reason your box is empty. You told me you needed a cereal box for your book report." Poor Junie looks very puzzled and doesn't seem to understand why I have given her an empty box to take home. OH MY!!! I wanted to cry and laugh at the same time. Where did I go wrong?!?!