I'm a TA, so always have lots of funny children stories. Here are a few of my favourite (some of them might be "you had to be there" moments; it's hard to tell):
When I worked in Y1, I had a boy in my class whose best friend was called Jacob. One day, I was getting them all to tell me the alphabet to see who knew it. Jacob's friend's version of the alphabet began "a b c d e f g h i Jacob l m n o p..."
We were studying some weird and wonderful creatures and each child was making a fact file about one. The same boy from the alphabet story was creating his fact file about a naked mole rat. At the end of the lesson, we told them to make sure they put their names on the sheets before they were collected in. This boy brought his sheet up to me, with "Duncin" written in the top corner (his name was not Duncin... or even Duncan!). When I asked him, he said: "It's his name" (as in the naked mole rat!)
Had a little boy, for the purposes of this story let's call him Charlie, come up to me in the playground sobbing. I asked him what was wrong, and, still sobbing, he pointed at another child and exclaimed "He's... he's... he's... he's calling me Charlie!"
Was teaching a phonics group in the corridor (as you do!) and realised I hadn't brought pencils with me. Said to one boy (let's call him Max), "Can you go and get me six pencils from the classroom?". He stood up, walked a couple of steps away and then turned back, "Pencils, Miss GoodLookingGuy?" "Yes, Max." He walked a bit further and put his hand on the door. "Six pencils, Miss GoodLookingGuy?" "Yes, Max." He opened the door. "From the classroom, Miss GoodLookingGuy?" "Yes, Max. Six pencils, from the classroom."
Last year I was working in Y6 and halfway through the lesson, the girl sat closest to me turned and said, "Miss GoodLookingGuy, can I put my jumper in the bin?" She meant in her bag, but for some reason we both found it completely hysterical. I ended up having to leave the classroom to calm down!
Just before Christmas, I was reading a book about weather with a boy in my class. The sentence was something like "snowflakes are made up of hundreds of tiny ice crystals." He struggled to read "hundreds", so ended up reading: "Snowflakes are made up of h... hu... HUMANS?!?!?!?!" The outrage in his voice was amazing!
When I worked in Year 4 I had a phonics group with a handful of children who had recently arrived from other countries, unable to speak English. One day, we were doing the "ee" sound. Two of the words we were looking at were "green" and "sheep". The children liked to bring green paper towels to the lesson to rub out their whiteboards, and one of them decided to draw a sheep on his paper towel: "Look, Miss GoodLookingGuy, green sheep!" After that, a green sheep on a paper towel appeared in every lesson. One boy once drew a sheep on his whiteboard: "Look, green sheep... oh no, white sheep!"
One of the girls from this phonics group had the adorable habit of saying "where are you?" when she lost things, so for example she'd say "where are you my pencil?" instead of "where's my pencil?" When her friend was in the toilet and hadn't shown up for our phonics lesson, she said, "Where are you my Maria?" I didn't say anything to her at the time, not wanting to embarass her or seem like I was making fun of her, but towards the end of the year when her spoken English was much better (and she'd stopped saying "where are you my...?") I mentioned it to her and we both had a good laugh about it. I had her again last year in Year 6, and in her card at the end of the year she wrote "Next year when I go to secondary school I will say... Where are you, my Miss GoodLookingGuy?"
My favourite ever Christmas card from a child (after spending the whole of December talking about my nut allergies and which types of chocolate I could and couldn't eat!) was where a boy wrote "have a great Christmas and don't eat any nuts because you're the best TA ever!"
I had a girl arrive in my class last year who didn't speak any English. One afternoon she was working independently on some sentence building activites where she had a picture and the words to make a sentence about it all jumbled up and she had to put them in the right order. She brought her work over to show me and one sentence was supposed to be "the spotty dog has a bone" but she'd written "the dog has a spotty bone". I told her what the sentence should be and showed her the difference between that and what she'd written with pictures and we both had a good laugh about it. A few minutes later she came back with her "corrected" sentence, only this time she'd written, "The spotty has a dog bone".
I once had a child in my class who would put his middle finger up at people, but hold his other hand up in front of the offending finger so he "wasn't actually swearing"!
Last year on the Friday before a bank holiday, we reminded the children that there was no school on Monday. There then followed a long conversation about what a bank holiday is, and then a child asked "What's this bank holiday for?" The teacher and I deliberated and concluded that this one was May Day and the one at the end of May is Whitsun. So the teacher started to explain May Day "It's when people used to dance around a pole." Cue much hilarity from the class and a hasty "No, not like that!" from the teacher. Ah, the joys of Year 6!
And finally, my favourite ever story! I was working in Year 4, which is the year they go swimming at our school. It was lunchtime on swimming day, and I was monitoring the corridor where children come in to go to the toilet at lunchtime. Two Y4 girls came in (let's call them Hannah and Lily) and were in the toilet for ages, so I went down to get them out. When I opened the door, only one cubicle was in use. "Hannah and Lily, are you still in here?" I asked, to which Hannah replied "I am, but Lily's gone out." Knowing I hadn't seen anyone come out, I decide to wait until they come out. Lo and behold, after some furious whispering, a minute or so later the door opens and out come both girls. When asked what they were doing in the cubicle together, neither would answer, so I took them back up the corridor to where I was supposed to stand, and told them they weren't going anywhere until they told me what was going on.
Five minutes later, Hannah eventually whispers: "I wanted to show Lily something?" When I asked her what that something was, she said "I forgot... and I think you forgot too, didn't you, Lily?" Lily nods.
Knowing I'm not going to get a straight answer out of either of them when they're together, I deliver Hannah to her class TA out on the playground, suggesting she tell him what's going on, but guessing I'm more likely to get an answer out of Lily on her own.
I take Lily back inside, and ask her, "So, what were you two doing in the toilet?"
"We went into the toilet," says Lily. "Hannah took her top off..."
(Safeguarding alarm bells going off!)
"She took off her dress..."
(Do I log this on the online system we use, or do I have to go find a designated safeguarding lead straight away?)
"...and showed me her swimming costume."
It was their first time going swimming, and Hannah had her swimming costume on under her school uniform! I'm not sure why the daft pair wouldn't tell me that in the first place! When I saw them in the pool later, it turns out they had the same swimming costume, which I'm guessing is how the conversation started!
Hopefully if you've got this far, at least one story has made you smile. If not, at least it's kept you occupied for a while!