Donkey Coyotes

Goosey Lou is now nine weeks into her fifth grade year at school. I have to say that it has been a bit more challenging this year on many levels. However, I think the biggest issue is that she has a hard teacher. Mrs. W is "old-school". She is direct, does not coddle, works them the entire period, and expects them to do their very best. Goosey has struggled with this math teacher mainly because she is intimidated by her. A few chats with Goosey and reassurance from Mrs. W that we don't have a major problem going on has gone a long way in smoothly things out.

Last week, Goosey receives her results of some new testing that is going on at school. It is done in order to benchmark where each individual student is and then set goals to become better learners. Goosey excels in just about anything she does. She had very high marks in math but extremely high marks in language arts.

Her homeroom teacher, Mrs. D, met with Goosey to chat about her results and to help her set goals. She stressed that Goosey needed to be reading on a certain level in order to make progress in her critical thinking skills. Goosey came home and went on and on about how she needs these levels of books.

I asked her "Can you give me examples of this level of book? 'Little Women'? 'Tom Sawyer'?" She responded, "Mrs. D named a book that I needed to be reading independently... it is about donkey coyotes."

Me: What in the world are donkey coyotes?
GL: I have no idea! Never heard of them until she mentioned it. Maybe there is a list of books on my levels.
Me: Hmmmm, that is weird. Donkey coyotes.

Perplexed, I could not figure out what in the world she was referring to.

Fast forward to homework time last night...

GL: I found out the name of that book she thought I should be reading.
Me: The one about coyotes?
GL: Yeah. I heard it wrong. She wants me to be reading 'Don Quixote, Man of la Mancha'.
Me: 'Don Quixote'? Donkey coyotes? Bwhahahahahahaha!!!!
GL: Moooommmmm! I did not hear her correctly....
Me: That is hilarious...kind of like the Guatemalan Cletis, huh?

...and that is a whole other story!

I love that girl of mine!