Kids really do say the darndest things

I just love my job. Yes, I am being serious. I have the best group of students in the world. Since my population is 17 and older I have changed things a little bit as far as instruction goes. I am doing theme units based on social studies and science standards and incorporating language arts, reading and math into it. One program I use that I absolutely love is called News-2-You. It is a weekly newspaper geared towards students with disabillities. It has a different theme each week and has various reading levels to use. It comes with worksheets, a recipe, and communication boards to be used with your non-verbal students so that you do not have to constantly program their augmentative devices. Generally I will stretch out the theme for the week. This week however, we did most of it today what with Monday being a holiday and yesterday was an inservice day. I like building on the theme as we go along. This weeks article was about trains. I printed up packets for each of the students. We read the article aloud and worked on the worksheets that went along with it. As we were working on the packet we discovered that two of the pages were similar and one was to be done if you lived in Canada and the other the United States. We had the kids fill out both and we ended up developing a mini lesson on the differences and similarities of both countries. I love when things flow like this. I also showed a video from United Streaming on trains. One student asked how coal and wood made steam to run an engine. So, tomorrow we will be watching a video that talks about this. The other theme we have been working on is one titled "Beneath the waves". We are learning about animal life that lives under water. Each day we watch a video on a new animal, we discuss it and then I have a picture of it for them to color. the kids then cut out the animal and we put it up on the bulletin board we are making. As the afternoon was winding down, the kids were getting a little slap happy as was the staff. I have 6 students total, 4 boys and 2 girls. Although in the afternoon you would think they were all boys. They all think it is funny when they burp and believe me my girls can burp with the best of them. I am sitting with Brittany helping her cut her pictures out when she let out a burp and started giggling. I looked at her and said my standard, "what do you say?" She excused herself of course. A little bit later one of the boys started burping and Brittany pipes up with, "You need to excuse yourself. That is just disgusting." I did a double take and was like excuse me? Like you have room to talk. You just did the same thing a few minutes ago. Aren't you the pot calling the kettle black. Her response? She started to giggle again and went about finishing her work.
Every day that I spend with these kids just amazes me more and more. Some times I am so surprised with what they are able to do and remember. And the things they say just makes me laugh. I could have the worst night ever and dread going to work but as soon as those kids walk through the door, my whole mood changes.