The things kids say...

Yesterday one of my students called me a big cow. 
Let me explain.
Pretty much once a week, each of the elementary classes has a writing specialist come in for an hour to work with them.  He's a really great guy and has ton of experience and really neat techniques for developing writing skills in children.  Anyway, yesterday he came into class and said some students were going to have a chance to read stories they have written, and then have other students act the stories out while they are being narrated by the author.  Fun idea.
First up is a student who has written a story with multiple animal characters, one of which was a cow.  When it came time to assign roles, none of the students wanted to volunteer to be the cow.  The other teacher really wanted a student to do it, but after prodding them to no avail, my name gets thrown out as a suggestion by a student.  "Miss Tusing! You can do it!".  To which all of the students quickly shout out in agreement.  To which I try to turn the attention away from myself, but one of my boys calls out "Miss Tusing, you should do it.  You are big."
I should be the cow because I am big. Big like a cow? Basically like saying you are a fat cow?  Because that's most people would take that comment in the states.  The male writing specialist laughed that one off to take away the awkwardness of the situation.  Now, what I'm assuming/hoping the student meant by that comment is that I should be the cow because I'm older than them.  There is a Spanish word for "older", but many times here people just say the word grande when describing an older person.  Grande tanslates to big.  Another case of words lost in translation...   It happens quite a bit with my ESL students.  Actually we have a "quote" wall up in the teacher's lounge for all kinds of funny things students have said, and most have been translation language errors.
One of my favorites is the kids phrase for "passing gas".  Which unfortunately gets said a lot.  Because it happens a lot with the kids.  I guess that's what happens in countries where beans are their own food group.  Anyway, the literal translation from spanish to english is to say someone "threw a gas".   Example: "Miss Tusing, student x threw a gas!"  Well, actually they usually say someone throwed a gas.  But grammar is another story.  But now, the new kids from the states have taught them the term "fart".  Ugh.  Trying to put a stop to that before it gets started. 
And then there was the time one of my second grade students asked me for alcohol.  To which my eyes about bulged out of my head and I said, "WHAT?!"  Absolutely not.   Turns out he was just asking for the hand sanitizer. 
Oh, there are just so many of those moments.  But they provide many, many laughs.
Updates tomorrow on an eventful weekend!