At the beginning of the school year, I have to put together many different schedules. One of the easiest and most important schedules is the show and tell schedule. I divide my class into five random groups and assign each student a show and tell day.

Show and tell is always an amusing and informative part of the day for me. For the children it is an important part of the day. A reader from Caribou sent me this story:

“My little Bobby left for school with one of his toys to take for show and tell. In a few minutes, he returned home with his snowsuit all wet and he was crying. It was early winter and there was a blocked ditch full of water near the school. The snowplow driver chose that time to plow the street below the school. It was coming from the other way, but Bobby was afraid of it, so he got over as far as he could and slipped into the ditch. Was he crying because he was wet? No. He was crying because he lost his toy down into the murky water. I had to dry him up and then get the garden rake and we went over and fished it out.”

I wonder whether Bobby chose to use his toy for show and tell or if he chose to tell the adventure that he and his toy experienced.

I categorize show and tell stories into three groups: the Unexpected, the Creative, and the Out-of-the-Mouths-of-Babes.

The Unexpected show and tell is just that – unexpected. Fiona and her family were going to Saudi Arabia for an extended period of time. One of the ways we came up with for her to continue to have contact with her classmates was to do an e-mail show and tell. I was very excited because I wanted my students to have an opportunity to hear and learn positive things about the Middle East rather than be limited to knowledge of the region by the nightly news. I couldn’t wait to see what she would choose to show and tell us about first. Would it be a camel? The desert? What?

Eagerly, we opened that first e-mail and waited for the image to load. There it was in all its glory – a Barbie in a bikini on a coffee table in her Saudi living room. Not what I was expecting. (Later, we did get e-mail show and tells of camels, and desert, and markets.)

Another student, Laurie Hamilton, a petite imp with the reflection of her U.K. heritage in her voice, bounced into my classroom several years ago. “I have a great show and tell!” she announced. Laurie bubbled throughout the morning. Finally, it was show and tell time. Laurie brought a lunchbox to the circle of students. She began talking.

Fudge, the family cat, moved to Orono from Ohio with the Hamilton family. He had been a great hunter in Ohio but the move had unsettled Fudge and he was finding hunting in Maine more challenging. After providing this background information Laurie continued with, “Last night Fudge regained his hunting skills and finally caught something and brought it home as a present for us! Here it is!” Laurie proudly opened her lunchbox, removed the freezer pack, and pulled out a frozen snake! Later, I learned that Laurie was so excited with Fudge’s accomplishment that she wanted it for show and tell. So the family popped the snake into the freezer and the next morning packed it in its own lunchbox while packing school lunches. It was the first and, so far, only frozen snake to visit my classroom. I never did find out if Fudge got to eat his snake when it came home from show and tell.

The Creative Show and Tell stories usually arise from desperation. It is your assigned show and tell day and you have forgotten to bring something in, so you improvise. One of my former students (age 6) gave the class a lecture on cephalopods. He had watched “NOVA” on TV the previous weekend. All of us learned quite a lot that day.

Tim Berry, junior studio art major at the University of Maine at Farmington, vividly remembers a classmate’s show and tell. One boy “ALWAYS forgot to bring in his object to share with the class, so he relied on the standby – his mittens (because they were always there!). He must have showed us the same pair of mittens at least five times. But I remember him being creative about it and never telling the same story twice about them. It was funny to us.”

As you might imagine, the Out-of-the-Mouths-of-Babes Show and tell stories may not be funny to the students but are very funny to the grown-ups in the room. A retired Ellsworth teacher wrote to me about the time “a little girl got up to tell about an upcoming ski trip her family was taking. She had never skied before but was very excited to be going to ‘Meatloaf.’ [Sugarloaf].”

What are your show and tell stories? Do yours fit into one of my categories – the Unexpected, the Creative, or the Out-of-the-Mouths-of-Babes? Tell me your stories at conversationswithateacher@gmail.com.