The following excerpts are actual answers given on history
tests and in Sunday School quizzes by children between 5th
and 6th grade ages in Ohio. They were collected by two
teachers over a period of three years. Read carefully for
grammar, misplaced modifiers, and, of course, spelling.
Writing at the same time as Shakespeare was Miguel Cervantes.
He wrote Donkey Hote. The next great author was John Milton.
Milton wrote Paradise Lost. Since then no one ever found it.
Ancient Egypt was old. It was inhabited by gypsies and mummies
who all wrote in hydraulics. They lived in the Sarah Dessert.
The climate of the Sarah is such that all the inhabitants have
to live elsewhere.
Moses led the Hebrew slaves to the Red Sea where they made
unleavened bread, which is bread made without any ingredients.
Moses went up on Mount Cyanide to get the ten commandos. He
died before he ever reached Canada but the commandos made it.
Solomon had three hundred wives and seven hundred porcupines.
He was a actual hysterical figure as well as being in the
bible. It sounds Like he was sort of busy too.
The Greeks were a highly sculptured people, and without them
we wouldn't have history. The Greeks also had myths. A myth
is a young female moth.
Socrates was a famous old Greek teacher who went around giving
people advice. They killed him. He later died from an overdose
of wedlock which is apparently poisonous. After his death, his
career suffered a dramatic decline.
In the first Olympic games, Greeks ran races, jumped, hurled
biscuits, and threw the java.
Julius Caesar extinguished himself on the battlefields of
Gaul. The Ides of March murdered him because they thought he
was going to be made king. Dying, he gasped out "Same to you,
Brutus."
Queen Elizabeth was the "Virgin Queen." As a queen she was a
success. When she exposed herself before her troops they all
shouted "hurrah!" and that was the end of the fighting for a
long while.
It was an age of great inventions and discoveries. Gutenberg
invented removable type and the Bible. Another important
invention was the circulation of blood.
Sir Francis Drake circumcised the world with a 100 foot clipper
which was very dangerous to all his men.
The greatest writer of the Renaissance was William Shake-
speare. He was born in the year 1564, supposedly on his
birthday. He never made much money and is famous only
because of his plays. He wrote tragedies, comedies, and
hysterectomies, all in Islamic pentameter.
Delegates from the original 13 states formed the Contented
Congress. Thomas Jefferson, a Virgin, and Benjamin Franklin
were two singers of the Declaration of Independence. Franklin
discovered electricity by Rubbing two cats backward and also
declared, "A horse divided against itself cannot stand." He
was a naturalist for sure. Franklin died in 1790 and is still
dead.
Abraham Lincoln became America's greatest Precedent. Lincoln's
Mother died in infancy, and he was born in a log cabin which
he built with his own hands... Abraham Lincoln freed the
slaves by signing the Emasculation Proclamation.
On the night of April 14, 1865, Lincoln went to the theater
and got shot in his seat by one of the actors in a moving
picture show. They believe the assinator was John Wilkes
Booth, a supposingly insane actor. This ruined Booth's
career.
Johann Bach wrote a great many musical compositions and had
a large number of children. In between he practiced on an
old spinster which he kept up in his attic. Bach died from
1750 to the present. Bach was the most famous composer in
the world and so was Handel. Handel was half German, half
Italian, and half English. He was very large.
The nineteenth century was a time of a great many thoughts
and inventions. People stopped reproducing by hand and
started reproducing by machine. The invention of the steam-
boat caused a network of rivers to spring up.
Charles Darwin was a naturalist. He wrote the Organ of the
Species. It was very long. People got upset about it and had
trials to see if it was really true.
Madman Curie discovered radio. She was the first woman to do
what she did. Other women have become scientists since her
but they didn't get to find radios because they were already
taken.
Quote from: Pachyderm on September 16, 2008, 01:48:37 PM
Johann Bach wrote a great many musical compositions and had
a large number of children. In between he practiced on an
old spinster which he kept up in his attic. Bach died from
1750 to the present. Bach was the most famous composer in
the world and so was Handel. Handel was half German, half
Italian, and half English. He was very large.
<snip>
Charles Darwin was a naturalist. He wrote the Organ of the
Species. It was very long. People got upset about it and had
trials to see if it was really true.
These two get my vote.
Donkey-hote
:ROFL: :ROFL:
That list is pure gold. :thumbsup:
Sorry, I believe those teachers must have embellished some of those. Some misspellings are a bit too "convenient".
Mark Twain also had a collection of those.
One I remember (from the "define this word" section) was:
Guerilla warfare: When people rode to war on gorillas.
---
I also loved that Donkey Hote (that one I can believe!)
Ayuh, especially this one...
QuoteMoses led the Hebrew slaves to the Red Sea where they made
unleavened bread, which is bread made without any ingredients.
Moses went up on Mount Cyanide to get the ten commandos. He
died before he ever reached Canada but the commandos made it.
I highly doubt they've heard of Canada. ;)
Joking aside, I disbelieve that Sunday Schools in Ohio (or elsewhere) teach about Darwin, Queen Elisabeth and Madame Curie. The biblical ones fit the premise.
Good for a chuckle, though.
I strongly suspect that list was an amalgam of both Sunday School and public school teachers' collections.
But the items were gems...I literally laughed out loud.
Still chuckling, and wiping the tears from my eyes, which are not all from allergies.
I'm not sure if to laugh or be very very afraid.
:sings: I believe the children are the fixture... :balloon:
I hve another one example of children assignments, I have found a few days ago:
Last week, I asked my students to write a few sentences about the ocean as a warm-up exercise for learning. The results I recieved were...interesting, to say the least. Here are the best of the bunch:
1. This is a picture of an octopus. It has eight testicles. (Kelly age 6)
2. Oysters' balls are called pearls. (James age 6)
3. If you are surrounded by sea you are an Island. If you don't have sea all round you, you are incontinent. (Wayne age 7)
4. Sharks are ugly and mean, and have big teeth, just like Emily Richardson. She's not my friend no more. (Kylie age 6)
5. A dolphin breaths through an ass hole on the top of its head. (Billy age 8)
6. My uncle goes out in his boat with pots, and comes back with crabs.(Millie age 6)
7. When ships had sails, they used to use the trade winds to cross the ocean. Sometimes, when the wind didn't blow, the sailors would whistle to make the wind come. My brother said they have been better off eating beans. (William age 7)
8. I like mermaids They are beautiful, and I like their shiny tails. And how on earth do mermaids get pregnant? Like, really? (Helen age 6)
9. I'm not going to write about the sea. My baby brother is always screaming and being sick, my Dad keeps shouting at my Mom, and my big sister has just got pregnant, so I can't think what to write. (Amy age 6)
10. Some fish are dangerous. Jellyfish can sting. Electric eels can give you a shock. They have to live in caves under the sea where I think they have to plug themselves into chargers. (Christopher age 7)
11. When you go swimming in the sea, it is very cold, and it makes my willy small. (Kevin age 6)
12. Divers have to be safe when they go under the water. Two divers can't go down alone, so they have to go down on each other. (Becky age 8)
13. On holidays my Mom went water skiing. She fell off when she was going very fast. She says she won't do it again because water fired right up her ass. (Jule age 7)