Inappropriate giggling

So... Hungarian teachers are really strict. They seriously YELL at first graders for the tiniest things. This means that the smiley American teacher sometimes has trouble disciplining her students, because the fact that she could never scream at them lessens their fear of her somewhat. As a result, I've been trying to be a little more stern in class. Definitely not yelling or whatever, but just a little bit more stern.

This week, that all went to hell. Because it was, apparently, make Lauren giggle inappropriately week at Krudy Gyula.

It started innocently enough. I looked at a kid's work, and declared it "Super!" Suddenly, the entire class burst into the chorus of "Super Trouper" by Abba. What else can you do when this happens? Side note: since this has continued to happen everytime I've said "super" for the rest of the week, it has rapidly become less giggle-inducing. Abba is haunting my life.

The unit in second grade this week is "Are you scared?" This has resulted in a really obscene amount of illtimed laughter.

"Loren, are you scared of the terrorishtak?"
"What... terrorists?"
"Yes!" the boy in question mimes stuff blowing up, a helpful confirmation
"Um, no, not really."
"NO?!?!?!"
"Sweetie, I'm in Hungary."
"... mi?" (... what?)

"Geri, are you scared of sharks?" I ask my tiniest student.
"No. I'm not scared of anything," he carefully reads off the board.
"Nothing?! What about a hungry bear?"
Another student helpfully chimes in, "Bear does not want eat Geri. Geri too small. Bear does not want to eat small Geri if bear is hungry."

And so on.

My one group of first graders had just lost one of their class behavior points for generally acting like monkeys rather than children. As I was scolding them, the one girl made such an angry, pouting face that I just burst into laughter during the middle of the word "bad."

My most ridiculous second grader was leaning against the door of the classroom when the door suddenly opened and he flew out, falling and doing a tumble to land on his stomach. At least I managed to check that he hadn't broken himself before laughing for a solid minute, and then another one when I recounted the story to Balint.

Most impressively, these lines from a story in Playway 2, in which a beaver gets his tail stuck under a log and a family of racoons save him. I have an idea to help the beaver. Push! Push! Mmm, that's good. Great! These basically added up to my crying, literally crying, in the staff room because I was laughing so hard when I read the teacher's guide.

And yes, Mom, I know that last one is a little bit piggish.