The Daily Life of Sweetpea[s]

My colleague Mary, who teaches fifth and sixth grade grammar, told me this one today:

Yesterday, she asked the fifth graders to go home and look up a word that they thought the other students wouldn't know. So today, they did an exercise where a student tells his word, and the other kids have to guess what it means.....so one sweet girl, A., had chosen the word "flourish." The kids guessed that it was "like when you plant flowers in a garden, and they're growing really well, then they are flourishing." A. said, "No, that's not it!" After several more basically correct guesses, Mary asked A., "So what is the definition of 'flourish'?" And A. answered proudly, "A well-developed Mexican!."


(So Mary started to die laughing and A. started crying...but they got it worked out eventually, I think! :) )