The Angry Bird

I have a severely autistic student in my class. He LOVES the angry birds.  He draws them.  Writes about them.  Follows them around on the playground.  Ok...he follows kids who have angry birds shirts on.  When I saw the shirt at Walmart with the angry bird face on it, I KNEW I had to have it. 

That Friday, I put on my angry bird shirt, and headed off to school--very excited to see what the reaction would be.  Much to my disappointment, I got a brief smile...then back to the book.  Really???  During morning routines, I did my very foolish best to draw my student's attention to the great angry bird shirt I had on.  The child next to him emphatically informed me that "that" (pointing to my shirt) could "not fly!"  I informed her that of course he could...he was an angry bird!  "No!" she exclaimed, "P octopus.  Can't fly!"  P?  Does his name start with P?  "Yes!  P octopus!" Internally shaking my head at how little these poor kids knew about culture, I headed to the computer to Google the angry birds characters and see if any started with P.  No luck.

I showed her the pictures on the computer.  None of them started with P.  None of them looked much like the bird on my shirt, either. "NO!" she emphatically declared.  "NOT bird!  P octopus!!!"  At that point, my para observed that perhaps she was talking about "that character" from Phineas and Ferb. "YES!!!!  P octopus!!"  "Do you mean Perry?" asked my para.  "YES!!!!"

Perry?

Did you know there is no sign for platypus????

By the way....anyone want to buy a used Perry the Platypus shirt?  I can only imagine what my angry bird-loving student was thinking....