Faster than the Speed of Light...

Whew! This short week just flew by.  After a not-quite-long-enough break, we headed back to school for a three day week.  It's amazing, even though I had to drag myself back into my classroom, as I was teaching, I had a revelation: wow, I really love my job. 

A lot of great stuff happened this week.  The 6th graders and I jumped right back into the thick of things.  They seem pretty focused (although still a bit silly).  We've been using a lever science experiment kit I borrowed from one of my old professors and now all the 7th and 8th graders are jealous.  One 8th grader actually said, "How come the 6th graders always do the cool experiments!"  I was just about to remind him of all the activities we'd done in the past, but then his classmate muttered under his breath, "probably because we never listen."  Not exactly what I was going to say, but not necessarily untrue...

The 7th and 8th graders actually paid attention in science today!  Our topic was on fungi and quite a few questions were asked about illnesses caused by these tiny organisms.  We had a guest speaker come to geography and give a presentation about New Zealand.  One of Pastor's sons had studied abroad there for a semester and he showed us a bunch of pictures he took while he was there.  He is an earth science major, so it was more educational than I expected!  He told us little facts here and there about the rocks and minerals that make up the landscape of New Zealand.

Before I knew it, it was 2:00 and time for 6th grade art.  Today we took down our Christmas decorations and hung up a bunch of snowflakes we cut out on Thursday.  My students convinced me to give them extra recess after we'd finished decorating, so for the last ten minutes of the day we played basketball in the gym. 

So far, no one has gotten sick in our classroom.  I'm battling a cold, but today it seems like I might be winning... who knows if that will be the case tomorrow.  I plan to drink lots of tea this weekend!