Duct Tape Day

Red, blue, orange, neon green, tie dye, mustache... those are just a few of the colors of duct tape I saw today at school.

One of my students came up to me, "Miss H, I'm not wearing any duct tape, but I have a shirt in my backpack that has some.  Do you think I should put it on?"  "Well, I don't know; that's up to you."  He thought for a moment, "Nah, it's not that comfortable."  His mom told me later they spent hours putting duct tape on his shirt, and then ripping it off the front because it felt too weird.  Then they put some more on the back so that he could have some duct tape.  This 6th grader ended up putting his shirt on after lunch for a class picture.  And then he promptly took it off again afterwards.  But then the girls yelled at him to put it back on, so he did.  But I'm pretty sure he took it off after recess.  Boys.  Can't make up their minds.

Most people didn't go all out.  I saw a bunch of the 7th grade girls with duct tape bows in their hair and the 8th grade girls had bracelets made of duct tape.  Some people put it on their shoes, other people stuck it on their pants.  Personally, I just tore off a big piece of traditional silver and stuck it on my back.  All day I had people asking, "Do you know you have a piece of tape on your back?"  "Yes, it is duct tape day after all."

I did take it off so I'm not wearing it over at church tonight.  All day I noticed a really strange smell in our classroom.  Something not very pleasant.  Then I realized it was all the duct tape my students were wearing!  Whew! I'm glad we don't wear that stuff everyday.

We started our Mystery Class project today in 7th and 8th grade science.  Ten schools from around the world (in mystery locations) report the sunrise and sunset times every Monday.   Our school will compare their amounts of daylight to ours and chart them on a huge piece of paper.  In the middle of March, during the spring equinox, we'll be able to pinpoint these mystery locations' exact longitudes.  After that, each week will reveal a set of cultural clues about the country, state, and city of the Mystery Classes.  Using these clues, we'll be able to pinpoint the exact latitude and longitude of all 10 Mystery Classes.

There's a lot of math involved in this project, so I was quite surprised that my students didn't complain too much when I handed them a big packet of charts to fill out.  I think some of them even had a little fun (although you'd never hear them admit it).  I finished filling out my chart of information, at least, as much as I'm able to right now, and I'm starting to get really excited!

My students all wanted to know if I knew where these places were.  Nope.  No one knows where the Mystery Classes are, that's the fun part.  We get to figure it out together!  Oh boy, here I go... and nerd day was only on Tuesday...