Tuesday, April 12, 2016

Volleyball Four-Square

Today I came up with a new game... volleyball four square.  It's like regular volleyball, but you have to stay in your square and if you cause the ball to drop, you're out.  It was fun! We even got one of the boys to play.  It almost made me dizzy at times, watching the ball bounce back and forth so fast! I felt like a cat watching something zipping around.

In 5th and 6th grade science, we learned more about light.  I forgot how complicated light is! The 5th and 6th graders had a hard time understanding how some light waves are reflected (giving the object a color) and some are absorbed (heating up the object).  They couldn't grasp the concept that only one color bounces off.  Why that color? Why not the others?  I finally stumbled upon an explanation that the majority could understand.  Say we have a green crate.  Because the crate is green, the green "slot" (or green wavelength of light) is already filled.  So when light shines on it, all the other colors are absorbed because their "slot" is filled.  Red is absorbed in the red slot, orange in orange, yellow in yellow.  But when the green waves get to the crate, the green slot is filled so it bounces off.  Now that's probably not the most scientific answer to the question, but I saw a lot of light bulbs flick on when I explained it like that!  Whew! Light is complicated!

After school, Mrs. E and Miss N and I met to go over musical stuff.  We came up with a set design and a list of props/set pieces to accumulate.  Now that we don't have any more bell performances this year, we can use bell time to practice musical songs and make set pieces.  We did go over costume ideas a bit.  The 6th and 7th graders all wanted to know about their costumes this afternoon, so they'll be glad to hear details tomorrow.  Things are coming along nicely!  Which is good since the musical is in less than a month!

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