After Twenty Days Back to School

Early on I decided that I really needed a special place to retreat and to renew - my friend, DG, called it an oasis - I like that. After getting a student to dig the hole (previous blog) and getting the pond and pump in place and water gently running, I discovered a leak that drained the pond overnight. Intent on getting this oasis active I went and bought another pond. I should have talked to my teaching neighbor, Mr. Ollie Hamblin, one on the best teaching colleagues in my career. He is working on his National Board certification this year - I wish him well. Besides being a great math teacher he is an excellent mechanic and body man. He said the first pond could be repaired much like a rubberized plastic auto bumper. Here he is meticulously cutting and shaping the repair (then he sanded) and "welding" the hole with an old pot I salvaged from the greenhouse.




Next up is one of my botany/zoology students from last year, Dominique White, who comes to my class before school and during her office monitor time to help set up the greenhouse and take care of the classroom zoo. She was the first to greet our new snake, Sister Isaac II (last year's snake disappeared in February after we neglected to put the books on top of the cage and was found by complete surprise on the last day of school in May by Ms. Washington who hates snakes - SIster later died in the summer since no one's mom would let them bring her home and Mr. Day's(the janitor) water was not enough to overcome the heat). We have a better plan this year.





Sister II poses.

And this year we do not have to wait until December for Botany supplies, they are here. Students have planted tomatoes and are measuring their growth and watering.



Chris measures the cotyledon height to plot on his bar graph.



Destiny and Michelle tend to watering.

My physics class this year is getting off to a good start even though there are only five - but they are really trying. They are not used to the rigor, but they are showing they are up to the challenge. Here they are calculating the density of coat hangar wire using mass and volume by water displacement.



Shiquita tries to get it just right.



Kierra and Arshunti figure the best way to get displacement.



Jon and Alicia collaborate on mass. (we will get digital balances some day.)

And lastly, my staff development presentation on Tuesday this week about my Earthwatch trip was very well received.
Here are the pupas of our first two caterpillars.




The science department's differentiated instruction presentation with my technicolor lab coat, with folks modeling and using de Bono's six thinking hats for critical thinkings, with a drama "dance" with symbol cues, and finally with an exercise adapted from an NPR story using only six words to summarize our teaching careers went very well also. (Some posts will follow with some of the teacher's work along with a link to the original story.)