Twenty minutes to write an entry I promised would be a long un' yesterday. Let's see what I can do. Well, the kids have been acting pretty well recently. I've unleashed my "end of the year fun activities" hoard and they're falling for them. Last week we did the infamous egg experiment. I had them design devices that would safely drop an egg from 20 feet high. The English part of all this was the "science report" I had them write during the whole thing. They had to come up with a hypothesis, materials and procedure section, and an explanation of the experiment. Excellent planning, the kids seemed interested, then came the poor execution.
Thursday, as it turns out, saw the absence of the the 7th hour teacher for 8B. Since they knew I was going to be working outside, the other English teachers suggested I teach both classes 6th hour to allow everybody to go home early for the day. HA! It was a noisy, uncontrollable wreck and before the hour was finished half of the giant group had already snuck off for home (They were all punished by a post-experiment roll call). It wasn't what you would call a disaster, but it wasn't pretty.
Fortunately, I think everybody but two groups managed to drop their eggs. Everyone succeeded, pretty much. It's amazing what you can do with an egg when you stuff a cup full of cotton. We dropped one egg from the fourth floor with nothing but a bag as a parachute. The egg fell in a near free-fall down to the ground. When we opened the cup and pulled out the cotton, the egg was fine. Amazing thing, cotton.
Anyway, the reports have been pretty good so far. I gave them a solid example and everybody followed it pretty well. That is to say, they didn't copy it word for word, a problem when examples are given. I'm going to call the whole thing a success, although the "experiment bit would have gone better if the classes had been separated.
This week we've moved into Usher territory. His "Yeah!" is really the only new song the kids like that I'm not absolutely sick of yet. So I spent yesterday and today going over the lyrics with them. We corrected the grammar, and went over the meaning behind some of the jargon. We discovered that Ludacris is indeed in favor of sex and money, in case anyone thought otherwise.
So that was a good time for all. Now we have to focus on their tests which are coming up at the end of the year. Boy, will they be having some fun.
Posted by Rob at April 27, 2004 07:40 PM