super science

Today is my last day as Super Science Teacher (how awesome is that job title?) at Tobin. We are going to make, and launch, rockets.

Here is my prototype. The nose is crumpled because it hit my ceiling when I tested it out. :-)

Here is the pattern that I used, from the exploratorium.

Edit: The rockets were super awesome! The kids had a great time coloring them, cutting out the fins (Caellum added eight fins in total), and especially launching them out by the playground. They flew a lot higher than I thought they would; two rockets in the kindergarten class got stuck on the roof! And the older kids had fun seeing whose could go the furthest. I think it was Vincent who said this was the best science class ever, haha. From him, that means a lot.

indexed

Before our last Super Science class, I asked the older kids (first through third graders) to reflect on what we've learned over the past few weeks [the moon, the earth's axis / seasons, the solar system, solar energy / ovens, the atmosphere], and write down any questions, about anything scientific, they still wanted answers to.

How many feet long is the Earth? How many feet away from the sun to Pluto?

how many moons das ererth has? how many moons dos plotow has? war is plotow? war is mars? war are astaroits?
[To be fair, Cajetan is not a native English speaker.]

Why do we need to put seeds on my project.
[A reference to our atmosphere project, where different lentils and seeds represented different gasses.]

how long is the erath? Why is the earth is tiltied? How many planits are there? How many feet is the earth?
[We talked about scientists discovering planets beyond pluto, and extra solar planets, which may have caused some confusion here.]

How many planet are there? What is out the soler sistim? How do thay plant there food on the Moon? How do you use a soler oven?

How do lunges [lungs] work? Can we make pirotic [periodic] tables?
[A backwards K? Can these kids be more adorable?]

What coler is all of the planets?

How meeny feet is the Earth? How do you make magnits?
[Our very first class, in January, was spent making electromagnets.]

These kids were so cute! I am really going to miss them. I hope that they learned a little bit, or at least think science is fun. Next week is rockets, because I want them to remember me as the coolest teacher ever.

consistently inconsistent

My blog has turned into the journals I had when I was little: I would get so excited and write for pages, and then it would lay on the shelf for months at a time. There's no point in saying I'll try to update more often--it'll happen when it happens, and I just have to deal with that.

The most major development in my life since my last post is that I was laid off from the coffee shop, which freed up about 40 hours per week. My last day was February 12th, and my life has improved amazingly since then. I was simply not cut out for waking up every weekday morning at 4:30, dragging my butt to the T to get on the first train downtown, and smiling for the next eight hours. I would fall asleep between eight and nine pm most nights; I had absolutely no social life; I hardly ever got to hang out with Mr. P, and when I did I would complain about my annoying coworker (codename Dwight).

I'm not completely unemployed, which would probably make me just as crazy as being over-employed. In January I began teaching science at preschool and elementary schools who have after-school enrichment programs. I teach five classes, four days a week, at three schools in the suburbs of Boston. The kids are absolutely amazing, and I really hope that they learn at least a little each week that will come in handy sometime down the road.